Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Nikki And Helen. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Venice: the thread
Topic Started: Sep 17 2009, 10:22 PM (6,373 Views)
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
cagey
Dec 6 2009, 01:17 PM
That is a sucker bet and you know it.  :mmm

Daym, homes. Tough crowd.

Good call on the wind factor, ditto ambivalent kiss: I am quite sure if it was an Otalia kiss (ie in GL) CC would have sold it very differently.

Are we all in the weird place where we're pretty much in agreement? Wow. That took... 4 minutes. :D Actually I think it's interesting as hell we're seeing more or less the same thing.

Given allowable time for this season, however brief, I'm not personally very excited about watching them go off to try to find their bliss with others for long moments of soapy whatever, but perhaps that's just me. I mean: I'm *really* not excited about it. But perhaps they know what they're doing; shrug. I'm still not soap-chick, & never will be.

So the problem with making drama is... you need Obstacles. This is taking a perhaps less common route to what I have to assume is still the OTP (Gina/Ani), but tried & true nonetheless. (Less common only bec representations of lesbian relationships in media are still infrequent.) Point is, obstacles have to be externalized so the audience can see the drama.

You people who view theater... is your take on this any different, really? I'm mainly thinking of books & film since that's my bailiwick. It seems to me that only books allow for large chunks of drama to be truly internal. Otherwise there are sort of increasing degrees of how... uh, dramatic the drama gets: film; theater; broadway; actual opera. Like a bulleye with fiction at the middle. But maybe some modified version of Cagey's Venn diagram would be more useful? Or that each model is valid on its own, with its own levels of abstraction, its own conventions.

What I mean is: ok, I don't much have an interest in the vehicle they're using to get their story across, & think it may be problematic. Politically. Sorry for the alliteration. (Their treatment of the black character is already a problem--thus far--as are the websites' extremely sloppy write-ups abt both black characters, both of which actually use the word "sassy".)

...But what I'm trying to ask is: ok, we have no freaking baby plotline, thankyuhjaysus. We have no men as romantic obstacles. Drinking/drugs might be equally problematic, for a lesbian s/l. So... what are the other options, really? Confrontations in the workplace? Not exactly riveting stuff, as we all know from RL. If you assume the characters are all indeed gay, then what they're doing is pretty much the only safe option, in a way. Isn't it??

At least for a love/romance story.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abzug
Member Avatar
In love with a prisoner
Well, there could be family obstacles, but yes, romantic triangles seem to be where they're heading.

As for whether theater can be more internal than film, there is a bit of room for it, because characters can talk to the audience and explain their feelings and thoughts. In musicals it's even easier, because the entire genre is based on characters who share their internal feelings in a way that normal people never would.

Our hope would be that the writing and acting is good enough that Gina's intimacy issues drive a lot of the conflict.
Visit the Bad Girls Annex!

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
Good point, thanks--I didn't think about how each genre has its own conventions for breaking the fourth wall.

I think you're right abt Gina: I assume it will in large part be her story. It's a fairly ballsy decision to play such an unlikable character, but that's part of what CC does, from what I can see; takes a character who does f'd up stuff & tries to get underneath, show what's broken. So in that way it would seem to be her arc, as an actor. Get to that place & redeem it/make it real. Players are esp hard to sympathize with, so I expect the family stuff would have to figure large. It's also risky bec the part of the audience that comes from GL is so smitten with JL, & certainly all sympathies are aimed to her in the initial set-up; the only moment where G. is even partway sympathetic is when she's turned away on the chair & says her line about not being able to give A what she wants, or whatever that line was. (Still only watched once. Bad e.)

This show needs some groovy wise-mom figure. Like Mrs What'shername in Tales of the City.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abzug
Member Avatar
In love with a prisoner
ekny
 
This show needs some groovy wise-mom figure. Like Mrs What'shername in Tales of the City.

I believe there is one--can't remember the actress' name, but she plays some wacky tarot card reader or something.

Had another thought on the subscription. They'd be wise to charge the subscription fee, and then offer it free in low def after the season is done. So if you don't mind waiting three months to watch, and you don't mind watching it in low-def, then you don't have to pay. Of course, that could eat into dvd revenues, so maybe not ideal.
Visit the Bad Girls Annex!

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
cagey
Member Avatar
G3 Curtain and Duvet!
ekny
Dec 6 2009, 10:09 PM

This show needs some groovy wise-mom figure. Like Mrs What'shername in Tales of the City.

ek, ek, ek -- you SO need to be writing this shyte for actual programming. Why, yes, there is a groovy Mom-ish character: Guya (Hillary B. Smith).

Ooops, there's abzug saying the same thing.

I think it is a good thing that, according to the character bios, Owen the brother is also screwed up in the same way as Gina around intimacy issues. I'm not sure what is meant when one calls Gina a "player" or a "user". She can instantly become sympathetic if the Colonel turns out to be a cold bastard who gives his children no way to understand emotional connection. This I believe we are expecting.

I think the story is essentially about Gina coming to terms with *that* obstacle more than a romantic triangle of the usual soap variety. Of course, how would I know based on 4 minutes and a few very oddly, vaguely offensive cast bios. Lesbian Lifestyle meets the Straight World? Who wrote that stuff?

I need to mention that especially for solitasolano, from whom I received a message in a bottle as she completely out of internet access. She managed to connect long enough to see the Ep, and agrees with the general opinion of: not disappointed but too little material to reach a conclusion. But she waving hello to us all.

abzug
 
Had another thought on the subscription. They'd be wise to charge the subscription fee, and then offer it free in low def after the season is done. So if you don't mind waiting three months to watch, and you don't mind watching it in low-def, then you don't have to pay. Of course, that could eat into dvd revenues, so maybe not ideal.


I think this encapsulates the twitter/facebook fandom and offers no growth. And I don't think those truly faithful are enough to fund a second or third season. The fan base is going to grow from friends showing it to friends. Word of mouth. They don't have a product that is valuable enough to enough people to survive via subscription without some free outlet immediately. If it is pay-per-view, it dies immediately.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abzug
Member Avatar
In love with a prisoner
So then free after the season has been broadcast is the way to go, because it enables people to share it with their friends, and get new converts for season 2. Maybe I should write them an email and suggest this strategey. :-)
Visit the Bad Girls Annex!

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
You totally should... except there is a much more pressing issue: that gd server. They absolutely have to get it up & running. All the goodwill & interest in the world ain't going to help them if they piss off subscribers. They just don't seem to get that part. They've got 1 week to figure it out, imo.

Free-after is a good move, bec I think Cagey's point is well-taken. That way they don't piss off people who have paid w/o totally eliminating potential new viewers, albeit somewhat delayed. Since the model they're working with now will presumably let them run 1 season ahead... it should/could work for all.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
solitasolano
Member Avatar

The Muppets!
(I'm still in a bottle, but fortunate to be in Palo Alto where I finally figured out I could just go out on any residential street and find an unsecured network, et voila....)

Comment one:
Gina is a jerk and Ani is a door mat. That being said, it's obvious they belong together.

Comment two:
That slo-mo up on the roof top shot....that was the day semi trucks blew over on the freeways and trees fell on houses....TPTB needed to do a reshot. Wouldn't have taken long as they used that rooftop location multiple times. All I can think of is that JL had already left town.


I'd pay but unless I'm cruising the streets of PA for a unsecured network on a Friday night it doesn't make sense to do so.

Miss you all....back to my current reality. Carry on. :)

ETA Comment three: The scene I would have liked to see was the G/A reunion the previous night at the grill....guess they couldn't have delivered the kissy face 30 seconds if they showed that.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
<waves hi!> Good to hear from you, Solita, even from inside a bottle.

solitasolano
 
Comment one:
Gina is a jerk and Ani is a door mat.  That being said, it's obvious they belong together.

How perfect is that? :D
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
cagey
Member Avatar
G3 Curtain and Duvet!
solitasolano
 
Gina is a jerk and Ani is a door mat. That being said, it's obvious they belong together.


I agree that this is one great summation of the relationship. It occurs to me that it is probably how Reva would have described Olivia and Natalia.

solitasolano
 
The scene I would have liked to see was the G/A reunion the previous night at the grill....guess they couldn't have delivered the kissy face 30 seconds if they showed that.


A scene like that might have taxed the writing and directing talents of those involved - but yeah, it would have been fun to watch Gina stalk her prey.

Even with all the presumption that Gina/Ani are the ultimate coupling, a realistic sl would have Ani be the perma-bonded ex who sees Gina through her assorted sordid affairs. And Gina only wanting Ani after Lara shows up.

Wait - I can watch that sort of behavior for free already.

:ph43r:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
abzug
Member Avatar
In love with a prisoner
cagey
 
Wait - I can watch that sort of behavior for free already.

And here we were worried that the storyline and characters weren't going to be realistic.
Visit the Bad Girls Annex!

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
yankeelady
Member Avatar
G3 Curtain and Duvet!
From my perspective, Venice is just another soap...and I have better things to spend my money on. Besides...y'all give a blow-by-blow description right here.



That being said, (and the reason for this post), the actress on Tales of the City that some were trying to remember was Olympia Dukakis, and her character was Mrs. Anna Madigral. Her name was an anagram from name of the man she once was.

Cheers...
Nikki...Don't get jealous...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
yankeelady
Member Avatar
G3 Curtain and Duvet!
Oops! typed too fast and misspelled the character name that Olympia played. It is Anna Madrigal. Sorry...
Nikki...Don't get jealous...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ekny
No Avatar
In love with a prisoner
Good call, OD was terrific (I didn't see the TV version, but remember her from other stuff....) What I do remember clearly was reading the original Tales & thinking that was the first time I'd seen a transsexual character get an ongoing role in a series of books (books that reached a wide audience); positive representation; and a happy ending. Maupin did a good deed with that character.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
solitasolano
Member Avatar

The Muppets!
Ok, I did it.
I bought, the subscription. (It was either that or pink panties, no longer available.)
Now, since I have no idea if I will be near an unsecured network this coming Friday, anyone who might want to try out my subscription with my secret numbers....just PM me and let me know (insert devil smilie here). Hum, except for 'be good, do good" ethical reasons, I don't see why you all can enjoy off my penny. Besides, I probably won't be able to figure out how to navigate the subscription view maze anyways. It's the thought that counts. And I certainly have had more than $9.99 worth of fun on all this hoopla. Ey haaa!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Join the millions that use us for their forum communities. Create your own forum today.
Learn More · Sign-up for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · The Comfy Sofa · Next Topic »
Add Reply