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Showing posts from August, 2008

In Defense of Swingtown

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I know, I know surely I can't be a fan of Swingtown. I mean it's such a soap opera, but hold on wait one second. I think it has merits. Sure its all about three couples in the summer of 1976, but the characters are getting better written as the show evolves. At first you can say yeah theres the marriage which seems to be imploding slowly, and then there is the couple who have a more modern way of looking at marriage, but as the series progressed this summer some of those stereotypes began to melt away. Here's the premise in a nut shell: "The early episodes take place in the summer of 1976, when the Miller family relocates to a more affluent neighborhood in North Shore, a suburban area north of Chicago. Bruce Miller (Jack Davenport) is a futures trader working his way up in the business, while his wife, Susan (Molly Parker), is a housewife. Tom and Trina Decker (Grant Show and Lana Parrilla) are the Millers' new neighbors. Tom, an airline pilot, met Trina while she

What ever Happened to Orson Welles?

< I've been reading the book What ever happened to Orson Welles? It's written by Joseph McBride, and he has a history with Welles as did Peter Bogdanovich who eventually wrote several books about Welles and his films. What struck me about this book is that it is about Welles last 25 years. It's about what he was doing, and his tenacity for creating uncompromising films. Some of it is sad, while other parts are very revealing and quite inspiring. I came across this clip on YouTube and was pretty excited to see it since in the book McBride discusses the making of "The Other side of the Wind". It is even listed in Filmmaker magazine in the category of the Top 10 Greatest Movies That Were Never Finished. I'm a big fan of Welles' earlier works. Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, and A Touch of Evil are all classics in my book, so I was very interested in hearing about his later years. It seems as though Welles struggled throughout his later years, yet