The Posts I Didn't Write Today

I've had a weird sort of existential day, so you're getting a weird sort of existential post as a result of writer's block and a slow news day. I decided to just catalog all the dead ends I hit today, or all the posts that didn't actually get written.

"Community" Delayed, Everybody Panic - By now you've probably heard that NBC is delaying the season premiere of "Community" from October 19th to the dreaded TBA. The Internet was full of wails and lamentations, and it seemed like everyone was lining up to lob insults at NBC's mother while also nursing the hope that this meant "Community" might be able to avoid the dreaded Friday night slot it is currently set to occupy. Having no more insight than anyone else on the situation, and having no desire to rehash all my grievances about NBC's treatment of the show or Dan Harmon again, I decided this was a non-starter. Oh, I'm as mad about the delay as anyone else, but it's kind of a familiar, oh-you-again, kind of mad. Venting more spleen at this point would just be repeating myself.

"Peanuts" at the Movies - I got a little farther brainstorming this one. Blue Sky Studios, best known for making the "Ice Age" movies, just announced that they had won the rights to make a new "Peanuts" animated feature, due in 2015. Charles Schulz's family will be heavily involved, but that hasn't quelled any of the apprehension over the prospect of CGI versions of the beloved "Peanuts" characters. There have been a lot of varied reactions to the news, but I had my own angle - I'd write about the four theatrically released animated "Peanuts" movies that CBS and Paramount made, starting with "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" in 1969. As an 80s kid I've seen all of them, and remember them very fondly. It would also be a chance to shine a spotlight on some older, weirder "Peanuts" media that has mostly been forgotten. However, it has been a very long time since I watched any of these, and my memories of them are a little hazy, especially of the third and fourth films. That meant the resulting post was probably going to end up being another nostalgia-heavy meandering down memory lane, and I just did one of those with the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" post! Next!

Ignoring the Director - I just listened to that free in-theater director's commentary that Rian Johnson released for "Looper," and I thought it was pretty lackluster. Lots of long pauses and Johnson's a mumbler. He's also one of those directors who is very focused on technical details, which is great if you're talking to film-savvy folks, and not so great when you're talking to a general audience. Meanwhile, the "Prometheus" DVD hit shelves yesterday with a bunch of extras and deleted scenes and it's reignited the whole controversy about how deep the film actually is and what director Ridley Scott intended to say. And those would have been my two big, timely examples as to why sometimes it's best to just ignore the director and take the film at face value. Didn't feel like I had enough to back up my conclusion though, and it felt like I was picking on the directors, which I didn't want to do. I think my real gripe with "Prometheus" is with the overzealous fans, who took one look at the little Easter Egg that referenced "Blade Runner" and concluded that this meant Ridley Scott intended for the "Alien" and "Blade Runner" universes to be connected. Instead of, you know, just a neat little in-joke.

Choose Your Own Hype - Staying with "Looper," I had the realization a few days ago that I hadn't seen a single trailer or commercial for the film, and had done my best to avoid all the traditional forms of hype, but I still went to see the movie in theaters. So how did that happen? And I would have cataloged all the different, less obvious forms of media promotion that people don't tend to think about, like all the pieces on time travel that bloggers wrote in anticipation for the film, and the whole debate over "Looper" swapping out Paris for Shanghai due to the influence of its Chinese distributor, and the erroneous report that "Looper" was the first film to debut with higher numbers in China than in the U.S. Even if these stories weren't directly about the film, or the making of the film, or interviewing the people associated with it, simply by discussing "Looper," the entertainment news was keeping it in the public eye. And even if I didn't choose to consume any media like podcasts or reviews related to "Looper," the fact that every single one of my weekly review shows was discussing "Looper" and I had to purposely avoid them still made an impression. Does it sound like I'm reaching? Yeah, I thought so too.

Notes on the Presidential Campaign - What? No. Just, no. We're not going there.

Tomorrow I'll write up a review on the "Arrow" premiere. And we'll get back to normal.
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