(S01E05) Tonight's show was a definite improvement over last weeks, but that's kind of like saying being forced fed one turd sandwich is better than being force fed two. At the end of the day, you're still eating a turd sandwich.
Never in my history of TV watching have I encountered a show so maligned by schizophrenia. The producers of On The Lot know they want to find "the next great Hollywood film director," but they have absolutely no clue what the means are to reach this end.
And what's the deal with Adriana Costa. I think one of the readers mentioned that he and a friend created a drinking game that revolved around one of them taking a shot every time she botched a line.
Sadly, I received email confirmation that the both of them died of alcohol poisoning after this evening's episode.
For reasons that I haven't quite figured out, only five directors showed their films tonight. The films were three minutes in length and shot over a period of five days in what appeared to be the director's home towns.
I've given up on trying to understand why things are happening and intend to just focus on the only thing this show has going for it - the films.
I almost forgot. This week the guest judge was Michael Bay, director of some of America's most treasured movies like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and The Island...Um, is this really the guy aspiring directors want to be taking critiques from?
#1 - Sam - Broken Pipe Dreams
Synopsis: A man is forced to confront his childhood fear - the toilet - after dropping his wife's engagement ring in the bowl.
Carrie - Really liked it. Enjoyed that the hero was a human and the adversary was a toilet.
Michael - Cared more about the fish than the guy. Thought Sam could have tightened up the editing, but it was ultimately fun.
Garry - Understood the plot of this film better than all three Mission Impossible movies. Wish Sam would make a film that didn't make him want to go to the bathroom, but overall, found it to be excellent film making.
This was without a doubt the best film of the night. The scene where the actor sat on his knees with toilet water raining on him from the broken pipe was a riot, and the fish flying into his hand was a nice touch. I'll be shocked if Sam is sent home next week.
#2 - Trever - Teri
Synopsis: Romantic comedy about a guy named Ben anticipating a blind date.
Carrie - Thought it was very cute and well made.
Michael - Good comic pacing with editing, but felt the idea was a bit of a retread. Need to work on your photography and style, but you did good.
Garry - Liked the golf film from the previous week better. Felt the characters were more like caricatures. All in all, you could do a little better. Good try.
I was expecting a lot more from Trever's film consider his golf flick was one of my favorites from last week. I found the premise to be extremely weak and the acting felt strange and staccato. The final shot with the door closing for five second felt out of place as well.
#3 - Hilary - The First TIme I Met the Finkelsteins
Synopsis: A guy brings a date over to meet his politically incorrect parents. Anti-hilarity ensues.
Carrie - I think you can write, but you did a disservice with the claustrophobic directing. It was up too close on everybody.
Michael - In Hollywood, we call this a groaner. The audience is laughing at you and not with you. It didn't really work for me.
Garry - Back up! You were too tight with your shots. Your writing was terrific, but you've got to make yourself more of a film maker. You're going to have to do better than this.
Wow, this one was painful to watch. The actors, particularly the parents, didn't really work that well for me and the writing felt like it was trying really hard to be funny rather than actually being funny. I also completely agree with the judges when they said the cameras were way too close to the actors. I thought Hilary should have been sent home last week with her disgusting urine flick. I'm pretty sure she'll be leaving next week.
#4 - Adam - Dough: the Musical
Synopsis: Romantic comedy about two people who are destined to meet.
Carrie - Incredibly original. Really just thought it was totally entertaining. Congratulations.
Michael - Lyrics were great and very fun. I had a great time watching it. Need to work a little bit more on the visuals.
Garry - Very theatrical. Could work on the chemistry between the two actors.
My second favorite film of the night, and I'm not exactly fond of musicals. It got off to a slow start, but by the middle I was completely into the lyrics and liked how seamlessly the scenes flowed into one another.
#5 - Shalini - Laughing Out Loud: a comic journey
Synopsis: A gay South Asian comic gets the courage to accept himself for who he is.
Carrie - Thought it was really well made. Though the advice "be yourself" has been heard a whole lot, but otherwise, congratulations.
Michael - In three minutes you told a succinct story, and you gave me a chill. Really great job. Best visual style of anyone tonight.
Garry - Made the obligatory comment about the world needing more woman film makers.
This wasn't my favorite movie of the night, but it was definitely the most professional looking. I was a little taken aback that her film seemed so serious as compared to the others. Up to this point, I was sure the genre was comedy again this week.
Favorite movies of the night:
Carrie - Broken Pipe Dreams
Michael - Laughing Out Loud: a comic journey
Garry - Dough: The Musical
JJ - Broken Pipe Dreams
Other Directors: Laughing Out Loud: a comic journey
If they don't change things on us, we'll find out who's going home next week. Until then, which film did you like the best?
Vote in the poll and sound off in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-06-2007 @ 1:26AM
Rob said...
You gotta be kidding me,.. 'Dough' was without a doubt the best of the group. Excellent writing, professional cinematography, and cute idea.
'Laughing out Loud' looked pretty, but that was it. I found myself staring at the TV with a confused look on my face thinking,.. "What is this?"
'Broken Pipe Dreams' was good, but not outstanding. Seemed like a really well done YouTube flick.
'Teri' was also good. Didn't care that it was a basic premise, but I have to agree about the overly long final door scene.
'Finkelsteins' was OK. I think Michael Bay said it best.. You weren't laughing with the movie,.. more like uncomfortably at the movie.
My picks, Best to worst:
Dough
Teri
Broken Pipe Dreams
Finkelsteins
LOL
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6-06-2007 @ 1:49AM
BigTed said...
I was really surprised how sensible Michael Bay's comments were.... He turned out to be the best of the judges they've had so far. (Although it was funny when he said one short should have been cut down because the pacing was too slow. He's the guy whose movies rush from shot to shot every couple of seconds, making them impossible to enjoy amid the constant feeling of seasickness that causes.)
As for the films, I thought "Broken Pipe Dreams" wasn't bad, although -- having faced the situation myself -- I know that opening a pipe leading from the toilet does not result in being sprayed with clean water. Enough said.
Likewise, the story in "Teri," apart from being similar to a hundred other films, wasn't very well thought-out. No one meets an Internet date without seeing his or her photo anymore, and you'd have to be crazy to get together for the first time at one person's house. Haven't these two ever seen "Sea of Love"?
"The First Time I Met the Finkelsteins" was unfunny and borderline offensive. There are plenty of movies satirizing "ethnic" families, but this one just had no redeeming value. (And how come, after it was referenced three or four times in the course of the movie, we never found out why the woman wasn't supposed to be alone with the guy's mother?)
"Dough: The Musical" had all the faults the judges mentioned, especially in the lack of chemistry between the leads. But the singing was good, and the idea that the man and woman had differing expectations was kind of funny. I'd call this one the best movie of the night.
Then there's "Laughing Out Loud: a comic journey," which really was the best-looking of all the films. But it took itself way too seriously, especially for a film about a comedian. We were told all about the obstacles he would face based on being who he was, but then we never got to see any examples of that actually happening. (Plus, how come we weren't shown more than a tiny snippet of his act? You'd think that would tell us more about him than anything else.)
It also bothered me to hear annoying Shalini talk yet again about how hard it is to be a woman in the business. Two of the five contestants we saw tonight were women, and of course good ol' Garry Marshall repeated for the 80th time that women are very, very important. So while it may be true in a general sense, it certainly isn't on this show.
So were these the last five contestants left -- and if so, what happened to the others? I TiVo-fast-forwarded through almost everything except the films, and I highly recommend watching the show this way. Frankly, it doesn't sound as if I ended up more confused than anyone else.
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6-06-2007 @ 9:34AM
Allison Solow said...
I have no idea why Hillary was given a second chance after the one-minute film about peeing (yeech!). I thought her "Finkelstein" film was anti-semetic and in bad taste. If Carrie Fisher considers her a good writer, I have to question her sanity these days.
I liked Sam's film -- especially the homage to "Shawshank Redemption" with the water pouring out of the pipe and the overhead shot -- but the winner by far was "Dough." Highly original and well-executed. Musicals are so hard to do, just making people buy into the convention of people singing on screen, and "Dough" made it look completely natural. "Teri" was a disappointment -- it had no twist or interesting turn, it just ended. Blah. The last film, a comic's journey, was like a documentary news piece you'd see on CBS Sunday Morning. I think it was overrated.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:30AM
Mike said...
My problem with Shalini's flick was that it looked like a documentary. That would be great, if her character was REAL, but he wasn't. She gets all the benefits of the happy true story feel, only it's not true. In the end it just felt really fake to me.
My biggest problem with Hilary's flick was that the establishing shot of the film makes a big point out of "do not let my mother get you alone" and the film never delivers on this premise. The girl never ends up going toe-to-toe with the mother, which I was sure was going to happen. The flick had a million other problems though. Fixing mine wouldn't save it.
Pipe Dreams was my favorite. It was clever, and made a few good jabs at some established films, most notably Mission: Impossible and The Shawshank Redemption. That scene with the water pouring down was hilarious.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:37AM
Karen said...
Are these films posted anywhere? I'd like to skip the show and just watch the films.
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6-06-2007 @ 11:57AM
hotboudain said...
Didn't I read somewhere that these were the submission films that the director shot as auditions to get on the show? What kind of BS is that!! They made it seem like these were shot just over the past week. I'm so done with this show it's not even funny. What a waste...
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6-06-2007 @ 1:14PM
Rob said...
Karen,
Here you go. The movies are available as soon as the episode they originally air on is over.
View the movies here:
http://www.thelot.com/episodes/?ep=6
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6-06-2007 @ 1:44PM
Cammm said...
Did anyone else want to die when the host forced the other contestants to reveal who they voted for? Do they even have directors and producers working on this show?
I've never before felt that I'd LIKE to see Ryan Seacrest
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6-06-2007 @ 3:28PM
Cody said...
What did Carrie Fisher say about the musical? It was something like "It was so nice to see an original idea in a musical! Most musicals these days are about prisons, or The Supremes!" It was at that moment that I knew that Carrie Fisher is going to be in a mental institution by the end of the summer.
Shalini's movie looked awesome, but the actor was terrible and the dialogue was awful. I kinda want her to stay in the show and get some more sleep before she makes her next movie.
Dough was my favorite of the night, but I thought that he really missed a chance to make an entertaining flick a truly spectacular one at the beginning. There's a scene where a bunch of people are dancing around the baker, and then right after there's a scene where people were helping the girl try on clothes or something. During both of these scenes, the music was purely instrumental! I thought that this would have been an excellent place to stick a chorus.
When Michael Bay called "Teri" a retread of an idea he'd seen before, and then went on to say "But seriously, go see my summer blockbuster about a cartoon you used to watch in the 80s", I couldn't help but laugh.
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6-06-2007 @ 6:59PM
Craig said...
Cammm I agree, worst producers in television. The network jumped in this week and condensed two episodes into one. Too little too late. I hope this show comes back in the future with a better format. Great idea, poor execution. Carrie, this show has a beginning, a middle, and no end.
How I'd make it better:
1) Let professionals judges do the voting. These guys should be judged based on a talent the viewer's don't have. Boom mikes, lenses, camera angles, etc. I don't understand that stuff and 99% of the voters don't either.
2) If they want an international group of contestants to participate, make sure your professional judges understand international films. The Italian director's short film was very European and very funny to them. These three judges never got that point and neither did the American only voters. If you can't judge them fairly, then get American only contestants.
3) Show more of the film making process - without the in-fighting. I don't think the viewers wanted to see the in-fighting, so they dropped the film making part all together. That's what intrigued me with the show from the start.
4) Do away with the drama while voting people off and show more respect for the directors. These guys are talented people, not some Joe off the street with a video camera. I would have stopped watching 5 minutes into the first episode if "Sanjaya" like directors were competing. These guys don't deserve the "wait till after the commercial" to find out who's tossed or to have the other directors raise their hand if you voted it the suckyist film of the night.
5) OK, I'm selfish on this one. Don't replace the hostess. I agreee with another post - there's two very good reasons to keep her and that out-weights the cue card goofs.
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6-06-2007 @ 7:41PM
Carebear said...
For those who missed why the young man didn't want his girlfriend to be alone with his mother in 'Finklesteins' the last scene is your answer.
He obviously didn't think his mother would say something in front of him, so he thought his girlfriend would be safe as long as she was with him. Then, as they leave, his mother starts blurting out about the grandmother's engagement ring and how the son is going to ask her to marry her, and how she wants grandkids the sooner the better.
There ya go
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