The Evolution of Television

There's no denying that the quality of Television shows has increased dramatically over the past 10 years. We are entering the golden age of T.V. due to strides made by various companies. This isn't to say that all shows are improving, we are still overloaded with filler comedies and terribly acted dramas, but if you look through all the fluff you will be able to find quality work that is on par with some of the best films. We are at a moment in time where the line between television and film are starting to get blurred, and it is no longer necessary for audiences to go see a movie in order to find quality entertainment.

As many critics have said before, the show to start this revolution of quality t.v. was "The Sopranos." What I consider to be the best television show of all time has paved the way for any station to create premium programming. "The Sopranos" which ran on HBO from 1999-2007, gave movie quality episodes every time. The acting was phenomenal and the directing and production value was on par with modern day movies. The scope of the show exceeded any show that had come before it. HBO revolutionized the way people thought about t.v. shows, and they continued to do that by following up with shows such as "The Wire" and most recently the phenomenon "Game of Thrones."

However, HBO didn't remain the only place to see quality premium television. That's where AMC comes into play. AMC was the clear next step in this television revolution, by making it clear that audiences won't need to pay a subscription fee and own premium cable channels in order to get that type of quality. They started with "Mad Men" which from one episode you would think belonged on HBO or Showtime, and they just kept rolling by following up with my current favorite show "Breaking Bad," then again with "The Walking Dead." All three of these shows are excellent television series and provide the same thrills, excellent characters and emotion that one would go to movies to find. The best part is, the world apparently feels the same way. AMC took a huge risk when producing "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad." They didn't have subscription fees like HBO does, so when they put huge amounts of money into these shows, they risked losing a lot more money than HBO would have. But the risk payed off, AMC's premium shows are all some of the most popular shows on television, and now they had the rest of television's attention.

Movies and T.V. used to be almost completely separate entities, but now it is a common thing to hear about famous film directors creating and directing new television series. Even famous actors are starting to come on board, such as Sean Bean in "Game of Thrones, or John Malkovich who will be the lead on an upcoming pirate drama called "Crossbones." All of the major T.V. networks are jumping on board to create premium shows with varying degrees of success. NBC just recently started a controversial show about Hannibal Lector, and while the ratings for the show aren't all that great, it has been the subject of critical acclaim and I personally know how great it is. FX is another network that has found a lot of success in this area with shows like "The Americans" and to show this change isn't restricted to dramas, take a look at FX's "Wilfred" a fantastic comedy about a man in a dog costume.

Then next stage in this evolution of T.V. is clearly coming from Netflix, who made their mark in the television world with their hit show "House of Cards." The show, created by the hugely successful and talented film director David Fincher, stars Kevin Spacey (once again, another extremely famous film actor) as a corrupt politician. The crazy thing about this show though, is it isn't even on television! Netflix has been slowly breaking into the original programming with shows such as "Lillyhammer" and their new horror show "Hemlock Grove." The amount of viewers these shows have drawn is amazing and is created even more pressure on popular television networks. Just look at NBC's fall lineup for fall 2013. They picked up a series by film director Alfonso Cuaron and J.J. Abrams, another high profile series with Cuaron directing the first episode.

It is no longer rare for film talent to become involved in television and even make entertainment on television that is just as powerful as their film work. This trend only seems to be getting more and more popular and I hope it continues to do so.

Flight Review

In my opinion Flight is definitely one of the best movies of the year. Robert Zemeckis has finally come back into the live action scene after a few animated efforts, and he did not disappoint. He has crafted a phenomenal movie with a fantastic and emotional story about addiction and inner anguish.

With Denzel Washington at the lead it is almost a guarantee that we are going to see another great performance, but he really outdid himself in this one even topping his performance in Training Day. This is by far his best acting job to date and if he weren't up against some great competition this year I would think it was a guaranteed Oscar win for him. This supporting cast is great as well, with a Bruce Greenwood also giving a career best performance and while it was a small part we got another great use of John Goodman who could be looking at a supporting actor academy award this year.

Those thinking the plane crash is the main storyline in the movie are going to be disappointed though, this story isn't really about the crash. Its a story about a man's addiction and it definitely works. Zemeckis has crafted and extremely emotional story that I think a lot of people can connect with. It can be depressing and inspiring at the same time, and the cast makes you fully committed to every scene in a way I haven't experienced in a long time.

Zemeckis proved that he can still create heartbreaking and amazing live action stories and I hope he continues with live action for at least a couple more movies.

My Top 20

I decided to put together a list of my top 20 favorite movies. This was put together pretty quickly, so I might have forgotten about a few.

1. Inception
2. The Departed
3. Fight Club
4. Sunshine
5. The Matrix
6. Casino Royale
7. Snatch
8. Goodfellas
9. Skyfall
10. Star Wars
11. Casino
12. The Boondock Saints
13. American Gangster
14. The Social Network
15. Seven
16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2
17. The Dark Knight Rises
18. Twelve Monkeys
19. The Dark Knight
20. Flight

Star Wars: A New Home

Since this is my first post, I thought I would talk about movies that I love more than almost any other, Star Wars. As pretty much everyone could tell you at this point, Disney has just purchased Lucasfilm and has plans to continues the Star Wars movies. This has many fans worried, since they believe Disney isn't going to do the series justice. However, I have complete faith in Disney and believe they could potentially make one of the best Star Wars movies in the entire series.

Lets first take a look at a very recent Disney acquisition, Marvel. Many Marvel fans (me being one of them) were just as worried when this announcement was made, but Disney has made nothing but extremely entertaining and enjoyable Marvel movies since then. Just recently they made what I consider one of the best comic book movies of all time, The Avengers. Disney has shown that they won't take the easy way out and milk these series without taking the time and effort to make them good. With Marvel they made the smart decisions, hired good writers and directors (Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon) and had a solid plan in place to make sure these movies were well received.

Now it may seem like Star Wars and Marvel have very little to do with each other, but that is not necessarily true. The original Star Wars trilogy isn't a Christopher Nolan trilogy. It's not meant to be dark and brutal. Star Wars is meant to let our imaginations escape into a wonderfully fun and lighthearted adventure with characters we love, which is exactly what Disney excelled at with their Marvel movies. The Marvel movies are the perfect comparison for Star Wars since they are proof that Disney knows how to draw out our imagination and create characters that people keep talking about for years. Honestly, have you ever heard anyone complain about Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man?

But now we are able to look even deeper into what Disney has planned with Star Wars by who they are hiring, and they have not disappointed. Disney has so many great assets at their disposal and the first thing I thought when hearing this news was Pixar. The Pixar team is full of amazing writers that can craft incredible characters and stories with heart. Then I saw the first thing Disney did was hire Toy Story 3 scribe Michael Arndt and almost all my doubts vanished. Not only that, but then it was announced that Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg (the writers of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) were hired to write two more of the Star Wars movies. To me this proved that Disney knows what they are doing, they know what's on the line here and how important these movies are and I fully believe they have the tools to bring fantastic new Star Wars movies to a new generation.

Since pretty much everything else about the new Star Wars movies is rumor and speculation, I won't discuss it here, but I'll probably add something soon about possible directors and who I think would be best suited to direct this new trilogy.