Chris Marquette Message Board

LOL!  I've been trying to go to bed for an hour but a certain fic by a certain chick has kept me awake.  My TV was on Strong Med just because.  I didn't know if they were Chris eps or not since I was writing and paying little attention.  The first one had a tidbit and now, as I'm getting ready to turn off the TV, in this second ep, I find myself in none other than the scene where Marc talks to Peter about his first wet dream.  OK, I can crash now.  This had better stay very far away from my dreams.

Deb

Grrrrrrrr.  I loved Quantum Leap, too.  Stupid Moonves.

Deb

Oh, man, could you post some of your Live Journal recaps here on the appropriate boards so we could read them?  I'd love to get your take on both JoA and SM.  No one but me has seen much SM.

Oh, I'm watching Jericho too, of course.  It probably won't last because it's pretty bleak.  None of my friends are watching it.  Too scary and downbeat for the real-world avoiders.  I think it's OK, if not spectacular.  I'll stick with it for as long as it's on.

As a fan of Angus and Skeet, I have to ask, have you seen Skeet in Nobody's Baby (Mary Steenburgen's in it too)?  Or Angus in A Woman's A Helluva Thing?  Both very entertaining, quirky movies that gave them really fun characters to play.

Deb

Looks like we can blame Les Moonves for cancelling Huff too.  And for just as cynical and stupid a reason as he cancelled Joan.  man, I really HATE this guy!

Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Why "Huff" had to die

I am starting to hear from readers outraged at Showtime for snuffing "Huff," the shrink drama starring Hank Azaria.

"Once again, Showtime has enticed viewers into an entertaining venue, only to pull the plug after two seasons," writes Betty S. "I refer to another favorite that has gone by the wayside, 'Dead Like Me.' I'd like to tell the Showtime powers that be that I am not going to bother watching any future series they might introduce, as it will probably be cancelled shortly, so why get hooked on it in the first place!"

Well, the powers that be have spoken. According to a trade report published last month, Leslie Moonves -- CEO of CBS Corp., which owns Showtime -- expressed his distaste for a lot of the highfalutin' fare the No. 3 premium cable channel (behind HBO and Cinemax) has to offer. Speaking at a Morgan Stanley investor powwow, Moonves said (according to Broadcasting & Cable) that Showtime was too often guilty of "pandering to highbrow TV critics rather than mass TV viewers" and is "a bit too much of an off-off-Broadway play."

Fans of "Weeds" can rest easy: Moonves found that show to be "really commercial." But it probably says a lot about why the moodier "Huff" didn't last.

Since that meeting, Moonves has been yakking up the idea of starting a movie studio (something he told TV critics at a party in January he was thinking of doing) and using Showtime as a way to stretch value out of his box-office pics.

Moonves like the small screen, but these days he's paid to think about the big picture. And apparently, Azaria & Co. aren't in it.

Source: http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2006 … ad_to.html

Deb

Yeah, I guess the fics are largely about that.  A lot of us got kind of carried away trying to explain Adam's cheating.  I had a go at it myself.  Luckily for me, one try got that need out of my system.  Unfortunately, I went back to not being able to accept it or ever explain it because it's just not possible for that boy to behave the way they made him behave.  "It was just a hook-up" is not even something that would be in Adam's vocabulary.  So I just consider it an abberation.  I know that's kind of ridiculous, but there you go.

And yet, if not for that episode, we wouldn't be right here, right now.  Even though I'd been watching the show mostly for Adam since at least mid season one, it was not until the night Trial & Error aired and I finally stopped crying that I actually looked Chris up on the Internet for the first time.  From that night on, I started chasing everything he'd ever done.  They destroyed Adam for me that night.  But that was when I really discovered Chris.  So I have a real love/hate relationship with it.  Chris and Amber gave phenomenal performances in it.  But I don't buy this storyline one bit.

I kind of think it would've been a tiny bit less ridiculously out-of-character if he hadn't been such a horrible cad to Bonnie.  Or if she wasn't just some skank willing to spread her legs for any boy who gave her a little attention, and if he had actually liked her enough so that she was real competition for Joan.  If it had been set up that way, and Bonnie was the one who came on to him and we got to see that, it would've made a little more sense.  I just cannot believe that this sensitive, empathetic, gentle boy could simply and crudely stick it to some skanky chick that he can't even stand to touch or talk to.  I mean the way he acts toward her, I wonder if he even kissed her.

But since this is what they gave us and this is what we have to work with, a lot of us have gone about trying to explain how it could ever possibly happen.  Endlessly.  And I don't think anyone's gotten it right yet.  Not completely.  Can it ever be done?

When TeeJay and I started Butterflies, we made a rule.  There would be no dredging up of the Bonnie incident.  Frankly, I was quite sick of it by then.  It had been done to death.  I got to the point where I couldn't even stand the mention of her name.  So far, we've gotten through almost 200 pages without that name ever being uttered.  There have been very vague allusions to "what happened in high school", but six years down the road, Adam and Joan are both adults and this terrible mistake made by one of them as a kid just has no bearing on anything anymore.  They have too much going on in their lives now and they're too happy to think about any of that.

But guess what, I recently got inspired to write a high school reunion fic as part of Butterflies.  All the characters will be brought back togther and she who has remained nameless will finally be named in our fic.  I think what happens might surprise people.  It surprised the hell out of me.

Deb

Yeah, I think we all kind of have the same complaints about the way the movie was put together.  Avelino could've made it more straight forward and it might've gained a wider audience.  Instead, he tried to be clever and left a lot of people cold.  But almost universally, people write about how powerful the Janet/David story is.  I'd love to see that cut together normally, like an episode of a TV series, sans jump cuts.  And I wish it had been shot with a more interesting color palatte as well.

Deb

We talked about the jump cuts before.  It's a stylistic thing that I don't care for at all because it lifts you out of the flow of the story.  It's kind of an arrogant, film school gimmick that just needs to go away.  Mainly because I really wanted to know how many girls David had kissed and Avelino chose to jump-cut right there. 

Deb

Shrams, that Grey's/Joan crossover idea sounds great.  I'm pretty sure TeeJay would agree.  We love George too.  You should definitely write that ASAP and we'd love to read it!  :-)

Deb

I think it was probably the next day.  It's not like her parents are gonna bother to call some boy she just met to say, "Hey, sorry, Tally can't make it to your house tonight because she's dead."  They'd be far too frantic after finding out to even think of anyone else.  Heck, maybe they didn't even know about David at all.  So then who would tell him that night?  No one.  I think he would learn about it in school the next day.

But then again, as we all know, you can't trust clothes as an indicator of time in this movie. TeeJay, you know exactly what I'm talking about:  The driving to school scene that's supposedly before he changes schools matching up with the the scene of David's first day at Ridgeline.

Deb

It's kind of unanimous around here that the meltdown scene is just fantastic.  But there's a lot more to Chris's work in the film than just that.  When I first watched it, I was taken aback by the intense emotion between David and Janet.  But also, I saw a lot of my relationship with my mom.  I was glad when things quieted down between them and you could see how much they really love each other.  That scene between them in Janet's room is also really special.  They're all they have.  The scene between David and Tally as he "tattoos" her foot is quite wonderful too. 

Our interpretation of David's last scene has always been that he's sitting on the curb in front of his house, crying after learning of Tally's fate.  We also find it aching real how he's medicating himself with food.

Deb

Yeah, let's jam all the pics we can gather into the gallery.  Melissa obviously couldn't care less by now.

Deb

Wow, there's an AD trailer on The Prestige?  I kind of expected one for The Invisible since they're distributed by the same company.  But I'll take the AD trailer, too.  Yeah, it does look like a very disturbing movie, mainly because you know that it's mostly a true story.  And poor Chris with that awful wig, all stoned and dirty ain't exactly gonna be eye candy.  But it looks very intense and intersting and Chris is so proud of the movie.  I'm really anxious to see it.

Deb