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Dyin’ ain’t much of a livin’…or is it?

Whereas previously I wrote about a movie where a man dies, this time I’m writing about a show where a girl dies. While he moves on, she doesn’t get the chance. After re-watching this show recently, I have been reminded of just how great it is and why I love it, and I want to share it with you.

Television: Dead Like Me

I have never had satellite or digital cable, so I haven’t gotten into as many HBO or Showtime shows as I wished I could have. But when I was only 17, I knew I wanted to see this show. I had to wait forever for it on DVD, and it took a long time for it to go down in price enough for me to afford on the pay I got from my old low paying job. I had to download a few episodes before I could get the set, but I knew I would love this show before I ever saw it. I had always pondered about death and the afterlife. To know that there was a show about grim reapers, and their lives, well, afterlives, I knew it was something that had my interest right there. Then the day came where I finally found the first season on DVD within my price range. I snapped it up and rushed home to watch it.

I became entranced. Everything was done so well. The cast was amazing. Rebecca Gayheart as Betty, Callum Blue as Mason, Jasmine Guy as Roxie. They are the veteran reapers. Mandy Patinkin plays Rube, the boss of all of the reapers. These reapers are joined by 18 year old Georgia Lass, played amazingly by Ellen Muth. Georgia dies in a tragic accident, and rather than pass on to the next life, she finds out she is stuck. Not something she is used to. She used to live at home, and had just dropped out of college and died on her first day at her new job. She is stuck being a grim reaper. Her new job is to take people’s souls from their bodies before they die. She is in charge of deaths caused by accidents, much like how she died.

It’s neat to have a show where someone gets a second chance at life, even if they had to be dead to do so. She has to get a real job, find somewhere to live. She grows up and enters the real world, but at the same time it’s like starting all over for her because she has no ties to her old life. It’s a show about growing up, but also about death. I love the combination.

I was only 17 myself when I started watching this show, so it really made me appreciate my life a lot more. You never know when it could be taken away from you. I even planned how to handle my own funeral after watching this show, which worried my mom, until I explained why. It was quite the misunderstanding.

For any person at any place in their life, this show is just great. It has some hilarious moments, but also can really touch your heart and make you think about a lot of deep things. I highly recommend everyone who reads this to check out the pilot episode if you haven’t already. I guarantee you won’t be dissapointed

Sadly, this show is now cancelled, but this summer there will be a follow up movie that takes place after the series finale! So stay tuned!

Reach out and retouch someone

In class last week we started a conversation as to whether it is ethically ok as a photojournalist to retouch a picture. We used the example of removing a blemish from a flower (see below)

It became quite the heated discussion. There were great points made for both sides. When it comes down to it though, I think it is really a matter of what the picture in question is. In the case of this picture, honestly, I can’t really say it is a terrible thing to remove the black spot.

After finding out how magazines edit the appearance of the people on the front, making them look thinner, removing their freckles, fixing their teeth, and other physical changes, I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with changing the appearance of anything to make it a misrepresentation of what it was before editing. By changing a person’s appearance, you are misrepresenting who they really are. As soon as you change a picture of someone, that picture really stops being of them. It starts being of how you want people to see them: your view of this person. But how can you agree with not changing a person’s appearance, but agree with changing the look of a flower, or a landscape?

I’m not gunna lie. It has a lot to do with aesthetics. A magazine with a great picture of a flower on the cover is gunna sell better then one with a flawed flower. How is this different from changing a picture of a person? With a person, you are trying to sell their image. You are trying to sell their looks. With the flower, you are just trying to make it look like your photographer knows how to take a good picture. You are selling the picture, not what it represents. But how can I not see changing it as a misrepresentation of the flower? Well, with the flower, you could have leaned over and removed the spot when you took the picture. Or covered over top of it. With a person, you can’t make someone thinner on the scene. You can’t make their eyes look different, or their smile better at the shoot.

I think in our jobs, it is really important to know where to draw the line. I have a pretty good idea of where my line is and what it means to me. I hope everyone else does to

One for all the budding journalists out there

I was tempted to save this movie for next week, but I think I will go with it this week as I have much grander things in store for Valentine’s Day movies (due to some great inspiration from some devoted readers). This was a movie I saw before I ever even thought about being a journalist. However, now that I hope to make a living being one, I wanted to give this movie another spin. Boy am I glad I did.

Movie: Broadcast News

Ok, yes, I know, the guy on the poster looks familiar. Yes, Albert Brooks is in this movie too, but this time is different. He’s not doing his own material. He is acting in a James L Brooks (No relation) movie. James L Brooks directed Terms Of Endearment (Ask your mom) and As Good As It Gets. He also has worked on The Simpsons for years (I bet you’re already figuring out why this is a movie I love, but just keep reading. It gets better)

Anyways, this movie is about 3 people. Aaron Altman (Brooks), a very smart television reporter who as hard as he tries, never seems to get the recognition he deserves. Next, there is his best friend, Jane Craig, played by the stellar Holly Hunter. She is a news producer at the station Aaron reports at. She is the best at what she does, and expects the best from anyone else. I’ll go ahead and call her a perfectionist. Lastly, we have Tom Grunick, played by the always charming William Hurt. He is a handsome news anchor, but he really has no business having this job. He has little education and can’t write. Yes, an anchor who cannot even write his own stories. Jane HATES people like Tom, because she worked so hard to get where she is and hates people who get an easy ride. But she finds herself oddly attracted to him. When he gets a job anchoring at her station, things just get more and more complicated.

Watching the scenes with Tom kind of scared me. Knowing that I am working my butt off at school to hopefully get into TV news, and that the jobs used to just go to who looked good on camera. The job is still very much that way, where you have to look good on camera, but the reporters can’t just get by on just looks anymore. At least I hope not, or I should have just taken my school money and used it to get a new chin or something.

But where this movie is not only great as a depiction of how a TV station and newsroom work, it has some of the best written characters I’ve ever seen in a movie. I had never identified so much with certain situations in a movie before I saw this. The characters have real problems, and I was scared of ending up like one of them. I don’t want to spoil anything cause I want you to watch the movie for yourself, but as a big fan of movies, I can honestly say this has some of the best writing I’ve ever heard. Let me end with one of my favourite lonely guy in love quotes of all time, that was brilliantly delivered in this movie “I would give anything if you were two people, so that I could call up the one who’s my friend and tell her about the one that I like *so much*!”