Lifestyle
Confessions of a continuity cop
You know that scene in Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts is eating a croissant that suddenly turns into a pancake? Continuity issues like that crop up all the time. Whether you let it distract you is your call.
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I was watching a screener of an upcoming TV show this week when I became distracted. The scene involved a woman in bed with her husband discussing some plans they had, and in one shot, the sheet the woman had pulled up to her armpits (you know, as you do, ladies, to make sure your husband does not see you naked) had slipped down far enough that it seemed like it was threatening to become a more realistic depiction of the marital bed. But then they cut to her husband, and when they cut back to her, the sheet was dutifully up under her armpits again, keeping her fully covered. Back and forth they went. The sheet went up, the sheet went down, shot to shot.
It’s not that I don’t know how this happens — it’s not that we all don’t know how this happens. Of course they need multiple takes of a scene. Of course they sometimes mix parts of both takes, and of course no matter how careful people try to be in the moment, you can’t catch every single thing that could possibly change. From time to time, you’ll see a pretty big one that it is funny they couldn’t avoid, like when Julia Roberts’ croissant turns into a pancake in Pretty Woman.
But mostly, I freely recognize that being aware of this kind of detail makes one seem like a joyless dweeb. I wish I could help it.
It wasn’t until someone pointed it out to me this week that I realized that this is indeed probably why some reality shows — notably Love Is Blind — provide contestants with shiny metal (and opaque) vessels to drink out of. I had actually wondered what the show thinks it’s accomplishing with all of its golden wine glasses, whether they thought this was classy, whether this was a trend I didn’t know about, whether I needed metal wine glasses in my life. But no — this is, I’m sure, exactly it. They don’t want to fuss with beverage levels on a show where people are constantly drinking and need to be heavily edited.
I think everyone who watches a lot of TV and movies has pet peeves — critic Myles McNutt is somewhat famous for his obsession with people holding or drinking out of obviously empty cups. (Seriously: Myles is a terrific writer, but there was a time when, to many people, he was That Guy Who Has That Thing About The Cups.)
Perhaps it is best thought of as a moment when the realities of making television or films collide with the illusion of them. And perhaps it’s a salute, really, to the seamlessness with which a viewing brain can accept that scene of the woman with her sheet demurely wrapped around her, or that scene of the beautiful couple having breakfast. When I am focused enough on a scene that I notice somebody’s hair moving from hanging behind her shoulder to hanging in front of her shoulder, at least I’m engaged in what I’m watching.
And so I, a Continuity Cop, resolve to keep my siren quiet as much as possible. I can barely remember where my morning coffee is half the time; I can’t imagine trying to remember how high the sheet was the last time a scene was filmed.
This piece also appeared in NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don’t miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what’s making us happy.
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Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday that it prefers the latest offer from rival Hollywood studio Paramount over a bid it accepted from Netflix.
Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg
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Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg
The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount’s sweetened bid to buy the entire company is “superior” to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.
Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount’s offer.
“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid,” the streaming giant said in a statement.
Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.
‘If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table,” Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.
Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.
But the political realities, combined with Paramount’s owners’ relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.
Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.
On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.
The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.
President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.
While Netflix’s courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.
The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.
Not unnoticed: the Ellisons’ warm ties to Trump world.
Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.
David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president’s key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.
Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison’s pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.
The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division’s direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.
“I think they’re doing a great job,” Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it “agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting.”
‘The Wire’ Star Bobby J. Brown
He’s Trapped Inside Barn Fire!!!
Listen To Dispatch Audio
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Broadcastify.com
Here’s the dispatch audio from the fatal barn fire that killed “The Wire” actor Bobby J. Brown … and you hear dispatchers saying he’s trapped in the building after trying to start an old Cadillac.
TMZ obtained the dispatch audio, which also reveals Bobby’s wife called for help. It sounds like a huge inferno, the barn is 50-feet-by-100 and — by the end of the call — it’s all up in flames.
We broke the story … Bobby died Tuesday from smoke inhalation. The deadly fire started after Bobby entered the barn to jump-start a car. His wife suffered severe burns trying to save him.
Bobby played Officer Bobby Brown on the hit HBO series “The Wire” … and his other credits include “Law & Order: SVU” and “We Own This City.”
He was 62.
Ryland Brickson Cole Tews in Hundreds of Beavers.
Hundreds of Beavers
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Hundreds of Beavers
The streaming service Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of movies, TV shows, and original properties. They’re all free to watch, provided you’re willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi-philes to recommend some great movies that you can find on the service: Hundreds of Beavers, Color Out of Space, Petey Wheatstraw, and Mambo Italiano.
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