0 6 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com TV actors are no joke 0 "Man, Coolio sure let himself go."v Jack's boat barely floats Philip Seymour Hoffman shows promise behind the camera By JENNIFER XU Daily Arts Writer Phillip Seymour Hoffman's direc- torial debut seems a little late in the coming. After all, a man with three Oscar nominations and a long history of stellar per- Jack Goes formances should hold a pretty firm grasp on Boatng the human condition. At the State So while "Jack Goes Overture Boating" - an allegory of two innocent people holding onto each other while the rest of New York silently crumbles around them - feels a bit anticlimactic on first reflec- tion, maybe it's just overdue to the point of being stale. Really, everything about "Jack" is a little wound down. Adapted from a play by Robert Glaudini, the film tells the story of Jack, a simple-minded limo driver who just wants to find a serious relationship. As the protagonist, Hoff- man, who's hell-bent on making himself look as repulsive as possible, resem- bles nothing so much as a large, fleshy baby. When his married friends Clyde (John Ortiz, "Public Enemies") and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega, "Flawless") set him up with the slightly odd, sexu- ally paranoid Connie (Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"), Jack's newborn demeanor cracks a little to show his general inex- perience. If Jack were a girl, he'd probably get a makeover and go shopping. Instead, he just learns how to swim and cook a meal. And slowly, as Jack's limited awareness of the world increases in scope, he real- izes that with his limo driver job and three friends, he might not have it so bad after all. At its worst, "Jack Goes Boating" can be excruciatingly dull. At best, it's relax- ing. As a film with very little ambition in regards to story content, "Jack" needs to rely on characterization in order to pull a viewer through. And though the four actors do an admirable job of inhabiting their respective characters, there isn't enough fat in the screenplay to cushion what essentially is a straightforward parable about surviving in New York City. To Hoffman's credit, though, the film never feels much like a play - there is nary a strand of turgid, exhaus- tive dialogue so typical in stage-based adaptations. In fact, it might be that its screenplay is too linear and clear-cut in its plot progression that brings about its unfortunate downfall. However, the film does seem to hit its stride somewhere in the middle third. Jack and Connie, slightly off-kilter from the rest of the world, do a lot of hugging and kissing to make up for the melan- cholic devastation leaking out of their friends. But the best scenes happen in the swimming pool, as Clyde patiently teaches Jack how to hold his breath by visualizing the little chlorine bubbles gurgling around him. Later on, imag- es of Jack lucidly slicing through the water are intercut with a center shot of him standing on a bridge practicing his strokes while Fleet Foxes blasts in the background. With his debut, Hoffman has proven his prowess behind the camera, though his story development still needs a little fine-tuning. But it's the little moments in between that make the short, imper- fect "Jack Goes Boating" a worthwhile watch, which really speaks to the over- lying themes of the film. As Clyde would say, "Life is fucked up, but we get by." "Hello. We're TV actors." Those words, spoken by Rainn Wil- son as he stood alongside Blake Lively at the 2009 Golden Globes,1 were enough to incite several seconds of hearty laughter from the Hollywood crowd. And while it may seem harmless, the remark _ and the reaction dem- CAROLYN onstrate one important KLARECKI stigma in the acting - industry - some people think TV actors are a joke. Peter Krause? Bradley Whitford? Janu- ary Jones? Oh, they're just TV actors. No big deal. They're not special like Chris- tian Bale or Natalie Portman. Those are the real actors. They're in movies. Those actors on the small-screen are only there because they're not good/famous/pretty enough for the cutthroat competition of Hollywood movies. No, they just have to be content wallowing in their 30-60 min- ute time-slot, making considerably less money and enjoying less fame. Maybe no one states it quite so explic- itly, but there tends to be this attitude pervading the world of media-junkies that TV actors are of a lesser caliber than movie stars. TV is viewed as a stepping stone to better gigs. And there's some truth to that. TV actors aren't paid as much as those who appear.in films and they generally don't grace the "Star Watch" section of People magazine. But that doesn't make them inferior - just different. Actors working on a movie usually have a few months to film their scenes. "Pirates of the Caribbean" was filmed in five months. Five months spenton one project where the actors probably weren't called to set for half of the scheduled film days. Most TV actors stay on for an entire season, appear- ing in every episode, and each episode takes a week or more to film. The first season of "Lost" also took five months to film, but in the end there was 1068 minutes of aired footage. "Pirates" had a run time of 143 min- utes. TV acting is hard. It's time-consuming and the pay-off isn't always great. According to TV Guide, Jon Hamm of "Mad Men" makes $75,000 per epi- sode, making his season's earnings about $975,000. Forbes reports Leonardo DiCaprio's paycheck for "Inception" was more than $50 million. Both "Inception" and "Mad Men" are critically acclaimed works of art and both salaries are beyond anything I could ever hope to earn, but there is a huge discrepancy between them. Hamm has filmed 49 episodes and still hasn't reached a quarter of DiCaprio's "Inception" money. So it's reasonable to think that actors would only take TV gigs if they had to. But think of all the incredibly talented TV actors out there. Hamm, Nathan Fil- lion, Tina Fey and Terry O'Quinn are all amazing actors who could make the jump to movies any time they wanted to. And some have. Some actors do use TV as a stepping stone to movies, buta lot of actors come back to it too. TV acting has its advantages and provides challenges not normally available in the world of film. The beauty of the television serial is that the characters can be much more complex and developed than those in movies. This gives actors a chance to get to know a character and portray them more dynamically than they ever would More character depth, less respect. be able to in a film. There is time to under- stand who you're playing, to explore your character's ups and downs, to guide them through the dark moments and to cel- ebrate the victories. As viewers, we have a whole season to get to know and care about the characters on TV. Moviegoers only spend a few hours with the big-screen characters, and come to forget many. We establish relationships with the TV characters, inviting them into our living rooms each week. We see them regularly, and because of that, they become a little more accessible to us. TV actors aren't presented for us to worship on a 30-foot screen. They don't grace us with their talent only once each year. Peo- ple on TV just seem much more real. So while the stigma of TV acting may not be totally unfounded, I beg the film snobs to lay off. It's arguably harder to act for the small-screen and clearly the gig doesn't pay as well. TV actors are the unsung heroes of the acting biz. They do it out of love for the medium, the story and the character, and that's something worth admiring. Klarecki is a method actress playing a columnist on an upcoming TV show. E-mail her at cklareck@umich.edu. 0 0 0 PARKING PARKING AVAILABLE 665-8825 FOR RENT !**FALL2011*t! 5to 9 bdrm. houses. Keysmanagement.net RELEASE DATE- Tuesday, October 5, 2010 Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 2 Conclude, with 32 Electrician, at 52 Makes eyes at 1 Houlihan portrayer "up" times 53 Giraffe's in 5-Across 3 Castaway's place 33 Steer catcher trademark 5 Korean War 4 Shocking 35 The "m" in 54 Fed. workplace sitcom weapon E = mc' watchdog 9 Reading aids 5 Appliance brand 39 Broadway flier 55 Cookbookverb 14.. 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ADO 0 A NDSS I G N E X E football game in 25 Indian nobles B E N S T E I N I N R E D Arizona 26 Centipedevideo A T T S S P E E C H 34tPhysicsobit game creator JE L L YSHOES W HA T 36 Ending for absorb 27 "Cross my A VL! 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