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Written by: Lake County News Reports

Published: 05 August 2008

Created: 02 August 2008

Last Updated: 02 August 2008

Can you identify countries like Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu, much less locate them on a map? The International Olympic Committee lists them among a record 205 member nations recognized for competition at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, coming to you soon by way of NBC Universal and its many networks.

I always thought some of these obscure nations had little value beyond creating some nice postage stamps for philatelists to enjoy, but they are sending athletes into competition. Now is the time to brush up on geography.

Speaking by way of satellite to a gathering of the nation’s TV critics recently, Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, announced that he’s “awed by the enormity of what’s going on” in Beijing, particularly because the NBC family will provide a record 3,600 hours of coverage, at least 2,900 hours of it live.

Considering that NBC paid $894 million for the rights fee for broadcast coverage in the United States, one would hope that Ebersol is enthusiastic about the 17 days and nights of what he calls “unscripted drama.”

You may ask how NBC can provide 3,600 hours of coverage. It’s a fair question in light of the fact that it would take 90 weeks at a regular 9 to 5 job to watch everything. I don’t think I can spare that much time, but it works for NBC Universal, because they will run coverage on NBC, USA, CNBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.

Of course, NBC’s primetime coverage will focus on the prime traditional sports of swimming, diving, gymnastics and beach volleyball, with Bob Costas again acting as the primetime host. I am not kidding about this, but even the Oxygen network will carry nightly programming on gymnastics, plus synchronized swimming and the equestrian category. Only the Sci-Fi Channel is not getting into the act.

Even with more than a half-dozen networks and cable outlets, NBC Universal doesn’t have enough hours in the day to become the most ambitious single media project in history. So this is where NBCOlympics.com comes into the picture, providing additional competition footage but also being the venue for more information about the schedules, listings, news and biographies of the athletes. This Internet destination will take every sport and offer it on-demand, while also offering the best of daily TV coverage as encores.

There is a 12-hour time difference between Beijing and New York. As you know, in the media world, New York is the center of the universe, so the folks at NBC somehow finagled commitments from the International Olympic Committee to secure certain finals at 9 or 10 in the morning in China so that they would go on primetime live in New York. Ebersol told the TV critics that prime coverage would be live on the East Coast and in the Central time zone, leaving the rest of us out here on the left coast to get our Olympics on a time delay.

“Historically, we have always shown the Olympics on tape on the West Coast,” said Ebersol, noting that roughly 81 to 82 percent of all households in the United States are in the Central and Eastern time zones.

California may be the largest state in the union (we have the electoral votes to prove it), but we don’t matter as much to the network bigwigs. Actually, they are taking us for granted, because as Ebersol noted, people on the West Coast “love sports so much, and they know when they want to watch it, and that’s in primetime.” After extensive research, he figured out most of us are employed and can’t get home in time to watch something at 4 o’clock.

The NBC executives obviously have high hopes for the Beijing Olympics. Noting that the Chinese were second to the Americans on the gold medal chart in Athens in 2004, NBC host Bob Costas told the TV critics that “when Yao Ming leads the Chinese (basketball) team against the Americans in their very first game in the second day of competition of the Olympics, this is going to be like a Super Bowl atmosphere.” Sensing that he might be succumbing to hype that often afflicts sports announcers, Costas followed up by saying “that is not an overstatement.”

On the other hand, Ebersol seems to have picked up the hyperbolic fever. He thinks the Chinese curiosity about the Games is not just about sports. “China’s new to the world in terms of any level of openness,” he claims, and then goes on to say that in the seven years NBC has been in business with Chinese he “clearly sees change.”

Ironically, an AP news report claims the Chinese are backtracking on a promise of open press coverage, and that they have placed blocks on Internet sites in the Main Press Center and venues where reporters will work. Hoping or thinking change is afoot in China is one thing, but it’s a hard notion to sell in a repressive society.

Politics aside, let’s hope we can share Bob Costas’ belief and fervent wish that the opening ceremonies, based on what he has been told by people privileged to have seen the early plans, will be “uber-spectacular.” Curiosity will probably take hold of me on Aug. 8.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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Details

Written by: Lake County News Reports

Published: 02 August 2008

Created: 02 August 2008

Last Updated: 02 August 2008

SWING VOTE (Rated PG-13)

If anything, Kevin Costner, as the star and co-producer, picked the right time for a comedy about politics where the future of the nation hangs in the balance, based on the vote of one guy intellectually unqualified to cast a vote in any election, let alone that for our nation’s next president.

“Swing Vote,” resurrecting the spirit of Frank Capra, works up a mild satire of our electoral system, where an ordinary man is called upon to display the kind of wisdom and thoughtfulness he has never possessed in his life.

Thankfully, the politics is fictional, even though the battle for the presidency comes down to a tight match between Republican incumbent President Andrew Boone (Kelsey Grammer) and Democratic challenger Donald Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper).

Seeking a relatively evenhanded approach to political persuasions, both candidates are solid if unremarkable as candidates. All the nasty stuff is left to their overheated campaign managers, both of whom are the epitome of sharks in search of the next political kill.

On the Democratic side, it’s Art Crumb (Nathan Lane), an operative desperate to win at all costs since his track record has been a losing one. Republican Martin Fox (Stanley Tucci) is the caricature of a slick campaign manager.

In the dust-blown small town of Texico, New Mexico, Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) is an apathetic, beer-slinging, lovable loser coasting through life. Unreliable and incompetent, Bud can’t even hang on to his miserable job on the assembly line at the egg factory.

The one bright spot in his life is his precocious, overachieving 12-year-old daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll, stealing every scene in the movie). Surprisingly civic-minded, Molly pesters her indifferent father to vote in the presidential election. Of course, he promises her to show up at the polling place at the end of the day.

Leaving the local tavern that evening, Bud passes out in his truck, and the disheartened Molly takes it upon herself to attempt to vote in his place. A strange set of circumstances causes the voting machine to freeze before Bud’s vote is counted. Ordinarily, this would matter little, but the presidential election comes down to a dead heat, where New Mexico’s five electoral votes will make the difference.

Even more extraordinary is that the results in New Mexico are deadlocked in a very improbable tie. This causes election officials to determine that Bud’s vote must be recast in order to break the logjam.

The interesting thing about New Mexico is that in 2000 Al Gore beat George W. Bush by a scant 366 votes for the five electoral votes, the closest tally of any state. So maybe this deadlock in “Swing Vote” is not so far off the mark.

In any case, Bud’s identity as the deciding voter is soon compromised. One of the funniest things is when the media descends on the small town in droves, taking up a vigil outside Bud’s trailer park home and yelling questions at him as if he were Tom Cruise on the red carpet at a movie premiere.

Since Bud has 10 days in which to cast his ballot, the candidates, political advocacy groups and the media hordes blanket the New Mexico town in a flurry of activity. Some of the funny political stuff is when the candidates start pitching messages at Bud in attempt to curry favor, even if it means tossing aside core principles.

For all of the media frenzy and political posturing, “Swing Vote” really comes down to the shaky relationship between Bud and Molly, and everything else is just wrapped into a number of subplots.

More than anything, the disillusioned Molly wants her father to become a responsible citizen and participant in civic affairs. Of course, she loves him dearly, in spite of his many faults, and wants to protect him from the predatory schemers.

Madeline Carroll’s Molly is something like Tatum O’Neal’s precocious little girl in “Paper Moon,” though not a cynical con artist. Molly’s cynicism is reserved for those who would take advantage of her father, including local TV reporter Kate Madison (Paula Patton), who’s just too eager to score a big-time network news job.

“Swing Vote” alternately mocks the political system and seeks to impart the significance of a single vote, even if the decision is in the hands of a complete nincompoop. Humor is mined from the political pandering of the candidates and the bluster and bravado of blowhard pundits (with real-life ones like Chris Matthews and James Carville pontificating on the fictional election). But the best moments of “Swing Vote” are between Molly and Bud, the way it should be.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

I was thinking of tacking on a new DVD release with a political theme. “The Executioner’s Song: Director’s Cut,” shining a spotlight on the revival of capital punishment in the late 1970s may be the best, if only, bet.

Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Norman Mailer, “The Executioner’s Song” stars Tommy Lee Jones in an Emmy Award-winning performance as the first person in the United Sates to be executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.

It’s based on the real-life story of Gary Gilmore, beginning with his release from prison, soon after which he embarked on a crime spree resulting in two murders.

After a widely publicized trial in which he was sentenced to death, Gilmore refused all appeals and was executed in 1977 by a firing squad.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

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