22 replies to this topic

[SDG]

and see my tevision debut.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Congrats. FWIW, I did my first TV stint (not counting a news story on a computer fair that I starred in when I was 14 -- I still have it on VHS) just last Tuesday, when someone at NowTV called me and asked if I'd want to come on one of their shows as a guest to talk about film. It's been un-nerving, how many people at work and elsewhere have said they saw me on that show (most of them while channel-surfing, I think -- I would have been REALLY surprised if some of these people were regular NowTV watchers).

[MattPage]

Hey congratulations you guys.

Hope it goes well tonight Steven


Matt

[Thom]

Here's to you!!

I've got that channel and I will be clicking on it around 8pm.

[M. Dale Prins]

Do you think my local sports bar will turn to the Eternal Word Television Network at 8:00 if I ask them very, very nicely? Because some of us do not have cable, let alone the gonzo plans that one needeth sign up for in order to watch EWTN.

Now SDG-dude, is that the same Catholic network that has on the kid's show "Angel Force"? That is the funniest children's show in the history of children's programming, albeit unintentionally humorous.

Dale

[M. Dale Prins]

Of course, for those who really love SDG, you can pre-order his programme.

Dale

[Christian]

[quote]

I'm at my parents' place, and they do have cable, so I have access to the program, but...
[quote]
• if you are free Monday night, 10/27, at 8:00 pm ET, or if you can tape it,
• [/quote]
  
  The wife and I are planning on having my mom watch the baby while we head out to the Cinema and Drafthouse to catch a long-awaited screening of "Pirates of the Caribbean." Gotta see what you all have been raving about.
  
  I won't be able to tape the program. Do you know if EWTM reruns the program? I would love to see it!
  
  [quote]if you are curious to see and hear moi live, and
• if you can stand listening to a hardcore Catholic talk for an hour about why he poped and what's wrong with Protestantism[/quote]
  
  Suddenly, I'm not so inclined to watch.
  Just kidding, SDG. You had me at "Mother Angelica"...
  
  
  [quote] as well as why he loves movies and writing about them, including 20 minutes of live call-in,
  
  
  Hey, is this the same EWTN program I used to catch occasionally in college, where some guy with a beard and glasses would field viewer calls about Catholicism? It was aimed at a young-adult audience, I believe -- teens to twenty-somethings. I think it aired Thursday nights, but I can't recall. Don't know if it's still on, or if the same guy fields the phone calls.
  
  You'll be interested to know that his apologetic responses to tough Protestant callers served only to affirm my Protestant convictions. But I thought it admirable that the guy fielded serious questions and didn't duck 'em.
  

[Ron Reed]

Quote

Congrats. FWIW, I did my first TV stint (not counting a news story on a computer fair that I starred in when I was 14 -- I still have it on VHS) just last Tuesday....

Carole saw you, said you did great! Wish she'd taped it.

We had to grin. I've said a few different times that you and I should approach NOW about doing a Siskel-and-Ebert style tag team thing - we'd have all that tendency to see things differently that S&E did so well, but a mutual respect that could make it work. Looks like they beat my idea to the punch.

Congrats! And same to SDG - one of the few occasions I've wished we had a billion channels.

[SDG]

Well, I'm back from Alabama... and as you might expect I've got a million emails in my inbox. I'll be back as soon as I can...

[Peter T Chattaway]

Ron wrote:
: Wish she'd taped it.

I believe my girlfriend's mother has a copy. I'm a little too scared to watch it myself, but I probably will, at some point.

: I've said a few different times that you and I should approach NOW
: about doing a Siskel-and-Ebert style tag team thing - we'd have all that
: tendency to see things differently that S&E did so well, but a mutual
: respect that could make it work.

[ blink ]

To quote Hayley Mills in The Trouble with Angels, What a scathingly brilliant idea.

You wanna?

[Ron Reed]

QUOTE

I believe my girlfriend's mother has a copy.  I'm a little too scared to watch it myself, but I probably will, at some point.

My sincere recommendation is that you don't. As an actor, I've taken my cue from Katharine Hepburn, who from a certain point in her career never looked at rushes, never watched her movies. Just like almost no-one can stand to hear their voice on tape - even though it sounds perfectly fine to everyone else on the planet - so too the experience of viewing oneself on videotape is an unsettling, mostly destructive practice. Multiplied by ten.

The real danger is that it breeds self-consciousness. And self-consciousness is exactly what you DON'T want onstage, or in front of a camera.

QUOTE

: I've said a few different times that you and I should approach NOW : about doing a Siskel-and-Ebert style tag team thing - we'd have all that : tendency to see things differently that S&E did so well, but a mutual : respect that could make it work. [ blink ] To quote Hayley Mills in The Trouble with Angels, What a scathingly brilliant idea.  You wanna?

I'd be totally keen to give it a shot! Do you know someone at the station we could approach with the idea? Email me off-list and we can make plans to talk together and make a strategy.

What fun this could be!

[Peter T Chattaway]

Ron wrote:
: My sincere recommendation is that you don't.

Thanks. I know I've never bothered to record any of my radio appearances, so I'll probably follow the same policy with regard to TV.

: I'd be totally keen to give it a shot! Do you know someone at the station
: we could approach with the idea?

Not sure. I know the name of the producer of the one show I appeared on, but that's it.

One possible snag, though, does occur to me -- if we were going to review CURRENT movies, then we'd both have to keep up with them; and as it stands, I suspect you're often rather busy with your plays and things, while I often let my current-movie attendance slide so that I can catch the occasional series at the Cinematheque etc. (e.g., thanks in part to Kaurismaki and Massingham, I haven't seen ANY of this weekend's top four movies, three of which actually opened at least a week ago).

Still, I'm sure we could work something out. I'll e-mail you off-list!

[SDG]

Thanks, Gregory! Yes, I felt the pinch of time acutely - There was so much I had hoped and planned to say that I didn't remotely begin to get to. The one thing I most regret is that after talking about the hard line against Catholic teaching that my Calvinist pastor father raised me with, I never got around to saying that he, too, had become Catholic... or that my mother and sister were on their way into the Church too.

I would also have liked to talk a bit about our post-Philadelphia life and where we are now... and give more credit to my wife Suzanne, homeschooling mother of four, without whose unflagging support I couldn't begin to do what I do.

My own EWTN show? Ha! That would be awesome! Maybe someday... For now, what it looks like I am going to be doing is a monthly three-minute phone-in segment on another EWTN show, "Life on the Rock," aimed at teens and twentysomethings. The host, Fr. Francis Mary, is a fellow alum of St. Charles Seminary, and I had a chance to meet him while I was down there, and it turned out that he'd actually been looking for someone to comment on movies, so there you are. My first appearance should be in December.

[Christian]

QUOTE

For now, what it looks like I am going to be doing is a monthly three-minute phone-in segment on another EWTN show, \"Life on the Rock,\" aimed at teens and twentysomethings. The host, Fr. Francis Mary, is a fellow alum of St. Charles Seminary, and I had a chance to meet him while I was down there, and it turned out that he'd actually been looking for someone to comment on movies, so there you are.

Is this the same show I mentioned above, SDG?

[M. Dale Prins]

: I guess I was the only one to catch this program.

I believe my brother recorded it for me, so I'll probably watch it sometime after I visit him at Christmas.

Also, regarding discussion about members wanting their own television shows, you all are missing the forest for the trees. To wit:



I will have a weekly show that broadcasts my short films, SDG will have a weekly show that discusses film from a orthodox Catholic perspective, Ron and Peter will their Siskel and Ebert, and, um, we'll fill in the rest of the time each week with 160 hours of coral calcium infomercials.

Dale

[Ron Reed]

QUOTE

I will have a weekly show that broadcasts my short films, SDG will have a weekly show that discusses film from a orthodox Catholic perspective, Ron and Peter will their Siskel and Ebert, and, um, we'll fill in the rest of the time each week with 160 hours of coral calcium infomercials.

Sign me up!

[SDG]

EWTN has invited me back, and this time the topic is not why be Catholic and not Protestant or Orthodox, but The Passion of the Christ. Tune in to "Life on the Rock" this Thursday for my TV film commentary debut!

[M. Dale Prins]

Re-reading this thread reminds me that my brother still has that original show recorded for me, and I still need to ask him to send it my way.

Dale

[SDG]

So, um, guess no one caught the show last night?

It went reasonably well, I thought. I would have liked to get a bit more in-depth than I was able to, but that's the breaks. After years of fielding call-in questions on radio and one other TV appearance, I was a bit surprised at how, um, unchallenging the phone calls (and emails) generally were -- in fact only one was really an actual question, which made responding to some of the others a bit difficult. Still and all, it went reasonably well.

My trip home today, however, was an unmitigated disaster. I was up at 4:00 am, at Birmingham Airport at 4:30, and then discovered that my 5:30 flight had been flat-out canceled. The next flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30, but it was delayed a half hour. Then my connecting flight in Atlanta was delayed another half hour. By the time I got back home to Newark Airport, I was two hours late.

And THEN at Newark the parking lot attendant couldn't figure out where my car, and I was wandering through this vast desert of cars, suitcase in hand, searching aimlessly... and THEN when I finally got my car and got away from the airport, free at last, free at last, I tried so hard to follow the signs for the NJ Turnpike, but somehow wound up on the NJ Turnpike EXTENSION, which I swear there were no signs warning me about THAT, and I wound up in Jersey City before realizing my error... so in the end I was THREE hours late getting to work. My nerves aren't yet finished jangling.