439 posts tagged “usa”

I had a moan about this yesterday on Twitter and Facebook, but seeing another ad for Leverage on the NZ City site brings it all back. Prime is promoting this TNT show a lot, but just as with TV One and Jekyll, they miss the fact that lead actress Gina Bellman is a Kiwi. Come on, folks, how about a bit of national pride? Our Gina is doing well!

The largest car maker in the land was effectively nationalized. It then killed more brands and product lines, even ones that could have survived.
   Chrysler, hanging on to unloved mainstream sedans such as the Avenger, was in a deep crisis and needed a European manufacturer to take over its operations.
   Ford, resisting the urge to go cap in hand to the government, stayed its course and solidified its market share, despite its own union troubles. It managed to shore things up and grow from there.
   USA 2009? No, UK in the 1970s.
   This is not a political post—it’s just pointing out how history repeats itself. I also have a funny feeling the US scenario will play out the same way as the UK one did.
   British Leyland was broken up further and its “volume” operations—despite making fewer cars than London Taxis International—are owned by the Chinese state.
   Chrysler UK no longer exists. Its plants wound up making Peugeots.
   Ford UK might not be as strong today as in the 1980s, but it still has a good market share.

I’m having a hard time envisaging the New Zealand version of The Apprentice.
   I rather like the UK version of the show (above). Sir Alan Sugar gives a very different style to Donald Trump, and I hope we Kiwis will give our own take.
   The issue I have with the American edition is that the tasks are somewhere between seventh form and first-year uni in terms of complexity, yet egomaniacs who are not used to getting on with one another fail dismally at them. (This is me generalizing and I specifically exclude at least one friend who has been on this show. And I imagine I have just stated the formula behind the programmes.) All these years, I felt smug about how much better Kiwis—who celebrate teamwork more than individuality—would do given the tasks.
   Now my fears are coming to the surface for one reason: what if we suck just as badly? What if the folks who go on the show are picked because of some level of narcissism and the esprit de corps that Kiwis have as a default behaviour takes a back seat? And then, to make it worse, first-year B-school students think that being an uncooperative moron is de rigueur in the business world?
   And providing these guys are not hired for more than 90 days, I suppose the Kiwi Don will be able to say, ‘You’re fired,’ instead of, ‘We need to go into a consultation regarding your dismissal while you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Employment Tribunal,’ or whatever crap we are supposed to say as bosses.
   So, who will be our Donald? Thérèsa Gattung? C. Rankin? My former economics’ classmate Sir Bob Jones?
   My friend David suggested that Rob Muldoon, if he were not dead, would have been perfect for the role.
   We effectively need a rich guy who is cutting, and chances are the producers will want a white male as well. When I go through the potentials in my mind, there’s not a single person I am afraid of, or think, ‘I would feel intimidated in a meeting with him.’
   One of the few rich guys I admire in this country is Peter Jackson, but I can’t see him being enough of an ass to front this sort of show.
   Any former All Blacks at the top of the financial tree who could at least intimidate a few young Kiwis? Someone who can deliver some politically incorrect comments (which comes back to Sir Bob)? Or a big McDonald’s franchise holder who can assign losers to work on the chips with the phrase, ‘You’re fried’?

This post was cross-posted, if you prefer not to sign up to Vox to comment.

Oh well, I just lost the entire post, because of a Firefox bug. Holden might export its Statesman to the US as a Chevy Caprice. I’ve no patience to retype the whole history, sorry.

For the record, I did not start a discussion on Flash Forward because ABC is advertising it on the Lucire site:

Though it is pretty cool that the ad is there. I never saw it last week, though I did happen across ads for other TV shows from this network.

Here’s an interview for the new ABC show, Flash Forward (yes, not being silly this time) with two of the leads, Sonya Walger and Joseph Fiennes. They, and Jack Davenport, are all Brits. While Davenport plays a Brit in the show, Walger and Fiennes play Americans and adopt pretty convincing American accents (Walger in particular, sounds “more American” to me). But here they are speaking in their normal voices.

I am not up with the play but I understand German actor Dominic Monaghan (Berlin-born and raised) has joined the cast.
   In this globalized world, nationality counts for less and less when it comes to arts and commerce.

Regardless of one’s politics, I thought this was a very good loop of the speech from Patton. Sounds like how I remembered George C. Scott (the real Gen Patton sounded quite different).

I take it that this American Flash Forward TV show is not the one everybody is talking about these days:

I was going to get an early night, but really couldn’t let the day pass without writing an editorial about 9-11. I remember going to bed in the small hours of September 12 (NZST) thinking that nothing was happening. Was I ever wrong. By 6 a.m., a friend had already called me to tell me what had happened in New York and the Pentagon.
   I put it up at Lucire, since most of (our) September 12, 2001 revolved around fashion, both at New York Fashion Week and the Wellington Fashion Festival. Your thoughts on the piece are welcome.

One more remake. French Law & Order: Criminal Intent, or Paris Enquêtes Criminelles. I didn’t even want to watch the original sans Alicia Witt.

But maybe watching it in French might be rather good, especially the location shooting. On doit le penser.