Tina Fey cannot portray characters and she struggles with
basic narrative required for anything other than stand up. That's why
her only real success post SNL has been on awards show with Amy
Poehler. As a TV producer, she's not just a failure, she's an abject
failure. She doesn't know funny. That may stem from the
monologue-stand up issue. It may stem from the fact that as a writer
for SNL, she was working in front of a studio audience. Before SNL goes
live on Saturday nights, it does a run through.
This allows the writers to do some fine tuning on sketches and jokes that are not working.
30
ROCK was her first post-SNL project and it was a show that never found
an audience. Despite being a part of Must-See-TV most viewers didn't
feel it belonged on that night and avoided the show. Only two of the
138 episodes were viewed by at least 8 million people. Most episodes
were viewed by four million or less. Each season, the ratings got lower
as the season went along. By seasons six and seven, it wasn't uncommon
for only two million people to watch a first-run episode on NBC. Had
it aired on HBO, where an episode of GIRLS was sometimes lucky to get a
half a million viewers, that might have been okay but to air on the NBC
broadcast channel, no, that wasn't good.
We
were told the show would be huge in syndication. Apparently, viewers
who'd avoided it for years were going to take to it in syndication.
That was the premise and promise. It did not, however, actually take
place. Around the country, those who could afford to immediately dumped
the show while those local channels that couldn't afford to dump it
instead buried the episodes late, late at night. It bombed bigger in
syndication than it ever did on NBC.
Tina
doesn't know funny when it's supposed to spring from characters. She
doesn't know funny when it's a scene where characters communicate with
one another.
She's made that clear in one failed project after another. NBC no longer wants to even take meetings with her.
As
a producer, she's failed with one series after another. The closet
thing to a hit she's had was NETFLIX's UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT.
That
was not a funny show and it was actually offensive. That's not
surprising when you grasp that Tina Fey was raised a right winger. So
building a laugh-less 'comedy' around a woman being kidnapped? It's
right up her alley.
But,
again, NBC won't even take a meeting with her these days. Too many
failures -- which includes KIMMY, yes, but also includes THE KICKER,
GREAT NEWS, THE SAKKET SISTERS, MR. MAYOR, GIRLS 5EVA and MULLIGAN.
Her
film career didn't go too well either. BABY MAMA grossed $60 million
domestically which doubled its shooting budget. It wrongly led people
to believe Tina might become a movie star. DATE NIGHT paired her with Steve
Carell and it couldn't cross the hundred million mark domestically.
Sadly, that was her 'big' hit when it came to films. ADMISSIONS bombed
-- not even $20 million domestically, as did THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU
($34 million domestically), as did SISTERS ($87 million domestically
however, the budget was over $30 million), as did WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
(domestic ticket sales dropped to $21.4 million while the shooting
budget climbed to $33 million), WINE COUNTRY was so bad it was a NETFLIX
'original,' MAGGIE MOORE(S) died in theaters as did HAUNTING IN VENICE.
Grasp that these films teamed her up with Amy Poehler, Mark Wahlberg, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Jon Hamm, Jamie Dornan, Margot Robbie, Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Steve Carell and Taraji P. Henson -- among others -- and not once in these films that she starred in were ticket buyers tempted.
So the leading lady film career was a flop. And sadly so was her producer role she cast herself in.
THE
FOUR SEASONS is the latest project she's inflicted upon the American
public. They're calling it a mini-series and not a comedy. Let's
applaud their honesty on that at least.
On
30 ROCK, Tina worked with Alan Alda (he played Jack's father on the show --
despite looking nothing like Alec Baldwin). Alan Alda has a bit part in
THE FOUR SEASONS but that's not why we're bringing him up.
Alda
came to fame as a result of the TV show M*A*S*H. He wasn't that funny
(nor was the show, it's sad that Robert Altman's hilarious and
subversive film was churned out as generic GOMER PYLE garbage). Cast
opposite Jane Fonda in a film that also included Maggie Smith (who won
an Academy Award for the film), Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Walter
Matthau, Michael Caine and Elaine May, Alan got one hit for his
filmography. After years of one flop film after another, this hit
convinced Alda that he could be a movie star. Maybe he could've, we
doubt it, but if he could have been, he destroyed his chances by
mistaking himself for a writer and later a director.
He starred in (with Meryl Streep and Barbara Harris) and also wrote THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN. It flopped.
Next
came THE FOUR SEASONS and Alda added directing here. It wasn't a
blockbuster, it barely squeaked past 50 million and came in fifth for
the year while the number one film of the year, SUPERMAN, made $108
million. But it deluded Alda into thinking he was a great talent.
SWEET LIBERTY should have steered him away from that notion. One bad
performance after another (including his) with only the exceptions of
supporting players Bob Hoskins and Michelle Pfeiffer, this film that
brought in $14 million in ticket sales didn't even make back its
shooting budget. He starred in, directed and wrote the next film A NEW
LIFE. The studio cut back on the budget ($12 million) but that didn't
help the film turn a profit since it only made $7 million in domestic
ticket sales. He just acted in his next film -- Woody Allen's classic
CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS and, playing a snobby drip, he was quite
effective.
This
was the time to delve into being a character actor. But Alda was still
wrongly convinced that he could direct and write and star. He couldn't
do anything of the sort. He burned bridges with PARAMOUNT and
UNIVERSAL but DISNEY was stupid enough to hire him provided he cast per
their wishes. So he ended up with co-stars Madeline Kahn, Catherine
O'Hara, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald and Joe Pesci. They couldn't save
the lousy film, nothing could. It was so bad that Joe Pesci has
repeatedly refused to ever speak of this movie.
BETSY'S
WEDDING was so bad, it ended his writing and directing careers as well
as his chance of ever again being given the opportunity, as an actor,
to carry a film.
Alda
was a one note actor. Neil Simon's CALIFORNIA SUITE used him well.
Woody Allen's films used him well (especially MANHATTAN MURDER
MYSTERY). But Alda could not write like Allen or even Simon. He lacked
the humor. He could be funny when projecting bitter but that was
really it. As Alda tanked in one film after another, Steve Martin made
it look so easy in one film after another -- THE JERK, DEAD MEN DON'T
WEAR PLAID, THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS, ALL OF ME, THE THREE AMIGOS,
ROXANNE, PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS,
PARENTHOOD, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, HOUSESITTER, etc. They all turned a
profit. Some of the early ones turned a profit due to very low
budgets. But Steve was making films people wanted to see. LA STORY is
weak to us.
To us, it's
where Steve wants to become the West Coast Woody Allen. That's what
Alan tried at and failed in all four films he directed.
Bad rip-offs.
THE FOUR SEASONS was the worst of the worst.
And
you have to be -- and Tina Fey is -- a person lacking any sense of
culture or humor to think that yawn-fest was worth remaking.
The
Bechdel Test. We don't believe in that nonsense and have repeatedly
called it out here. Supposedly, a film or TV show is retrograde and
sexist if it doesn't have a scene where two women have a conversation
and the conversation is not about men.
We've called that nonsense out because some films are about nothing but relationships.
Why do we bring it up now?
Tina's FOUR SEASONS doesn't pass that test.
And
we find it so interesting that The Water Cooler Set wants to look the
other way on that. No one's written about it. No one's called Tina
out. They just look the other way.
Which
is how it hit us, Tina Fey is the Donald Chump of comedy. Like the
MAGA faithful that refuses to call out Chump for his hypocrisy, you've
got a lot of so-called critics who, to this day, refuse to note the
reality that Tina Fey has no clothes on.
THE
FOUR SEASONS film features three actress in lead roles. Rita Moreno
plays an ethnic cliche, Carol Burnett struggles (in Altman's THE WEDDING
and H*E*A*L*T*H she proved she could film comedy so we'll assume she
was sunk by Alda's bad and cheesy script) and Sandy Dennis the Method
actress who could make anything seem real. These three women, in Tina's
adaptation, become two women and a man. Rita's character has become a
White Italian gay man. Nothing's been done with the character. He's
not a lively character. He's not an interesting character. We'll be
kind and not name the actor because we suspect his performance is harmed
by Tina Fey. She created the adaptation, produced it, co-wrote one
episode and had the nerve to write another.
Tina's
the reason that two time Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo is
wasted in the role of Danny who's married to Claude (the Italian) -- in
the Alda version Danny was married to Rita's Claudia.
Will Forte's wasted playing the husband to Tina's character. Pretty much everyone is wasted.
Pretty much everyone?
Tina's
somehow becomes the main character. In the film, Carol portrayed her character.
And she wasn't the main character. It was an ensemble. Not with the
mini-series. Though no time is spent developing a real storyline for
Coleman Domingo, a huge storyline is created for Tina's character. In
fact, the character Tina plays is from another movie, a flop film from
2011 starring Sarah Jessica Parker: I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT.
We're supposed to be amazed by Tina's annoying character.
Sarah Jessica Parker can actually act and she couldn't bring that cliche alive.
Tina Fey has become a triple threat -- she's the nonperformer that can't act, can't write and can't produce.
The
last two are the most appalling when it comes to THE FOUR SEASONS
mini-series. She can't handle transitions and she can't handle
narrative. So she and the editors use music repeatedly to try to make
it appear that the scenes flow. They don't flow. THE FOUR SEASONS
could have left out the music and instead recorded the yawns the scenes
create and used that as 'transition' and it still wouldn't have worked.
It's
tempting to just blame the source material because THE FOUR SEASONS
made for a very bad film. But grasp that even that hideous film was
better than what Tina's churned out.
Need an example?
What's
supposed to pass for an exciting and presumably satisfying ending in
the mini-series takes place on the ice. Kate and Jack have wandered on
the ice in winter. No one can save them from the ice possibly
cracking. Will Forte, as her husband Jack, gets Tina's Kate to drop
down to the ice and for them to roll themselves towards the shore. They
make it and celebrate. And we're supposed to celebrate with them. But
we don't because the scene's poorly lit (not as poorly lit as the ones
that make Tina Fey's neck and chin repulsive in side view) and because
it's a cheat. Since Lillian Gish starred in 1920's WAY DOWN EAST, film
audiences have been conditioned for the ice to crack. Not only is that
the case in WAY DOWN EAST all the way through the latest James Bond NO
TIME TO DIE, but, grasp this, it was also true in Alda's FOUR SEASONS.
That's right the one dramatic and cinematic moment from Alda's film is stripped from the mini-series. Wait, it gets worse.
The
scene also makes no sense. That's because in Alda's film it didn't
have to do with the Tina character (played by Carol Burnett) or with her
husband. In Alda's film, the young character Ginny (who steals Sandy
Dennis husband away from her) is the one on the ice. Danny (Coleman
Domingo's character in the mini-series) is the one who finds her but
he's also the one who the ice breaks under. Ginny goes to alert the
others, they grab Danny's car and go off to rescue him. The car falls
through the ice but they rescue Danny.
Time
and again, Tina throws scenes to herself. Scenes that didn't mean much
in the original but at least made sense in terms of character and plot.
Need another example? Ginny.
Ginny was a full character in the film. She even ended up married to Nick and pregnant with their child.
Though
Ginny in the mini-series is 32, Erika Henningsen is playing a character
Tina has conceived as an airhead between the ages of 18 and 21.
Tina's
attacking younger people with the rewrite on Ginny. Ginny's made into a fool. She
has no sense of humor. She can only eat and drink certain things
(mushroom coffee being only one example). She does not get married to
Nick or get pregnant because Tina couldn't go to town on her the way she
does if the character warranted any sympathy. Even when picking out
photos for Nick's memorial (Nick doesn't die in the film, he and Ginny
are both integrated into gatherings with the others by film's end),
Tina's Ginny is just an airhead who doesn't realize what's good taste
and what's not and whether or not a photo of now dead Nick sporting a boner in
his pants might offend.
It's a hatefully written character and that falls on Tina Fey.
Again,
THE FOUR SEASONS, the 1981 film, was not seen by many people. But it
clearly was not seen by the critics rushing to glorify the damage Tina
Fey has inflicted upon her source material.
Vanity
is not just Barbra Streisand or Kevin Costner needing butt scenes in
their films (THE MAIN EVENT, REVENGE, DANCES WITH WOLVES, etc). Vanity
is also Tina Fey turning a 107 minute film into a mini-series twice as
long and stealing every strong scene for her own character.
Vanity is also Tina Fey not grasping that she doesn't have the skill or talent to pull it off.
