Dear Jenny,
Did you watch Dirt last night? I saw most of it. Was it really long? It seemed like it was still going strong well after the hour-mark. Did you notice that? Anyway, what did you think?
I had read a lot about how disappointing it was, so my expectations were pretty low. What I found disappointing was not so much the humorlessness as the toothlessness. The show presents gossip flaks and paparazzi as parasites on Hollywood, which I just don't see. It seems like what's really going on is that the rags are so intrinsic to the business of celebrity now that it's hard to tell which is the real product of Hollywood and which the byproduct. Dirt's model of an adversarial relationship between celebrities and "journalists" is patently ridiculous.
Also disappointing were the performances. Courteney Cox in particular seems awfully limited. She's kind of OK when she's playing flinty, which is most of the time, but when she has to appear vulnerable, such as in the much- and justly-maligned Proust scene, she's painful*. Laura Allen, whom I remember as the second, shitty Laura Kirk on All My Children, is still very screechy. (Casting agents seem to like her -- she was on The 4400, too.) Ian Hart is really good, but appears to be in an entirely different show.
What did you think?
-- Peter
*And she mispronounces madeleine. Not kidding.
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