Kurt Sutter on Show Running

For anyone interested, this is a post from Kurt Sutter's blog, SutterInk.

Kurt Sutter is the creator of Sons of Anarchy. He also wrote for The Shield. If you haven't seen either of these shows, I implore you to rent - hell! BUY THEM! - at your earliest convenience. The Shield is done (still, watch it!), but Sons of Anarchy is on the rise. And Sons of Anarchy was my true wake-up call as far as not being a dick - err, refusing to watch a show that didn't involve superheroes, Homer Simpson or polar bears.  However, now is not the time to pontificate on what I call Serial Awesomeness.

The following link is Kurt Sutter's blog on the differences between creating a show and actually running it day-to-day. As far as I know, no show runner has ever written something like this.

I figured this would be interesting for anyone reading this blog. Enjoy!

THE SHOW MUST BE RUN.

- Nick

Hopefully Awesome/ Probably Awful (Vol. One)

One of the features I came up with for the blog is...

HOPEFULLY AWESOME/PROBABLY AWFUL.

I know, I know. It's marvelously clever.

Every three months I'll do a quick rundown of - you guessed it! - upcoming flicks that I look like they could be pretty darn good. I'll also run down a list of flicks that looks to be awful. It's all in fun, though, so no worries; I'll make it short and fun.

Like sex with me.

I will break my own rules for this first entry, however, so that I may drop some knowledge on you clowns. Here's trailer for Kick-Ass. Based on Mark Millar's comic book series of the same name, followed by the first few pages (to compare to the trailer, because Matthew Vaughn seems to have done a KICK-ASS job with adapting the story. HAHAHAHA LOLOLOL LOZ LOLZ! I went and did it!! LOLZ I am tooooo much, aren't I?

Kick-Ass

First pages of KICK-ASS #1 (Published by Marvel Entertainment, Inc.)

 

we shoot horses

From the song "Summer Holidays vs. Punk Routine" by Refused

we're all tired of dying/ so sick of not trying

scared that we might fail/ we'll accomplish nothing...

rather be forgotten/ than remembered for/ giving in

From Horace McCoy's novel They Shoot Horses, Don't They?:

For a moment I saw Gloria again, sitting on that bench on the pier. The bullet had just struck her in the side of the head; the blood had not even started to flow. The flash from the pistol still lighted her face. Everything was as plain as day.

The Prosecuting Attorney was wrong when he told the jury she died in agony, friendless, alone except for her brutal murderer, out there in that black night of the Pacific. He was as wrong as a man can be. She was relaxed and comfortable and she was smiling. It was the first time I had ever seen her smile.

I was her very best friend. I was her only friend. So how could she have been friendless?

It was funny the way I met Gloria....

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And it was funny the way this came to be.

This blog was intended to be a joke. In August of last year, Andy Craven and I decided it would be fun to make video blogs poking fun at the people we thought took films and comics too seriously.

That is, neither of us really got why some folks would get so worked up when some actor was cast as whatever superhero. We didn't get it when people would get so worked up about a certain movie being re-made or a certain comic book was being adapted as a feature film. We just didn't get it.

We wrote one blog before coming to the realization that not only would such a blog be useless and funny only to those involved, it was insanely anti-productive. We would be on the same path as the lovely Gloria Beatty.

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As Gloria says in Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They, "You're goddam right I'm jealous. As long as I am a failure I'm jealous of anybody who's a success. Aren't you?"

We all know how Gloria's story ends. Her negativity gives way to nothing but negativity, dark thoughts lead only to darker thoughts and, well, the dark thoughts of which we speak lead only to despair, degradation and death.

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There's a bit of dialogue in McCoy's novel that is unnerving, yet true to thoughts I (Nick) have had in years past.

"I wish I was dead," she said. "I wish God would strike me dead....I wish He would...I wish I had the guts to do it for him."

And so, we come back to that despair. We come back to Death. Yes. Death that, while most often existential can become - given the right circumstances - physical death.

We will not give up as Gloria had. We will not give in as Robert did. If we are writing our own novels with each passing day (cheesy and cliche as it may be), then we refuse to give up. We refuse to give in.

Gloria gave in and so did Robert.

As morbid as McCoy's novel is, its message is clear: when we give up, life is lost. And if you give up -- HELL! You don't even have to die a terrible physical death! When you give up on dreams, you give up on yourself. And when you give up on yourself?

You might as well just roll over and die.

We shoot horses, but those horses are deadly.

"rather be forgotten than remembered for giving in"

Nicholas Colevas

November 24, 2009