Monday, March 08, 2010

The Dan Brown Effect

The Toronto drunks have a very smart friend - Jude. I was talking to Jude about how slimy I feel watching Spartacus; Sand and Blood. It's not the sex, or the graphic novel blood splatter. It's how bad it is in almost every single aspect of storytelling. There is not an original character, the dialogue is ridiculous. The acting...oh, dear god, the acting. This was clearly cast on a willingness to be naked and how good everyone looked being naked.

And yet - I wasted an entire nap time watching back to back episodes of this garbage. Guilty pleasure doesn't begin to explain my complicated relationship with this crappy show.

And Jude, the sage, nodded her head and said "it's the Dan Brown Effect."

Dan Brown, for all his millions, wrote a great story but a terrible book. He got the blood pumping through a fabulous and intriguing idea and he kept the adrenaline up with cliff hangers and reversals and reveals. The terrible dialogue and 2-d characters bothered me - they bothered all of us, but not enough to put down the book.

THis is exactly what Spartacus is doing.

Suddenly - idea and plot are enough to make something successful. I know not everything can be Mad Men and I don't want it to be, but honestly, Spartacus is killing me.

Have you guys been watching Spartacus? What do you think?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is the ultimate guilty pleasure, and I do feel guilty while watching it, and yet I still continue to watch.
I have no excuses, except it's fun to try and understand exactly how the gladiator trainer got that eight? pack....

Eileen said...

I haven't watched it although I adore Lucy Lawless from back in her Xena days. I think it might be on a channel I don't get. I do understand what you mean, though. We all need a little of that in our lives, don't we? It's even a little comforting. We can't live on organic vegetables and locally grown hormone free meat all the time. Sometimes you need a fluffernutter sandwich just to mix things up.

Anonymous said...

There is a lot of fluffernutter in Spartacus... So much...

Molly O'Keefe said...

No - gon't get me wrong - I love fluffernutter, but this is somehow worse and I don't even think I can call it a guilty pleasure -- agio;ty pleasure is something I can defend - I can't defend this. I worry I'm watching it for the male full frontal...

Eileen said...

Worse than fluffernutter? I don't believe you.

BTW, I think posts that contain both "fluffernutter" and "full male frontal" are exactly why I am so happy to be part of this enterprise.

Alli Sinclair said...

You're missing your naptimes for this? And your friend Jude is spot on about Dan Brown.

And this Aussie had to Google fluffernutter. Hmmmm..... yum!

"BTW, I think posts that contain both "fluffernutter" and "full male frontal" are exactly why I am so happy to be part of this enterprise."

That's why I keep coming back to this blog!

Maureen McGowan said...

I watched the first episode and wasn't compelled to watch any more... and kept meaning to ask Sinead what she thought, because I knew she was excited about it before it started.

LOL about the fluffernutter and full frontal.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...