Word: meg
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...desire to escape into the past after Sept. 11. The networks are looking to capitalize on this trend with new comedies and dramas that look back to the Kennedy and Reagan eras. On NBC's drama American Dreams (Sundays, 8 p.m. E.T.), set in 1963 Philadelphia, 15-year-old Meg Pryor (Brittany Snow) achieves her dream of dancing on American Bandstand. Fox's Oliver Beene (coming this winter) takes a comedic look at the same era. Two forthcoming shows set in the '80s are a strange manifestation of TV's collective unconscious. In both ABC's drama That Was Then...
Dreams, on the other hand, is old-school nostalgia: a misty-lens look at the past that shows how the '60s' social change roiled one blue-collar family: Mom is dissatisfied; Dad feels the patriarchy slipping away; daughter Meg is seduced by the forbidden libidinal beat of Motown. The Bandstand story line, with archival footage courtesy of co-producer Dick Clark, provides a baby-boomer-friendly sound track. (On TV, American history is the history of TV.) Plots about feminism and civil rights flatter us about how far we have come. And the blue-collar, Catholic setting is free...
...meets girl, boy loses...oh, boring. whatever postmodernism means, yesteryear's romantic conventions are not included in the definition. Actually, of course, they still make old-fashioned romances for a gushing public--love ya, Julia and Meg. But for those who want something kickier--even kinkier--and don't mind the occasional subtitle, here are three films that cater to slightly more perverse or, anyway, more darkly romantic tastes...
...characters in the current thriller trio get where they're going by tapping into who they've been. Foster's Meg Altman is a mom; her mission is to defend her diabetic child. Judd's Claire Kubik in High Crimes is a lawyer; she needs all her skills of persuasion and stubbornness to fight what looks like a military conspiracy...
...thriller, she struggles with this belabored script, posturing, grimacing and trembling through each scene in an attempt to convince the audience of the horror of her situation. Yet, in order to recreate herself as a believably unlikely heroine, Foster applies an air of uncertainty to the character of Meg, attempting to portray a normal woman who is pushed to courageous limits by exceptional circumstances. Unfortunately, the resulting combination of hyperactive anxiety and vacillation results in a character who puts audience members on the edges of their seats not in terror, but in irritation. One is too busy being annoyed...