Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 November 3

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November 3

Colbert report

Is there a French equivalent or similar programme to the Colbert report political satire? I'd prefer it be no more vulgar than the Report if possible, and generally staying relatively on topic (i.e., not like a regular comedy always deviating to talk about random stuff). Thanks/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 00:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

France French or Quebec French? Quebec has (or had) Le Fric Show and La Fin du monde est à 7 heures, which are kind of like This Hour Has 22 Minutes, as much as they are like anything at all. They and 22 Minutes are not quite the same as Colbert Report though. I don't think we have anything like that in Canada, English or French. (I have no idea about France.) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Never seen them, but Les Guignols de l'info appears to be a sort of claymation version of The Daily Show, that is news satire. I've tried exploring the French Wikipedia to answer this for you, but its categorization scheme is less rigourous than the English one; all of its TV series are categorized solely by decade when they debuted, without regard for subject matter. That makes it quite hard to identify possible other shows. --Jayron32 06:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Infoman is another satirical French-Canadian news show. --Xuxl (talk) 14:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Nowhere Boy - OK for 13-year-old?

My 13-year-old daughter wants to see the movie Nowhere Boy and I'd like to take her. We have a chance to go, but it is rated R. Has anyone seen it and comment on if it would be OK? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

My best advice as a fellow parent is to see it ahead of time without her, and then make a decision based on that. Other people are poor judges for what you may find objectionable for your own children. You can find reviews of the film online, some of these may be helpful, but ultimately your own judgement on this is likely to be subjective. Since you know your own daughter, you are likely to be the best possible judge. --Jayron32 05:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Good idea, I want to see it myself. One problem is that it is more than an hour's drive away; secondly, it may not be around long. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

What does an R rating mean in your country? In my country, it means people aged under 18 are not permitted to see it in theatres at all, not even if accompanied by an adult. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 06:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Here in the US (which is where Bubba73 seems to be from) an R rating means that anyone under 17 years of age needs to be accompanied by someone who is at least 21. I'm not a parent and I don't see how a movie about John Lennon's life could be that damaging for a 13 year old girl. There's also a parents guide at IMDb which goes over why the film received that rating. Dismas|^(talk) 07:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a site called screenit.com that contains the sort of information you might be looking for, but it requires payment. I looked over it some years ago when it was free, and it seemed to me that they did a decent job with movies I'd seen, but I don't know how good it is now. --Anonymous, 07:24 UTC, November 3, 2010.

The rating system is relative and arbitrary. What is rated R in the USA would normally be viewed by kids on afternoon television programmes here in Italy. Of course while Italian television may be permissive, it is primarily geared to whet the male appetite, with the token Gabriel Garko thrown in occassionally. In everyday, normal life women enjoy less personal freedom than their American counterparts. The film the OP's daughter wishes to see would most likely be broadcast here on television during prime time which is from 21.00 to 23.30. Seeing as it's a film on the life of John Lennon, it probably contains some reasonably graphic sex scenes and foul language which are verboten on American television, but not in most European nations.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen it myself, but it's not about his whole life, it's about his life as a teenager (hence "Boy"). According to the MPAA it is "Rated R for language and a scene of sexuality." Whatever that means. I doubt it would be as graphic as Backbeat, at least. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

As the parents guide at IMDB says (which Dismas already kindly linked to), there are several sexual scenes, nothing too explicit, but that I probably wouldn't want to take a 13 year old to see. Depending on your views on profanity, the frequent swearing may also be problematic. The violence seems relatively tame, by the standards of what many U.S. 13 year olds have seen, but depending on your child, you might take into consideration that as well. Alcohol and tobacco are used. Buddy431 (talk) 16:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a personal choice for a parent; also one has to take the character of his daughter into consideration. Some teens are easily influenced, others are not. When I was 13, I often viewed R films with no adverse effect-they certaintly did not corrupt me. Where I lived (close to Venice, California), i was well used to alternative lifestyles, so a film showing some sex would not have been such a big deal.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Reference to screenit.com above, http://www.pluggedin.com/ is a free alternative, however they haven't yet reviewed this film. Exxolon (talk) 21:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Adding to what people have mentioned before, as a parent, you should know that an "R" rating means absolutely nothing. Unlike in other countries, there is absolutely no scientific basis to the rating system in the U.S. It is a product of the movie studios and exists solely to prevent regulation of the industry. An "R" movie may be completely harmless to your child, and a "PG-13" movie theoretically could be somehow damaging, although everything I've read indicates all the hubbub about movies, TV shows and rock music damaging older kids/teenagers is hogwash. (In previous generations, dime novels or comic books were castigated for warping kids' minds.) As noted above, much of what gets an "R" rating in America is shows without restriction in other countries, and those kids don't wind up messed up because of it. And any parent who thinks kids aren't hearing foul language every day at school has obviously forgotten his or her own youth. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

How may I ask can you mathematically and scientifically quantize things like violence, nudity, sexuality, swearing etc? Googlemeister (talk) 13:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Any number of says. Swearing is the easiest. Swears can be quantized through a method, used by top scientists around the world, known as "Counting". Nudity is also easily quantized, There are only a few "naughty bits" that folks are worried about, so again, count them, and time how long they appear on screen.

Violence and sexuality are a bit harder to quantize in theory, but really Hollywood represents these things in a pretty standard, almost symbolic, way. With the same recurring tropes and 'visual shorthand' being shown time and time again, they could easily be counted and quantified.

I won't comment on whether the end result would be useful or worthwhile. APL (talk) 15:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. I'm planning to take her tomorrow. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

King of the Hill question

In the episode Livin' on Reds, Vitamin C and Propane, Hank Hill drives a 18-wheeler to Arizona to delivier some furniture to his Mom. I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of truck he was driving. It looks to me like its either a Kenworth or a Peterbuilt, but I wanted to know if the production people actually gave a name to the truck. 75.26.17.172 (talk) 07:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Name that tune?

Resolved

 – found it on Musipedia; it's "Old Black Joe". Bencherlite^Talk 10:40, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Our son has a toy radio that plays various nursery rhymes and other tunes as you press the buttons. Most of them I recognise, but there's one in particular that I don't and I wondered whether it might be a US tune (we're in the UK). It goes like this: 4/4 time; | for barline, - for held note e.g. C - is a middle C minim (half note) and D - - - is a semibreve (whole note); ' for notes up the octave

C - E F | G - - G | A C' B A | G - - - |
C - E F | G - - G | A G F E | D - - - |
C - E F | G - - G | A C' B A | G - - C' |
B C' D' B |C' A G A |E - D - | C - - - ||

The E and F in the first bar of each phrase are dotted crotchet / quaver, but I couldn't think how to type that neatly... Any ideas, or suggestions for a website where I could look? Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 10:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Sitcom actor earnings

Do sitcom actors earn millions, as this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-11684458 implies? I'm puzzled how he earnt it - he's not a pop star. 92.24.178.95 (talk) 18:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ricky Tomlinson's the actor in question. He could have sold a property you know! At least one of his sitcoms is very popular and gets repeated often, plus there's DVDs etc. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

A few do; most do not. It depends only on what the actor's agent is able to negotiate with the production company. In the US, the Screen Actors Guild sets the minimum payments for actors, known as "scale". This bit of good reading goes on and on about the minimums. As of a couple years ago, the minimum payment for a credited performer with a speaking role was around US$820 per day, or US$2,832 per week; and then the performers get "residuals", which are additional payments if the show is successful enough to enjoy syndicated reruns — you can work out the formulas yourself from "Sideletter B" in that PDF file; but for some performers it appears that upon the first rerun, the performer gets paid 40% of what they were paid for their original work; then upon the second rerun, they get paid 35%, then for the next few reruns it's 25%, and then it falls until it reaches a 5% floor. Great free money if it's a show like M*A*S*H that's syndicated for decades; not so great if it's a sitcom that nobody wants to rerun after season #1 gets cancelled. Going way beyond those numbers are actors who are crucial to the success of a big earner — the entire 6-person leading cast of Friends negotiated a fee of US$1 million, per person, per episode, for the show's last two seasons. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Tomlinson is fairly high profile in the UK - The Royle Family was extremely popular and as a pivotal character he's doubtless been well rewarded, but our article outlines a busy career involving film and theatre productions, TV appearances and writing too. This follows a modest start in life, manual work as a tradesman and time as a trade union activist. One might reasonably conclude from the article that (a) he's probably earned a respectable amount of money in recent years, and (b) he has left-leaning political sympathies and a history of more than one large charitable donation to worthy social causes. He's obviously had at least £1.2 million in the bank; without knowing his total personal wealth we can't judge what proportion of it he's given away, but I don't find it inherently unlikely that he's been worth at least that much. Nor would I assume that a pop star would be wealthier than a successful actor. The music industry can be a place where your talents enrich everyone else but you - there's quite an interesting list of examples here. Karenjc 08:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)