The Office, Woody Allen

There was Woody Allen's old movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors. Another one of his more or less serious movies, although he acts in this one.

There were a couple of storylines in it. In one, Woody Allen plays an independent filmmaker who makes uncommercial high brow documentaries. He makes little money. He's struggling. He's excited because he wins a little award at a little film festival.

Allen is hired to make documentary about his brother-in-law (Alan Alda), a wealthy successful TV producer.

So, here's the thing. You have Woody Allen, a successful, wealthy, highly regarded maker of supposedly high brow intellectual movies, who gets a blank check from the studios to make one or two movies a year, and he's playing a failure.

There's just something wrong and kind of annoying there.

And then there's the sit-com The Office.

There's something I find troubling about watching a successful comic, whether it's the American one or the British version, playing someone who desperately wants to be a comic, someone who actually considers himself a comic genius, but is just terrible. It's rather cruel. Is this really what successful actors and comedians think of those who desperately wish they could do the same?

I guess it has to be that way. If you're going to have a TV show, the star, by definition, is going to have to be a TV star.

There was Robert DeNiro in The King of Comedy, but that was different since DeNiro isn't a comedian by trade.

They had sort of a reunion show of the British version.

I watched it on Netflix. It was pretty good. Poor David Brent. He was a little like Screech--like Dustin Diamond--trying not to let his small amount of fame go to waste. The show was supposed to be a reality TV show set in an office. So the poor guy was making personal appearances between working as a traveling salesman.

Back at the office, Tim is coping with his humiliation at having asked that English girl out for a date and begging her not to marry her fiance and to marry him instead. He seems to lead a sad lonely life.

It was always kind of depressing.