TV is the New Reading

‘Business,’ ‘Minor Accomplishments

of Jackie Woodman’ are raw, funny

Two shows that might have slipped – perhaps thankfully – under your radar started up a couple weeks ago on the Independent Film Channel. Original IFC productions “The Business” and “The Minor Accomplish-ments of Jackie Woodman” both returned recently for their second seasons.

Both shows live just a little ways outside the Hollywood film industry. “The Business” focuses on an independent film operation and the wacky personalities involved in almost making shows of truly uncertain quality, while “Minor Accomplishments” tracks the hilarious misadventures of a comedy writer and her best friend, who is established just firmly enough on the bare fringe of the industry to throw her enough work to maybe starve to death.

“The Business” centers on “Vic’s Flicks,” headed by Vic Morgenstern, a class-free schlub who got his start producing porn but accidentally made a sufficiently legitimate production to branch into the world of independent film.

He’s brought in a self-conscious producer who is frankly horrified by every idea Vic pitches or supports, and their marketing agent who spins every idea they have completely out of control.

Hampering them at every turn is the visionless hack of a director whose contract is like a millstone around their neck, and a talent-free lead actor who turned up 200 pounds overweight for the lead in a prison hunger strike.

The show airs well after prime time hours on Sunday nights and has an MA rating for excellent reasons. Many viewers may be put off by the crude language and topics that come up quite naturally in the course of this day-to-day work environment. But for the more adventurous, there’s absolutely some comedy going on – especially if you’re a fan of shows about shows.

‘Minor Accomplishments’

“Minor Accomplishments” has the same rating but in the case of this show, helmed by comedienne Laura Kightlinger as writer Jackie Woodman, the language and subject matter seem much more incidental and the comedy has little trouble shining through.

Jackie Woodman is a writer Hollywood is having a really tough time discovering. If she were given to self-reflection, she might allow as how sleeping ’til noon and her almost pathological lack of drive isn’t helping her change that at all. But part of the joy of this character is that she is not given to this sort of self-reflection. Rather, she is luxuriously committed to her slacker chic status.

A huge subplot to the show highlights a kind of over-extended cluelessness of a small studio, where Woodman’s friend Tara, played by Nicole Thom, serves as an office schlep. The flip side of its desperation to succeed is a gadfly lack of focus.

Ultimately, this means Tara has an endless stream of wacky ideas, schemes and projects for Jackie to be part of.

The tragedy in those situations is that while Jackie is a talented writer, the studio is absolutely incapable of follow-through. A recent installment had Jackie scripting 30-second monkey-centered shorts for cell-phone distribution. Her scripts were hailed as absolute gems. The deal fell through, of course, when the live-action monkey went nuts and attacked the creator, and the one script they released was so badly produced she couldn’t see anything about her script in it.

And for this she’d received a flower arrangement that made her ill – her entire payment for the, oh, day or so she’d actually spent working on these things.

For this she could’ve just stayed in bed.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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