Saturday, November 22, 2008
We'll always have Pirates.
Casablanca repurposed as an anti-piracy PSA. Copyright Warner Bros. I am posting this video as a public service because I think piracy is very, very wrong. I also wanted to offer my support for Warner Bros. efforts to stamp out the repurposing of its intellectual property for contemptible ends.
I ripped this video off the Get Smart DVD. Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The inspiration for Coulee
One of the writing projects on my list is a screenplay I have been working on for some time. It's called Coulee, and it's about a haunted dam.
A haunted dam? Here's how this came about: some years ago, back when I lived with my friends, Hope and Allison, in a three bedroom house near Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, which we called Old Tony, Hope and I were hanging out one day discussing ideas for movies. In fact, we were trying to come up with the dumbest movie idea we could think of, something I could write without concerning myself about things like authenticity, reason, sense - you know, a typical MOVIE.
One of my favorite silly horror movie tropes is the "old Indian burial ground." It serves as a kind of basic rationale for everything that goes on in films from Poltergeist to The Shining. It also describes, ya know, America.
So, a few days later, while we were still trying to come up with "the dumbest movie ever," I was watching a PBS documentary on the building of the Grand Coulee Dam. Guess what it was built on? Yep, an Indian burial ground. Eureka! Haunted dam!
The idea seemed to me to have just what I was looking for: a completely silly, seemingly ridiculous and even boring premise, yet one that was original, and with plenty of socio-historical aspects that I could invent out of whole cloth. That was the other aspect of the project, that I wanted to write a movie with no research at all - so that everything about it would feel vaguely familiar, but have no real basis in fact.
That was several years ago. Since then, now that I am finally actually working on it, I have gotten fairly far in outlining my story, but the "no research" thing has gone out the window.
Perhaps I should interject here and explain a bit more about why I didn't want to do any research. Movies, to me, fall into basically three categories: Great, Good and Idiotic. Great movies are extremely rare and most people do not even know what a great movie is - I do not mean what people mean when they say, "Gee, the new Batman movie was really great!" I'm talking about masterpieces, like Grand Illusion, Citizen Kane and The Godfather. Most moviegoers cannot identify the difference, but that's fine. It's hard to quantify, but mostly it has to do with singularity of vision, uncompromising commitment and artistry. Not all great films are equal, but they are all on a different level than the merely good.
Good movies are much more plentiful. Most Best Picture winners fall into this category. They are crowd-pleasing, well-executed examples of solid, even virtuoso, craftsmanship. Back to the Future, one of my all-time favorites, is a good movie. It could easily have been an idiotic movie (like BttF2 and 3), though, if all of its parts had not functioned so flawlessly together. On the high end, No Country for Old Men is a very good movie, the apogee of its makers' art to this point; and one of the fun aspects of being a movie fan is arguing about which movies deserve to be called great and which ones are merely good. Personally, I don't think we've had a great Best Picture Oscar since 1974 when GF2 won. There's little question in the minds of cinephiles who care about such things that The Godfather, Part 2, is one of the greatest films ever made. Many of the rest of the films to win since have been good, some of them very good, but some of them have been idiotic (viz., Crash, A Beautiful Mind).
Idiotic movies are failures of imagination and authenticity that insult the intelligence to the point where they are no longer even fun. I'm not talking about, say, Airplane! That's a movie about idiots, but it's not an idiotic movie. It's a good movie because it does what it does, on its on terms, with consistency and panache. I'm talking about most multiplex movies, many sequels and remakes and self-important "serious pictures" that lack chemistry, insight and charm, in spite of often obscene costs.
Anyway, to wind this back to the original point, it's important to note that B movies, exploitation flicks and classic "bad" movies are in no way necessarily idiotic. Many of them are actually good. My favorite example is Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven's howlingly awful big budget Vegas strippers (sorry, I mean dancers) exploitation flick. This cannot be an idiotic film, by definition, because it is so much fun to watch. That may be due to its trainwreck quality, but it's such a consistent trainwreck that it becomes utterly fascinating, to the point that it begins to feel like satire. That has been Verhoeven's defense in the years since, that he always intended the film as a satire of a certain Vegas subculture, or American consumerism, or whatever.
I don't think that flies, exactly, but the film can nevertheless be thoroughly and repeatedly enjoyed as satire, even a self-satire, whereas a truly idiotic film cannot be enjoyed even once.
With Coulee, my original intent was to write an idiotic movie that was secretly a good movie. My fantasy was that the movie would be made as a B movie, with second-rate everything, but would also function (perhaps for the kind of viewer who can appreciate Showgirls) as a good movie if you had the right attitude when you watched it. Now I'm more focused on writing a good, thoroughly silly and funny, but also scary, movie.
I thought that by doing no research I could create something that would function on those two different levels, while being essentially and completely artificial. A lot of movies that were heavily researched feel this way, too, and that was the point. The underlying idea had something to do with basic questions about the relationship between art and authenticity.
What I mean is that, given the artificiality of all movies, why do some feel more authentic than others? Is it a function of the degree of literal truth-telling on the part of the filmmakers (i.e., a movie about a historical subject that is shot in the actual castle where the events took place)? Or is authenticity more about emotional or human truth, irrespective of technical accuracy? I'm inclined to believe the latter, which suggests that even the most outrageous, only-in-the-movies situations and behaviors do not matter nearly as much as execution, emotion and imagination. Think about the experience of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time, for example.
But I do not have quite the imagination and knowledge to do what I need to do with no research. I need information to inspire me.
I've set Coulee to the side, briefly, as I've hit a wall with the story momentarily, but it's one of my chief writing projects right now and I will soon resume. I think I am about at the point where I can begin writing the script itself and see where that takes me.
A haunted dam? Here's how this came about: some years ago, back when I lived with my friends, Hope and Allison, in a three bedroom house near Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, which we called Old Tony, Hope and I were hanging out one day discussing ideas for movies. In fact, we were trying to come up with the dumbest movie idea we could think of, something I could write without concerning myself about things like authenticity, reason, sense - you know, a typical MOVIE.
One of my favorite silly horror movie tropes is the "old Indian burial ground." It serves as a kind of basic rationale for everything that goes on in films from Poltergeist to The Shining. It also describes, ya know, America.
So, a few days later, while we were still trying to come up with "the dumbest movie ever," I was watching a PBS documentary on the building of the Grand Coulee Dam. Guess what it was built on? Yep, an Indian burial ground. Eureka! Haunted dam!
The idea seemed to me to have just what I was looking for: a completely silly, seemingly ridiculous and even boring premise, yet one that was original, and with plenty of socio-historical aspects that I could invent out of whole cloth. That was the other aspect of the project, that I wanted to write a movie with no research at all - so that everything about it would feel vaguely familiar, but have no real basis in fact.
That was several years ago. Since then, now that I am finally actually working on it, I have gotten fairly far in outlining my story, but the "no research" thing has gone out the window.
Perhaps I should interject here and explain a bit more about why I didn't want to do any research. Movies, to me, fall into basically three categories: Great, Good and Idiotic. Great movies are extremely rare and most people do not even know what a great movie is - I do not mean what people mean when they say, "Gee, the new Batman movie was really great!" I'm talking about masterpieces, like Grand Illusion, Citizen Kane and The Godfather. Most moviegoers cannot identify the difference, but that's fine. It's hard to quantify, but mostly it has to do with singularity of vision, uncompromising commitment and artistry. Not all great films are equal, but they are all on a different level than the merely good.
Good movies are much more plentiful. Most Best Picture winners fall into this category. They are crowd-pleasing, well-executed examples of solid, even virtuoso, craftsmanship. Back to the Future, one of my all-time favorites, is a good movie. It could easily have been an idiotic movie (like BttF2 and 3), though, if all of its parts had not functioned so flawlessly together. On the high end, No Country for Old Men is a very good movie, the apogee of its makers' art to this point; and one of the fun aspects of being a movie fan is arguing about which movies deserve to be called great and which ones are merely good. Personally, I don't think we've had a great Best Picture Oscar since 1974 when GF2 won. There's little question in the minds of cinephiles who care about such things that The Godfather, Part 2, is one of the greatest films ever made. Many of the rest of the films to win since have been good, some of them very good, but some of them have been idiotic (viz., Crash, A Beautiful Mind).
Idiotic movies are failures of imagination and authenticity that insult the intelligence to the point where they are no longer even fun. I'm not talking about, say, Airplane! That's a movie about idiots, but it's not an idiotic movie. It's a good movie because it does what it does, on its on terms, with consistency and panache. I'm talking about most multiplex movies, many sequels and remakes and self-important "serious pictures" that lack chemistry, insight and charm, in spite of often obscene costs.
Anyway, to wind this back to the original point, it's important to note that B movies, exploitation flicks and classic "bad" movies are in no way necessarily idiotic. Many of them are actually good. My favorite example is Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven's howlingly awful big budget Vegas strippers (sorry, I mean dancers) exploitation flick. This cannot be an idiotic film, by definition, because it is so much fun to watch. That may be due to its trainwreck quality, but it's such a consistent trainwreck that it becomes utterly fascinating, to the point that it begins to feel like satire. That has been Verhoeven's defense in the years since, that he always intended the film as a satire of a certain Vegas subculture, or American consumerism, or whatever.
I don't think that flies, exactly, but the film can nevertheless be thoroughly and repeatedly enjoyed as satire, even a self-satire, whereas a truly idiotic film cannot be enjoyed even once.
With Coulee, my original intent was to write an idiotic movie that was secretly a good movie. My fantasy was that the movie would be made as a B movie, with second-rate everything, but would also function (perhaps for the kind of viewer who can appreciate Showgirls) as a good movie if you had the right attitude when you watched it. Now I'm more focused on writing a good, thoroughly silly and funny, but also scary, movie.
I thought that by doing no research I could create something that would function on those two different levels, while being essentially and completely artificial. A lot of movies that were heavily researched feel this way, too, and that was the point. The underlying idea had something to do with basic questions about the relationship between art and authenticity.
What I mean is that, given the artificiality of all movies, why do some feel more authentic than others? Is it a function of the degree of literal truth-telling on the part of the filmmakers (i.e., a movie about a historical subject that is shot in the actual castle where the events took place)? Or is authenticity more about emotional or human truth, irrespective of technical accuracy? I'm inclined to believe the latter, which suggests that even the most outrageous, only-in-the-movies situations and behaviors do not matter nearly as much as execution, emotion and imagination. Think about the experience of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time, for example.
But I do not have quite the imagination and knowledge to do what I need to do with no research. I need information to inspire me.
I've set Coulee to the side, briefly, as I've hit a wall with the story momentarily, but it's one of my chief writing projects right now and I will soon resume. I think I am about at the point where I can begin writing the script itself and see where that takes me.
New schedule
I have spent some time this week devising a new schedule for myself. Last year, when I was looking for work, I could become pretty obsessive about checking Craigslist and other job sites, with the effect that I would find it difficult to do anything else. I don't want that to happen again, so I've created a heavy schedule that still has a fair amount of flexibility and tries to put my many projects into buckets to be worked on at certain times on certain days.
It's Thursday today, so that means this is my writing time, until the afternoon when I have some project time and some time for reading.
It's Thursday today, so that means this is my writing time, until the afternoon when I have some project time and some time for reading.
Thursday
Today I am waiting for my new monitors. Waiting for UPS or FedEx is how I have spent much of this week, or so it seems. Really I've spent more time getting my new machine set up. It's fun to get new gear.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Self-Censorship
Well, I decided to delete a few posts just now at the advice of multiple people. Probably the right thing to do, considering how the Internet works. After all, I wouldn't want someone else to steal my great ideas before I've had a chance to profit from them! Don't worry, you'll hear about them all soon enough.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Persona Contribution...
... from phantomride75:
Scum pit mopper Eyejus Pooped Meself
I like it, though it's a little on-the-nose ...
Scum pit mopper Eyejus Pooped Meself
I like it, though it's a little on-the-nose ...
Quantum of Solace
Saw the new Bond film with Scott and Charlise last night. Here's what I kept thinking:
This video is much better than the film, in spite of how there are better actors in Bond films these days. We sat way in the back, which was a great place to sit (apart from the young children nearby that should not have been there who kept talking throughout) but our vista did not make it any easier to understand the action. As for the story, well, I gave up on that very early. It involved a French dude with stained teeth (a very good actor, the one who looks like a young Roman Polanski), a seriously hot girl and someone from Bond's past named Vespa, which Charlise informed me is Italian for "wasp." She was also able to tell me that the opera featured in the film (at which a group of bad guy conspirators chose to hold a meeting via bluetooth - like, during the opera from their seats) was Puccini's Tosca, and that it was an actual production but without the usual cast.
(About the young children ... I like kids and will soon be a father, but you can't take kids who are under, say, 8 to PG-13 movies that aren't "Mommy and Me" screenings. It's rated that way for a reason, parents! If kids are not involved with what they're seeing - and even if they are, sometimes - they'll just talk, talk, talk. At that point, it is your responsibility to shut them up or leave. For. Christ's. Sake.)
This video is much better than the film, in spite of how there are better actors in Bond films these days. We sat way in the back, which was a great place to sit (apart from the young children nearby that should not have been there who kept talking throughout) but our vista did not make it any easier to understand the action. As for the story, well, I gave up on that very early. It involved a French dude with stained teeth (a very good actor, the one who looks like a young Roman Polanski), a seriously hot girl and someone from Bond's past named Vespa, which Charlise informed me is Italian for "wasp." She was also able to tell me that the opera featured in the film (at which a group of bad guy conspirators chose to hold a meeting via bluetooth - like, during the opera from their seats) was Puccini's Tosca, and that it was an actual production but without the usual cast.
(About the young children ... I like kids and will soon be a father, but you can't take kids who are under, say, 8 to PG-13 movies that aren't "Mommy and Me" screenings. It's rated that way for a reason, parents! If kids are not involved with what they're seeing - and even if they are, sometimes - they'll just talk, talk, talk. At that point, it is your responsibility to shut them up or leave. For. Christ's. Sake.)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Personas
I have been advised that it might be wise to get a blog persona, rather than write about myself so frankly. After all, as I said earlier, someone might actually stumble upon my blog and decide not to employ me based on the shameful scribblings here. So I'm thinking about it. Here are some possibilities I'm considering:
Media critic Josiah P. Barnsplatter
Life coach Arnaud Tiberius DeFong
Real-life vampire Xian Deng Chen
Model train fanatic Cynthia Gordon-Tlatt
New-age Pet-channeler Sunbloom Rae Lakshmi (the former Mrs. Doris Johnson)
Fashion-monger Lyndsie Dawn Stern
Policy wonk Q. Timothy Bratten Mayflower-Heinz Hussein Lehman IV
Conspiracy theorist Barry Charles (not his real name)
Gentle humorist Thorsen Kohler
Goldendoodle-fancier Marjorie H. Jorgensen
Furry fan Felix Kwon
I am taking suggestions, though, so speak up!
Media critic Josiah P. Barnsplatter
Life coach Arnaud Tiberius DeFong
Real-life vampire Xian Deng Chen
Model train fanatic Cynthia Gordon-Tlatt
New-age Pet-channeler Sunbloom Rae Lakshmi (the former Mrs. Doris Johnson)
Fashion-monger Lyndsie Dawn Stern
Policy wonk Q. Timothy Bratten Mayflower-Heinz Hussein Lehman IV
Conspiracy theorist Barry Charles (not his real name)
Gentle humorist Thorsen Kohler
Goldendoodle-fancier Marjorie H. Jorgensen
Furry fan Felix Kwon
I am taking suggestions, though, so speak up!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Counter-protest
Last night around 6 PM, the counter-protest against Fred Phelps' planned protest turned vigil when Phelps' crew decided not to show up. Probably for the best. I rode my bike over to the corner of Central and Walnut, at the edge of the high school.It was a lovely, warm, blustery evening, a night full of portent. I could have ridden my bike forever under the dark trees.
Kim made salmon, polenta and greens and Val came over for dinner.
Friday, November 14, 2008
More on radiant asshole Phelps
According to other Alameda bloggers, Fred Phelps' group, Super Idiots Supporting Public Assholery, or SISPA, will not be coming to protest the high school's production of The Laramie Project, after all. Frankly, I am a little bit disappointed. I love a circus.
Apparently, though, his group will be in Hawaii to protest the funeral of Barack Obama's grandmother, which is so absurd as to almost be funny, as if Tina Fey had written the line, except that it's not funny because it's real.
People like Phelps, though, are clowns. I mean, why would anyone take them seriously? The answer, I think, is that we all love a circus. Human beings are, essentially, bored to death.
Apparently, though, his group will be in Hawaii to protest the funeral of Barack Obama's grandmother, which is so absurd as to almost be funny, as if Tina Fey had written the line, except that it's not funny because it's real.
People like Phelps, though, are clowns. I mean, why would anyone take them seriously? The answer, I think, is that we all love a circus. Human beings are, essentially, bored to death.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
From the OMFG Department...
There's word that radiant asshole, Fred Phelps, might be in town, in spirit if not in person, to protest the local high school's production of The Laramie Project this Friday. He's the "God hates fags" guy.
We heard the news via porch-flyer. There will be a counter-protest on November 14, 2008; from the flyer:
"6PM at Alameda High (located at 2201 Encinal Avenue)."
View Larger Map
Not to be cynical, but could this be a kind of "wild marketing" campaign? I suppose it is, whether by design or not - God may hate fags, but he loves wild marketing.
But seriously, folks, I'm reminded of a scene from Manhattan. Woody Allen is at a party with a bunch of douchey elites:
We heard the news via porch-flyer. There will be a counter-protest on November 14, 2008; from the flyer:
"6PM at Alameda High (located at 2201 Encinal Avenue)."
View Larger Map
Not to be cynical, but could this be a kind of "wild marketing" campaign? I suppose it is, whether by design or not - God may hate fags, but he loves wild marketing.
But seriously, folks, I'm reminded of a scene from Manhattan. Woody Allen is at a party with a bunch of douchey elites:
- Isaac Davis: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Ya know? I read it in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, ya know, get some bricks and baseball bats, and really explain things to 'em.
- Party Guest: There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-ed page of the Times, just devastating.
- Isaac Davis: Whoa, whoa. A satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point of it.
- Party Guest Helen: Oh, but really biting satire is always better than physical force.
- Isaac Davis: No, physical force is always better with Nazis.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is when, instead of getting an expert's opinion, you just ask whoever happens to be in the room. Sometimes this works out great, depending mostly on the size of the room.
One of my favorite films, F for Fake, is Orson Welles' lament over the pure chicanery of the "art expert." Fakery, something he knows something about. I admire his distrust of experts in general but that's not to discount knowledge, real study and the ability to teach. Nor wisdom, nor faith. These must matter, otherwise we abandon our discourse for triviality, surface, fetish, whatever, lol ; )
Facts exist. Not everything is a matter of opinion. Srsly, look into it.
One of my favorite films, F for Fake, is Orson Welles' lament over the pure chicanery of the "art expert." Fakery, something he knows something about. I admire his distrust of experts in general but that's not to discount knowledge, real study and the ability to teach. Nor wisdom, nor faith. These must matter, otherwise we abandon our discourse for triviality, surface, fetish, whatever, lol ; )
Facts exist. Not everything is a matter of opinion. Srsly, look into it.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Carrier
"People in the paranormal field say it is one of the most-haunted ships around," Carnahan told an audience of about 70 people on Wednesday at the Alameda Free Library. "It also had a high suicide rate, among the highest in the Navy, and that makes it an active place for both the living and the dead." To illustrate his views, Carnahan and colleague Shane Thornton shared a series of audio and video recordings with the library group. The ghost busters recorded "voices of spirits" on the ship picked up as EVPs or electronic-voice phenomena.
From the Alameda Journal, October 31, 2008
The USS Hornet is the decommissioned aircraft carrier at the old Alameda Naval Air Station.
View Larger Map
I went there a few weeks ago when Mom and Dad were here. Maybe I could make a sequel to my haunted dam movie on an aircraft carrier. It's a creepy place.
The Hornet picked up the Apollo 11 astronauts after they splashed down, then put them in this vacuum-sealed Airstream to protect them from Nixon. My folks wanted to see what that was like.
According to the Interwebs, more than 300 people died on the Hornet in only 27 years of active service. That's a lotta potential ghosts. Or maybe I could turn it into a zombie-type deal, playing off the name "Carrier." The lady in this old-timey poster is looking pretty scared already:
A lot of famous people visit the Hornet, as evidenced by the guestbook:
Finally, this very tough-looking guy kicked us off the boat...and then disappeared...
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