Romancing the Songs

One of my pet peeves is the omission of certain songs from the theatrical release of a movie from home video. It's a money matter, but you would think when they originally fork over for the song in the first place they would anticipate it.
I can understand music rights being a problem for SCTV or WKRP but even then the
contracts should have allowed for future media.

In some cases, maybe a song is omitted because producers don't like it.
Or maybe they had a feud with a performer. I don't know the story.
I just like many of the songs.

The fargin’ funny theatrical release of Johnny Dangerously (1984) had this song over its opening and ending credits, but the VHS and subsequent presentations have omitted it.
It’s the only reason I don’t have this movie on DVD – the trouble of being sure I’m buying a version that has it restored. The video should also be on there.

Here’s a link to it but embedded video is disabled so we’ll have to jump you to Youtube:

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=18vzLo3sKJg


This song was in the theatrical release of Romancing the Stone in 1984, but the VHS omitted it and replaced it with some generic sounding score. No disrespect to the composer, but even though the Eddie Grant song may be cheesy, it is also catchy.
Even the most recent DVD re-release doesn’t have it – not in the end titles nor even as a separate video special feature.

Eddie Grant – Romancing the Stone




Billy Ocean – When the Going Gets Tough the Tough Get Going
From “The Jewel of the Nile.”

This song is still over the end credits of Jewel of the Nile, but not available as a special feature.

I still find it so cute that the actors pretend to be back-up singers n the video.

Shatner's appearances on 3rd Rock

Well, it took some clicking and pasting, and some watching, but here are the three appearances of William Shatner on 3rd Rock From the Sun.

Dick's Big Giant Headache (2 episodes)

The Big Giant Head Returns

The Big Giant Head Returns Again (2 episodes)

Again it's a case of something I'd rather watch this way than weekly.

Dick’s Big Giant Headache part 1 http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7KOuxrPfCk0



Clip II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=bMUX_f0hyn0

(this clip starts with a fun reference for Twilight Zone fans)



Clip III http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=fwTE4EqaN4k&feature=related



Dick’s Big Giant Headache Part II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XeVy1gjhCJQ



Clip II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=v4UTFlBqgyU&feature=related



Clip III http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=apEX3XL1PAs





The Big Giant Head Returns pt 1 http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=huapfypXUt8



part II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=W71QO1-YYnw



Part III http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=AfYE-67rYOA only the end credits



The Big Giant Head Returns Again Pt. 1 http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0DjYmCkkU



Pt. 1 clip II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJD9avvXas



Pt.1 clip III http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=QJo8XPAQUIo



B. G. Head Returns Again Part 2 clip I http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=OFr7FJC--6A



clip II http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=20Y522AifRs



clip III http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPgKgItisA

Out of the Blue - forgotten and short-lived

I'd like to be able to see this some day.

Jimmy Brogan as Random



Mork on “Out of the Blue” episode “Random’s Arrival” 1979



TV Guide promotes “Out of the Blue” series



Typical lame cast shot:

Mork

I admit I have all the Mork and Mindy episodes that have so far appeared on DVD.
I'd like to get hold of an episode of a short-lived sit-com called Out of the Blue about an angel named Random that was also introduced on Happy Days. The Out of the Blue episode in particular involves Mork. But until recently I hadn't even seen the Happy Days Mork episodes in decades. Here they are as found on youtube, corny but fun:

Happy Days episode: My Favorite Orkan
















Happy Days flashback filler episode: Mork Returns















As for the Cartoon show that followed Mork and Mindy in 1982, I'd still like to see it even though the intro looks unimpressive:



It pretty much answers the question about why I hadn't heard of it.

C.C.L. about the Oscars

Combined with the fact that a non-comic is hosting this year, it doesn't look very interesting. Here is a list of things I couldn't care less about:

1. Best Picture: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

2. Actor: Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"; Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"; Sean Penn, "Milk"; Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler."

3. Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"; Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"; Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"; Meryl Streep, "Doubt"; Kate Winslet, "The Reader."

4. Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, "Milk"; Robert Downey Jr., "Tropic Thunder"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"; Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"; Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road."

5. Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "Doubt"; Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"; Viola Davis, "Doubt"; Taraji P. Henson, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler."

6. Director: David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"; Gus Van Sant, "Milk"; Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"; Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire."

7. Foreign Film: "The Baader Meinhof Complex," Germany; "The Class," France; "Departures," Japan; "Revanche," Austria; "Waltz With Bashir," Israel.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; John Patrick Shanley, "Doubt"; Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"; David Hare, "The Reader"; Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire."

9. Original Screenplay: Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"; Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"; Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges"; Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"; Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter, "WALL-E."

10. Animated Feature Film: "Bolt"; "Kung Fu Panda"; "WALL-E."

11. Art Direction: "Changeling," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "The Duchess," "Revolutionary Road."

12. Cinematography: "Changeling," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

13. Sound Mixing: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Slumdog Millionaire," "WALL-E," "Wanted."

14. Sound Editing: "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man," "Slumdog Millionaire," "WALL-E," "Wanted."

15. Original Score: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Alexandre Desplat; "Defiance," James Newton Howard; "Milk," Danny Elfman; "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman; "WALL-E," Thomas Newman.

16. Original Song: "Down to Earth" from "WALL-E," Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman; "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman and Gulzar; "O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam.

17. Costume: "Australia," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Duchess," "Milk," "Revolutionary Road."

18. Documentary Feature: "The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)," "Encounters at the End of the World," "The Garden," "Man on Wire," "Trouble the Water."

19. Documentary (short subject): "The Conscience of Nhem En," "The Final Inch," "Smile Pinki," "The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306."

20. Film Editing: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "Slumdog Millionaire."

21. Makeup: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Hellboy II: The Golden Army."

22. Animated Short Film: "La Maison en Petits Cubes," "Lavatory — Lovestory," "Oktapodi," "Presto," "This Way Up."

23. Live Action Short Film: "Auf der Strecke (On the Line)," "Manon on the Asphalt," "New Boy," "The Pig," "Spielzeugland (Toyland)."

24. Visual Effects: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man."


That's the list. Yawn. I've actually seen many of them and no doubt the others are well done, but I just don't care. Here's what they left out:

25. Most Underrated: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

New waters, new era

Good news. Just having fun with the obamicon site.

http://www.obamicon.me.pastemagazine.com

The Sanitized Version

Here is a journal excerpt that was posted on a website I no longer promote, associated with a film I made in 2003/4. I haven't even re-read it since then, but I know some of the anecdotes were passed along in good faith. I didn't know quite everything that was going on at the time. It has been somewhat edited by a nemesis of mine as well. It is just pasted here from the abandoned site.

Future blogs may touch upon lessons learned after the fact.



Location Check and Pickets
When John Lindsay and I met to look at the location Shannonn had picked out, (I think this was my second visit), but we sailed right past the turn-off and then backtracked.
Before John arrived, I waited on Yonge Street for a while. As I got out of the subway, I realized that the street was lined with pickets featuring mutilated fetuses.
I thought this must be something to do with “Big Babies.” I realized I had not prepared a speech. The worst thing is that I might have been early or John had been held up elsewhere, so I had a long wait at this intersection. I had my still camera, but as I tried various positions I couldn’t get quite a satisfying angle showing how many pickets were lined up along the highway. One lady in charge saw my camera and asked if I was with media. I said yes.
I asked if there was a clinic in the area that she was protesting. She said no; it was just a randomly selected intersection. I asked about guys who insist their girlfriends give birth and than take off. She said these are not very nice guys, but at least the child is alive and an uncle may help out. She stated that it is more common for boyfriends to insist on abortion, and whether or not the relationship survives, a lot of girls go along with this “emotional coercion” instead of choice. I asked a few more typical questions and I was impressed that there was no “God’s Will” talk, which I find very clumsy debating.
A very attractive-looking woman walked by as a male protester trailed off trying to pass her on to the leader. “I’m calling the police,” she said over her shoulder. “You’ll be gone in less than an hour.”
I admit I didn’t know what the young, bearded gentleman had said to her, but it caused me to feel some empathy for the demonstrators. Except for one sign which read, “Adoption, the loving option,” depicting a living and uninjured baby, it could be argued that the pro-lifers were guilty of bad taste. But I felt and still do feel that is no reason to have police drag people away. I ended up telling the lead protester that I was just waiting for my cinematographer and I told her about the movie and it’s content. I said I was not especially taking any “side.” When I crossed the street and John arrived, his first comment as I got into the car was, “Did you see those zealots?” I laughed along and told my story but I also realized the movie could easily be side tracked if I ever actually engaged anyone in a substantial discussion of the subject matter. I’m more interested in the way people use their words and, especially these days, compartmentalize.


Day One of Shoot: Thursday 14 August, 2003
I initially joined LIFT so I could access equipment. At the last minute, we had to cancel a package from LIFT because we could not get a camera compatible with video tap. I needed a video tap, so we rented elsewhere for that reason. As we arranged ourselves on the backyard lawn of our location getting the first set-up, I notice that our video monitor had blinked out. Art department boss Mark MacKinnon reports something he heard over the radio. There is a blackout across. . . whatever area. . . and most importantly us. His explanation was more detailed than I remember. We speculate that it must be terrorists and that the phrase, “The Events of August 14. . .” will be part of all surviving media for years to come. Luckily, it was not as dramatic and we kept out own mundane problems in focus.
Anne Gravel gave a sincere look of concern, anticipating my disappointment with the project potentially stopped short. It turns out that if the shoot were transferred to the following weekend Dave Mckay would not be available. So the best we can do is chug along with whatever exteriors we can get and then keep showing up.
I have a fleeting thought that these are my vacation days and that the power problem could is ironic; this is happening the first day in a while I have taken time away from the security desk at Toronto Hydro. I expect I am missing out on a different brand of panic. Later I will find out they had it in hand.
We were already setting up for exteriors, so I only shuffled the schedule enough to accommodate the eight known exterior shots available to do and though I looked in the viewfinder a couple of times I verbally described the shots and trusted John to report any problems. As I hunch over the camera, John noticed I cast a shadow on Linda, who has to spin away to complete an edit point for a transition. I note the direction Linda spins so it can be recreated laterat a church exterior.
Without audio playback of a song to synch, we shot one pass of an overhead shot with the actors singing and another pass without mouth movement. The synch proved accurate in post, but the latter option worked as filler when I cut another shot and threw off my shot-timing in another scene.
A shot of Anne walking along the street, kicking a can, our “Moonstruck” homage, meant Monika Geresz had to run back a few times for new pop cans as they were untimely crushed by cars that got past us. Anne had to jump aside as cars approached. I was not so quick snatching a couple of pop cans. Monika ended up replacing me on the street divider-island. No cars will be shown in the final cut of the film, but the traffic was being diverted to this little street because of the blackout. In the background is a little “Welcome to Bedford Falls” sign, as Shannonn calls it. This quaint, quick touch, but it is there.
Close-ups of Bertha’s arrival and her invitation inside have to carry the scene because there is not quite enough light for a full two shot by the time we come to that. The shot of Dr. Ian peeking through the sliding glass door and his view of Bertha’s cleavage (and unusual fetus cross on her necklace) will carry the scene. Linda suggests the off camera noise of the door opening further. It ends up even more amusing despite the fact that it was a practical suggestion by Shannonn to use this rear door instead of pushing our luck with the location owners and trying to shoot at the solid, normal front door.
This way, the house is completely identified by this one side. It is also lucky that at the end of a take Linda ends up covering the fetus-cross with her shawl, which takes the curse off of the following shot where her cross will have been flipped between takes and got past me. In story-logic, the shawl may have caused the cross to flip. The secedes bugs made noise but subsided long enough to get the dialogue out. Then we were done at the house for the day. Maybe just enough time left for one more shot.
I had scheduled a church exterior for the fifth day of shooting. Apart from any pick-ups or photos, it might have been the only business on that fifth day. But taking advantage of whatever daylight we had left Shannonn piled a few of us into her truck and John followed in his car. Shannonn remembered passing a church. Though it wasn’t Catholic, it had a cross on top and a stone front. Someone suggested setting up across the street, but once I was on the sidewalk, I felt the main walkway was enough distance for Linda to spin up to the camera.
Adding a tilt-down from the cross meant we didn’t have to worry about an actor walking across the street. The camera move would still have to fit the song later, so it was a risk. Later in the video transfer the blown-out sky would have its blue restored. We advised Linda to hide her “life” picket sign from people sitting on the bench nearby until we are ready to roll. There was no video assist to consult for the direction Linda should spin playback, so I luckily trusted my own memory and not Linda’s. The action that feels unnatural is often correct, in an abortion musical.
We got the shot and drove south as dusk fell around city volunteers who were helping direct traffic in the power starved city. Shannonn shouted out compliments to them, and I was dropped off at Bloor street. I would take the bus home from there. But now I was back in reality.
That meant waiting at the curb with a huge cloud of people. When a completely full bus stopped and opened its doors perhaps only for air I gently shouldered my way in and I think I am the only one who bothered. As I flashed my bus pass and wormed my way in, I detected every un-breathable form of human smell combined into a new strain on stink. Every now and then the bus would stop to let in a gust of fresh smog. I considered trying to escape and walk, but luckily I stayed on my feet, people around me standing shoulder-to-shoulder-to-buttock, and eventually arrived at Danforth and Victoria Park where I could walk to my apartment.
I discovered new areas of the apartment complex by approaching from a hillside and into the wrong building from parking. A few neighbors or looters gave directions and eventually I climbed up the right thirteen flights to my apartment. I let the bathtub drip hoping that by morning there might be enough water for a cold bath. I would use a little dish soap, since I could find that. When I did bath after failing to fall asleep, it was like being in an isolation tank. But, unlike William Hurt in Altered States, I did not transform into a fetus at all. I still had to get up in the morning with total reliance on a wake-up call.

Day Two of Shoot: Friday 15 August, 2003
I listen for messages, call in to listen to other messages. It turns out that power is on at Shannonn’s, so we can shoot the washroom shot set-ups there in the morning. It was already the plan before the blackout that we would cheat Shannonn’s lavatory for that of the location. The actual washroom did not appear to be of the same design scheme as the kitchen set; also, a hallway outside Shannonn’s gave us just that much more space to back up.
Monika notices at the last second before we roll that the time hand on the egg timer is not set for twenty minutes as it is being placed in hiding, and thus saves the film from having its central story point over-looked. I am doing my own continuity, so as director I would have to fire myself.
By the time our washroom and bomb placement shots have been wrapped, we get word that the main location up in the suburbs has power back now. So the planned unit move goes onward and we set up at the house. Perhaps in the original schedule for day two, there might have been another exterior because for some reason the camera was converting for a daylight source. Our first shot of the house, an interior, was facing the sliding deck doors and it might have been thought that they should be the primary light source, but I notice while sitting through the video transfer that a tungsten window gel can be seen. Since the film is tungsten balanced, the gel should become invisible as it converts the daylight. The sliding half of the door is open for part of the shot, so the trade-off should have been a slightly blue look outside. Luckily, the problem must have been caught before the next set-up. In post, the editor Michelle Gurevich was able to reduce the orange of the gel but if someone really wants to look for technical flaws that shot is one that bugged me after the fact. At least nobody comments on it and it flies by unless I point it out like an idiot the way I am doing now. But I won’t say which scene it was.
John was able to bring in a grip and got him to remove a ceiling fixture that was causing reflection problems. It was placed onto a grip stand to place into scenes wherever it is required as dressing. Meanwhile, I find out John’s camera assistant Serhat Yalcinkaya worked on Chicago. If I engineer another SARS panic I will have the industry to myself. Just as planned.
We ate up some page space with a shot that holds on Anne for most of a scene despite the fact that much of the dialogue is off screen. Even after some off-screen dialogue has been trimmed, we are still able to stay on Anne for much of the camera run and cut only when the rhythm of the scene calls for it. This is the first leap of faith, testing the waters to see how the actors will do in long camera runs. It’s a great relief, since a director with a small shooting ratio and really only a week of good rehearsal time is really at the mercy of the concentration and preparation of the actors.
For a couple of shots of Linda, I felt instinctively that Bertha’s character should minimize any mundane walking around and should just appear. This is along the lines of the creepy housekeeper in O’Selznick and Hitchcock’s Rebecca, supposedly. But it is more accurate to say that the sudden appearance of characters was exaggerated more as a Warner Brothers / Bugs Bunny cartoon device (which is where I first saw it and where it is more obvious than the acclaimed film above. As Bertha is noticed by Anne, we would have sound designer Jason Matthews crate a burst of scare music. I found the specific sting on my copy of Halloween and then told Jason the clock time and he rented a copy to find the place. It is a very good, short adaptation of the effect. I complicated the next shot by planting Linda’s feet behind Dave and giving her an odd scolding finger gesture to go along with my loopy dialogue. That was good for a few bloopers that ended up in our end credit roll. Next we moved on to a silent shot of Dave catching groceries and putting them into the cupboard. I was not worried that he doesn’t synch to the song, since this shot could work as an all purpose cut-away from the reverse master of the song to be shot later. Only the strangeness of the movie allows us to get away with him silently working while his voice continues with Anne on the track.
During the song “If Only” there was originally not much written in terms of action. Even when I originally storyboarded it I had a few lame dance moves in mind but no activity or project the audience could follow. Shannonn suggested that the characters could be putting away groceries, because I had indicated a box of sanitary napkins on the counter as a simple joke. So I worked backwards from that adding the prop of a grocery bag. Now Anne would be arriving with her dad’s birthday cake box and a grocery bag. This gives Bertha a motivation to stay, and something to do during the song. She picks through Anne’s groceries like a raccoon, pretending to help. This motivates Ian and Anne to put away the groceries that minute.
By now we had less light outside but we didn’t have to see the windows. A synch bit requiring playback from another song was then done with Anne and Ian from the side.
Finally, we could excuse the actors and finish the day with images of the cutting of the fetus-shaped cake. I asked Monika to add a little smile on the fetus-cake. John remarked with a laugh, “I’ve said it before; You’re a sick man, Will.” I said thanks. I had to admit this particular shot was something I have talked to people about for a while and it was weird to finally see it shot. It was original to me when I first thought of it, but The Naked Gun has a similar effect with a Queen Elizabeth cake and I could also claim that it is an unconscious homage to Margaret Atwood’s first novel The Edible Woman, which unfortunately was not the story I expected.

Day Three of Shoot: Saturday 16 August, 2003
“It’s a cluster fuck,” John finally says, a bit of edge creeping into the smile. We have been waiting around the location for almost a couple of hours beyond our planned call time. I finally ring through to Shannonn’s cell and get a worse burst of anger as an answer: Turns out I needn’t have gotten off the Westbound bus at Yonge and I needn’t have stood waiting in a cold drizzle for the Northbound with all the puddle hopping to the location. I was supposed to go to Shannonn’s and be driven up to the set. The only thing stopping me from carving a big bloody “L” on my forehead (for La Rochelle) is that we haven’t heard from our make-up girl either. She is en route and caught in traffic, so the first shot would have come off at the same time even if I had been alert to every plan that flew past me on the wind last night. So besides being grateful for Sawsan Sibani being what Shannonn calls a “stealth make-up artist” I am also happy that she was held up in gridlock that morning.
We ate through some good pages today and got off a good axis change in a handheld shot I had hoped to have a ramp for originally. John managed a good, very tricky move. Most of the movie is fairly static, so this dynamic shot was necessary and is dictated by the content. While we imply Anne mooning her parents, we swing around behind them to imply that she is done by the time she resumes her argument. There is a moon photo on the wall just for that one reason, to help implant the idea of mooning, since we can’t show a butt (though the first pass of storyboards long ago did show that).
There is a slight light flare, which was hard to spot on set over the video tap but nothing that anyone has drawn to my attention. If we had a ramp behind the parents to see over them toward Anne, the final angle would have been pointing down more and there would have been no flare. But at least John was operating and he is (like most people) taller than me. If I had to perform the shot, it would have been a full shot of lights hanging from a grip stand.
As Anne takes over the gun in a big stand-off scene, there might have been a slight drift of the pan control between my sign off on the shot and the final take. Seeing the final film, John agrees this might have happened. So I can point to the drifting pan if people say my direction is too rigid. I don’t like corrective moves during a take, so I generally say pan and tilt should be locked off. But the energy of the scene is still the same even if the final placement of the actors in the frame feels just a hair off to me. There was a good reaction from crew over performances in this scene. I even recall people clapping.
I notice we caught some interesting behind-the-scenes footage due to my forgetting to turn off the video assist unit. Scanning through the High 8 tapes, it is interesting to watch Julie Hall attend to Dave’s costume and Sawson touch up his make-up. This is in a shot where Dave has to do a “Groucho” and squat to arrange a clock behind his head like a halo. A couple of people watching the film have pointed it out as if it were an accident. It’s interesting to see that we are all being deliberate, down to the napkins in Dave’s collar to protect the rented doctor’s lab coat from make-up smears as Julie and Sawson buzz around him. Or maybe they only appear to buzz because they are on high speed search. I don’t know if I could go back to my own one-man productions after having good crews on my last two films.
I’ve also noticed that other than hello there isn’t much that has to be said to the sound recordist Edward Hue and his boom operator Brent Stewart. They seem to have their approach worked out, working around the frame. I was intimidated by sound initially, and I’m happy the tracks are so clean. My fear of inter-cutting is one reason I chose to avoid covering each actor in close-up, time and film being other factors. I was paranoid enough to imagine that I might be tempted by a sale to cut an offensive joke if need be and so I am pretty much deliberately painting myself into an all-or-nothing corner.
There are a few little flourishes as characters come in and out of songs or fantasy embellishments and crash back into reality. I’m glad I storyboarded so that every little whip-move of the camera can be ticked off of a checklist when we are lit for the proper section of the set. The one scene where I felt a little tug of improvisation tension is in a scene involving a bit of handheld moves involving a coat hanger, buttering a bun, not wanting to cut the cake, and finally the introduction of a spider. The writing basically has to ask a lot of the audience here in terms of filling in blanks or following the content itself. But I couldn’t bring myself to cut anything here, even though it may seem to be a speed bump. There is a coat rack bar placed beyond the actors so I have an excuse to have Anne offer Bertha a hander as she takes her shawl.
That might be where I was asked if I want the rack put up. . . although I believe they used an adhesive, and I’m not sure how a hole got into the wallpaper. If it was a high hole, it must have been to move over the clock for a shot. I didn’t see any hammers in evidence, but it didn’t make the homeowner any less peeved when she found a nail hole. I think we had to compensate for that and have the carpet cleaned in an area we were not to trespass upon. As for the carpet thing, I did find crew set up in that area, but I think that rule breakage was good for the film and worth the added location expense for carpet cleaning.
I took a leap in terms of camera direction and axis change by cutting to what should be Anne’s view of a spider crawling on the table. It should seem to crawl toward her, but we zoom out to reveal we are on the other side and it is crawling away.
Mark had designed a crawling spider using a magnet under the table and it was great when he demonstrated it. Monika wrangled it for the take and I should have given her more than one kick at the cat. The move is one part of a very long camera run that includes Anne singing a song.
Monika wanted to see the spider, so the video monitor was placed under the table. I got as comfortable as possible there on the floor during the take. I don’t know if Monika remained there beside me or whether she felt it was safer to fly blind. John made a comment about me being on the floor, “You have to suffer for your art. I know I sure am.” I replied, to clarify, “You’re suffering for my art.” He said, “I wasn’t going to say that, but. . .”
Ultimately, if I could redo this, the one change I would make is that I would have done one additional angle, perhaps at table level, on the spider so there was more scurrying and more chance to see it work. This is one case where my efficient shot functions were too strict. On the monitor, the spider movement was fine. It scurries a bit, then stops, perhaps in fear. I didn’t have time to scrutinize it on the monitor until we had moved on. I saw what I wanted to see. It was a well-conceived gag. But by tying too many functions into a shot I sold it short. I was too busy being amazed that in the rest of the one-take shot Anne managed to synch an entire song and hold our attention long enough that a cut-away was not needed. A lot of things had to come together in that shot and I was happy with where the actors ended up, but the spider deserved a better fate, even apart from being squashed, snuff-movie style. Her children complained and threatened a lawsuit right before they ate her.
The last scene of the film was an even longer camera run and mostly dialogue. Big day for props. Mark and Monika provided and prepared a gestation tank with a near-birth fetus inside.
Once John and the lights were set, I had to thank the crew and advise them that the actors needed a few more minutes to drill the lines. Again, I wanted confident readings, faithful to my every fantastic typo. At a certain point, where it was just a matter of getting over the words and getting trouble sections right, I would be firm and make the actor in question repeat the lines insanely and quickly over and over. Then I let the group of them drill the lines quickly and just walked away for a while once they started getting back on track. I did storyboard an implied version of the spit-take that begins the shot, assuming that we wouldn’t want the actor to make a mess on the camera or crew.
I think Shannonn questioned this cop-out, arguing that there is entertainment value in people spitting up. It may have been her idea to put crushed crackers into Linda’s mouth to help illustrate the lumpiness of sour milk her character has ingested. As footage was assembled, Shannonn suggested that the gestation tank had not been featured enough with more of a close-up. We discussed that, then I ended up asking the editor Michelle if Final Cut Pro could generate a glowing, pulsing special effect around the tank. I was surprised with the result, which also helps boost the lights that Mark had already set into the tank itself. There is not question that the audience eyes are drawn to the tank and its occupant. It gets a reaction. A last minute storyboard on the shoot day was a quick cut-away of Bertha touching her chin in thought. This was to be used just before the “explosion” shot, as the homage to Peter Cushing as arrogant architect of an SDI-like space station before his creation blows up. I won’t say whether it means culpability or Bertha waking from debate only now remember the deadly reason for her visit. Maybe it’s just another cheap Star Wars reference to book-end the film.
Ian turns his head, cringing at the spit . . . a knife is twirled in anticipation of expert cake cutting. Then a long master of dialogue surrounding the cake scene and a cut-in of passing a pill.
Here I ran into a continuity problem because I intended again to shoot only one long shot. When I improvised by suggesting a close-up of the pill being passed, I could then not return to the master shot right after that. I would have to get another angle, a close-up of Bertha receiving and sniffing the pill, so that the wide shot would have emphatic purpose as a double-reaction shot. I would have to wait until we were set up on the other side of the room the following day.
Under the gun, we took Bertha’s pill-sniffing close-up, which was great, in one take. I should have taken the time to watch playback to confirm Linda’s memory of which hand she used. So there is a continuity error, but I guess the pacing and content help distract from it. I still needed to use that reaction shot from the master for a mock-suspense beat of music which could lead in to a commercial.I decided to work the possible breaks into the script and storyboards so that they would not have to be imposed inappropriately by a broadcaster in the future.
By now I think the day was winding down. We were a little behind in what we had hoped to have shot, but the light had dwindled. We tried to turn around and face the deck door again for a shot of the freedom pads on the countertop, but John stated that we were pooched for sunlight. Though it was dimmer outside, I insisted on a take but we would end up redoing it the following day anyway. The character of the outdoors was too far gone. Dark was dark. The last thing we were able to shoot required seeing no windows. It was from the hallway, showing Dave as Ian cross with a coffee mug. It meant establishing the door handle of the washroom in foreground. Mark had removed Shannonn’s door handle and the knob of the location washroom door, which opened on the wrong side. Now Monika had to mount Shannonn’s handle onto the location door. The Set Foreman Daniel Gibbs crouched nearby before the take and held the handle against the door hoping whatever tape or adhesive would hold while the camera ran. He let go, and the take went fine.
Set Foreman was I believe a title made up by Shannonn for Dan, who had arrived as a surprise to me. I didn’t want an Assistant Director, because I was doing many of those tasks. He was on the phone to Shannonn a lot. Someone who didn’t make the cut of the crew heard the story and said to me, “So, she brought in a mole.” In fact, this interaction demonstrates that Shannonn had a good instinct for who to hire and who to filter out. I think Dan was a hard worker and I’m glad we had him around. Very over-qualified for his job. I still do feel that everyone moved at exactly the right pace and that I’m never motivated by time-stamps or contrivances of pressure. It’s bad for my nerves; just one more thing to tune out. Some people show tension up front, but directors have to filter it so there is no destructive stress for the cast and crew.
Speaking of good crew members, I believe Edward Hue dropped me off home and picked me up the following morning.

Final Day of Shoot: Sunday 17 August, 2003
This was a marathon day. Shannonn repeated cheerfully that there would be no fifth day of the shoot. Whatever the deadline, all we can do is one shot after the other. At the time I was reading “The Tao of Pooh” which is about dealing with what is in front of you at the moment.
We started with a retake of the shot from the previous day where we had lost the daylight. Much better now. We are now entirely doing shots that face the door this morning. We will get through some pages. One thing that got by me as continuity is that we forgot to ask the grip to put the ceiling fixture back up. He couldn’t be here today. Since most of the shots don’t show that part of the ceiling, it never enters my mind. There is one shot where an empty ceiling is visible, but the eye isn’t led to it. Still, I notice it and I regret that I neglected to note it until the homeowners arrived that night and saw it out of place. I know it was handled with care, but they perhaps did not.
As a family the characters sway, putting groceries away and singing. Linda was given some business by choreographer Michelle shaking a box of noodles, for which the foley will be carefully added in by Jason. When I told people I was doing a musical I heard about “tie downs” and various contraptions which would make it prohibitively expensive to synch actors to their vocal tracks. We have gotten away with having Edward basically press play on a CD player.
For the dialogue leading into “A Little Bit Pregnant,” we have to see artwork on the fridge apparently done by Ms Anne Thrope as a child. It's actually artwork of one of John Lindsay’s kids that was happily supplied. I needed it to fill the first third of the frame so there wouldn’t be a gap, so Dan and other crew pulled the fridge carefully out from the wall a bit.
For a scene where Linda has to begin in the foreground addressing the camera, spin away to reveal Dave, and then reappear on another focal plane where Dave is; the crew rigged a little platform over the kitchen sink island so Linda could climb over off screen.
I insisted that some of the island be visible in frame so it would be impossible and unexpected for Bertha to reappear in the same shot. The scene ends with all three cast dancing back to the door with a little step and head turn which the actors had worked out with Michelle. I think in rehearsal I said, “It needs to end with some kind of end move.” I think Linda added the head-turn and pivot and Michelle refined it.
When it came time for a shot following Anne to the washroom where the bomb is, Shannonn’s handle had to be attached to the door again. I think this time had a more durable method. No damage done. But at the start, Bertha returns a pill to Anne. We had to do another take because Linda – and I’m not picking on her – mimed the pill instead of asking props for it. I was a little agog at this, although it is funny. That’s why I say people should never fear asking silly questions. Like, “Where did I put my prop?”
After eight set-ups, we had a lunch break in the back yard.
I had planned to have the family march around the living room. I had already cut one of three shots from the sequence for time. Shannonn asked “Are you sure you don’t need it? Are you sure.” And I was sure, until post when Michelle reported that I didn’t have enough picture to fit the song. This was where we were able to pop in the non-singing option of the family tableau from the intro. But one good decision came when I realized it was a shame we didn’t have shots to exploit the lovely back yard of this property so why not shoot the living room stuff out there.
I spoke to John and Shannonn about this time-saver. The scene works much better as a fantasy outdoors anyway. The content was mainly a march. Anne, Dave and Linda wear sunglasses and hard hats for no other reason than a Norman Jewison reference, this one from Jesus Christ Superstar. Shannonn grabbed a pair of glasses from a crew member and mixed and matched making sure each actor was fitted.
The biggest challenge of the scene was the use of a picket as an axe. Don’t ask. Or don’t axe.
Anne has a good close-up rubbing her eyes full of tears in reaction to the silly violence. Ironically, she has demonstrated that she is one of those actresses who can cry on command. It might be worthwhile to utilize that skill in a more serious dramatic film some day.
Back into the house. A low synch shot looking up at Linda. “A Little Bit Pregnant.” She asks me about a “silly rumor” she heard: “Are the shots are being arranged to let Anne leave early and hold me here till the end?” I wonder how this got started and who the leak is to this conspiracy. I tell her no. Anne does end up wrapping first, and Linda does have her opening scene as the final scene shot, but Anne ends up staying around and helping until the end. So clearly Anne had no master plan of skipping out. She was totally dedicated.
Somebody remarked that Anne’s hair style is similar to Wednesday Addams. This is cool, since the film, "Addams Family Values" is a favourite of mine.
For the song Abortion Lullaby, John had the lights on a dimmer and I believe Shannonn crouched and spun the disco ball nearby so sparkles would appear. Here is another of those leaps of faith. It would be easy to stumble, but Linda makes it through the whole song in one long take. I believe I showed her the video tap to assure her it went well. Shannonn has commented that the song is disturbing and has been giving her nightmares. Exxxcelent.
Next, is a close shot of the fridge being opened by Linda’s hand, retrieving a milk carton and revealing for the first time the gestation tank and its occupant. There is a little camera noise, so the dialogue and sound effects are recorded without camera as well as in synch.
A small portion of the family room did end up lit, for a few quick shots of Dave as Ian. I slightly regret backing off on my idea of having a gun lay beside Ian’s head as he is curled up on a sofa, but that might have played as misinformation. Also, a bullet hole created by Mark for the scene could have had a close-up, but I thought it would read in the medium shot. Had I done a close-up, I wonder with the dwindling light whether it would have been in sharp focus. Okay. I could have started close and then whip-zoomed out before Dave pokes at it.
We moved the last stray members of crew into the basement, where Mark had set up a confessional using a closet he had found. So the location scouting didn’t stop at the location. John asked me to art direct the piece of felt that was hanging above the closet and the curtain emerged.
We had been able to wrap the kitchen pretty much on time, but this left a handful of people with us downstairs and a few people relaxing outside and nobody actually restoring the kitchen to the way we found it. Shannonn I think arrived around the same time as the homeowners. Care was taken to look after the location, but items like the ceiling fixture perhaps made our presence look more dramatic at first glance.
The homeowner Grace was polite and said she’d be interested in seeing the final film. I said me too. I guess Shannonn got the brunt of her complaints. But she was invited to the Grace’s script-reading club; I was not.
When Linda’s opening scene was done, that left shots of the bomb, and a disco ball to top it all off. We hustled stuff out of the house, cleaning what we could. John stayed in for the camera alignment chart, and then we all sat in a circle outside lit only by maybe one movie light, since the family was retiring and we were not allowed back inside.
It was a pretty positive post mortem. I’ve been on a lot of sets and I was happy how sane and focused this one had been. Hard work all around, but personally necessary and a good way to spend my days off.

Montalban RIP

All We Hear is Radio Gaza

My language and my favourite movies are a hodgepodge of other people's work. If I go into a food court, I might like to have both a bagel and a falafel on my tray with no dirty looks from opposing restaurants. When Muslim extremists crashed planes on 9/11 2001 the first response from North America was to fill the rest of our buildings with Muslim security guards; that way any further attack would be against their own.

Lately we all confront those big Facebook battlefield choices: to join the board that on friend has joined supporting Israel or to join the one from another who is critical of it. So do I invest hours reading 14-page documents so I know which group to click? Do I then consider myself informed? Or do I take the "love your enemy" Christian position and support nothing? A pattern of clear black and clear white up close becomes grey from a distance, and I have preferred to keep it that way.

So far the most inflammatory post I've seen, on a "no politics or religion allowed" screenplay discussion board, says outright that the ultimate goal of Jews is to become the equivalent of Nazis but substituting Arabs and Muslims for themselves. Without knowing anything about any specific facts and not knowing what is a reliable source, I'd rather look at the principle. It sounds terrible. Not something anyone I know accepts. Not a plan.
So we're in agreement then? No extermination of all Palestinians. But my first gut reaction to that was that psychologically it seems plausible. Chillingly so. Any reasonable person can agree that the Holocaust or Shoah was a terrible event in human history, even if we have only experienced it safely through Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice and hundreds of other books, movies or testimonials. But was it a one-time-only event? Try comparing anything to it - even to extract a principle from an anthropological stand point - and the person suggesting it will be asked to apologize from someone official. Burma, Darfur, Tibet, Rwanda and the list goes on with abusive authority, propaganda, ethnic cleansing, and a message of "mind your own business, rest of the world" sound like at least mini variations on the same humanitarian catastrophe that we would like to think happens only once and then we are all too civilized to let happen again.

Spielberg had some project giving Israel and Palestinian children video cameras to do their own home movies and then trade the tapes with each other to show similarities. I haven't heard how that turned out, but it was after Munich was done. People have an impulse to fall in love with one horrible event (holocaust, 9/11) and there is no other crime that can compare and it is offensive to suggest similar patterns.

That's because being vigilant is work. It's easier to care a lot about ONE thing that we had no responsibility for than to maintain awareness of the changing and unchanging world around us. I can't comment on Gaza because I haven't taken the time to read the facts. I have Jewish friends, a few of my favourite filmmakers and comics are obviously Jewish, and most of the security guards I interact with on a regular basis are Arab or Muslim and some are also my friends. Here's what I know without knowing anything:

The LEADERS of both camps must be held accountable. The average Joe Palestinian or Joe Israeli only cares about the big picture to the extent that they are told to care about it. It's always about someone else "winning." And it is not for the glory of any God worth worshipping let alone being inspired by. It is a bunch of bean counters and sociopaths. That's my judgement without looking up the details. Some people say killing your personal enemy is wrong but going off to fight a war because the machine says so is right. A personal enemy threatens your specific life and survival. The official "enemy" is arbitrary, in this case dictated by real estate claims. That said, some might say it is morally wrong or mad to condone sending "Rambo" into Burma and having him kill off their military and leadership one by one, but that is an idea that I endorse unofficially but it would have to be covert.

There is supposedly a rule about not kidnapping or killing the leader of the enemy force, which to me is nonsense. That is precisely the core problem. Leaders on both sides of the Gaza conflict should be replaced by Scott Bacula's character from Quantum Leap until the situation is cooled down. But then who backs down first? Who gets to seem weak? Which leader do you puppet first into saying just the right peaceful thing?

It's difficult to say I want to impost my food court philosophy on the world. I can only selfishly say I'd like to be able to have Chinese food today and Japanese food tomorrow without having to agitate or endorse anybody's long-standing homeland hatreds. I don't have to respect those hatreds. Even when they come to us in viral form over the inter-net, I'm not sure there is an action to take. If Canada, the U.S., or the World Food Court actually function it's because something has to be left behind. There isn't much of a mental border patrol and we don't put our personal and psychological baggage through a mental detector, but I don't have to know any details to know that I don't want either Jewish or Muslim kids and bystanders endangered - especially by crap their parents feel some obligation to perpetuate. Put Moses, Mohammad and Jesus in a room and don't let them come out until they have a solution. Everybody else can crank up the a/c and watch the Simpsons.

millionRSS - on the way to 1,000,000 rss feeds

zoetrope.com

I'm starting my day early for no reason. Usual bowl of chilled monkey brains just so it won't go bad, watching my girlfriend levitate from the other side of the table. She hits her head on the ceiling a lot since I filled her with helium. Otherwise a typical day.

I may check my e-mails and the usual message boards, even though they say "ignore the fruits of your actions." By that rule it makes no sense to see if anyone replies to a post. It would save a lot of time.

Here's a quote that is rattling around in my head lately, like a song that just won't go away so you have to look for it on Youtube or your own collection and hear it until you are cured:

"I've been in high school eight years; I'm no dummy."
- Curtis Armstrong advising John Cusack in Better Off Dead

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088794/

I think it's the ever-present realization that being "smart about movies" isn't such a badge of honor and that when you close in on a decade of discussions (even killing time on someone else' clock as is the case with many of us most of the time) it's not that a seasoned veteran of b.s. can say to a newbie, "Listen here, in my day. . ."

There have been steps forward in the vocation, but if I was one of those annoying people with a five year plan and a one year plan chirping "fail to plan, plan to fail" I might be more in touch with whatever unconscious depression might be going on. Or I might be exactly where I need to be. They say the measure of sanity is the proximity of reality to the dream.

What could I be doing instead of debating whether a given movie may be over-rated or under-rated? I mean, I'd be sacrificing the pay-off of possibly convincing some anonymous teen to knuckle down and see more movies. What could I be doing instead of watching movies? To my left is a $3500 Cannon HX A1 which can shoot some pretty decent HD; it has a nice t-shirt over it so it won't get all dusty. On the floor is the instruction manual torn apart for photocopies. I've read some of it. What a time to realize my instruction-phobia is back in full bloom. I've had meetings and meetings and generated a backlog of scripts. . .

I wonder how many screenplays I can read and review - under whatever accounts or IDs - and have it improve my taste and facility within the form of the screenplay. It's great to stumble across a link to a resource or somebody else's short film and be inspired once in a while or take a shortcut in my political education or current events by looking at articles and clips that someone else labored to collect. I'll get drawn into a debate on zoetrope once in a while, and it's interesting to come away with a vivid projection of someone's character or pathology. Not something to debate or even state outright, of course, because any self-respecting sociopath would take offence at the accusation. I have been called arrogant, but it's hard to make that stick when I'm pretty open about my stupidity.

I know from my job that there are some very functional sociopaths walking around.

Starting to dabble in radio drama again. I wrote a one-act play for the stage in 2001 after I had been on my job for a few months. It had a public reading, went well, and then after 9/11 there was to be a reading of the next draft and somehow I got the date wrong and missed it. I've been re-writing it on the same themes with each workplace. Once in a while a vital layer is added and the story enriched bu higher stakes. A life experience can be an end to itself; a job experience had better add to the writing.

I keep thinking if I really apply myself I can finish watching all the Extended Lord of the Rings DVDs by this weekend, and hear the commentaries. Imagine THAT feeling like a chore to procrastinate about.

Man, when I had nothing, when I had no job or when I thought my job was temporary I would spend days in a library cubby hole doing my storyboards and correcting my scripts. There is a point where everything that drifts into your transom is not there as a sprig of wisdom that has to be absorbed or explored in your life as an artist. Most opinions are the waste material of having consumed movies or TV or gossip rags or having spent all day playing video games (like cigarettes, this last example is one of the few bad habits I haven't picked up yet, much to the disappointment of friends and nephews).

If anyone else does read this, the one thing I can say in my defense is that the chilled monkey brains and inflate-a-date are jokes. If I actually get some cardio at the gym today for a change, I might view this whole thing differently. I might be ready to actually accomplish something today.

Karlafornication

They say listening to music does wonders for the unconscious mind. I wonder what influence watching TV – even computer-compressed illegal streaming – does for us. I watched as much of Karla as I could before it timed out, then some Californication. It’s an interesting juxtaposition.

They don’t have much in common, usually. Karla had to be filmed in Los Angeles, California, so there is the location thing. But it is set in Ontario, Canada not far from where I live. To Americans, it would be about the “Ken and Barbie” Killers. The idea that the movie was being made angered a lot of Canadians and the movie was misrepresented by critics by and large. Now that I’ve gotten around to seeing it without the pressure of having to pay for it, I have to admit the movie is very well executed in the sense that it is appropriate and it seems to convey what we know of the tragedies. My main emotion was frustration, and I impotently pounded my hand a couple of times imagining how I’d like to bash Paul Bernardo in the head. I don’t have any sympathy for that couple-from-hell, but the movie conveys something more important than a purely exploitive approach would have. We see how plausible it is and how vital it is to keep an eye open for how this activity can happen and how unlikely it is that this high-profile case was rare. There are so many abusive twits and monsters like Bernardo looking for a good time it can be hard to tell a sociopath from a psychopath. It makes me all the more concerned for the safety of someone I know.

Californication so far has only one episode I have disliked, “The Raw and the Cooked,” which puts up walls between me and the characters it is so poorly written. I consider it a jump-the-shark episode. Why is the plagiarist Mia invited to the party? Why is Charlie nice to her when she partly cost him his career? When a surprise is revealed about the Scientologist and Hank – which happened before the reconciliation with Karen motivates what seems like a rejection from Karen so fickle that I lose respect for her. Then there’s Hank asking the daughter Becca’s boyfriend Damien if he supports Roe Verses Wade as part of his screening process and tries to discourage him from dating the girl despite his choicey-friendly view and although both Hank and Karen are both strict with Becca in most respects they are absurdly tolerant of her (revealed now and not mentioned in the future) belief in the Satanic Bible. Granted, Becca has a Wednesday Addams thing going, but she is diminished somewhat by this. The best I can say about The Satanic Bible is that I genuinely pray that in the 12 years (give or take) since his death Anton LaVey has been rotting where he always wanted to be. I can’t believe Charlie and Hank haven’t mounted an all-out offensive against Mia and Charlie’s evil former assistant Dani. I’m hoping the Satanism aspect pays off and they ritualistically kill Dani. But it looks like that character is written off. And of the two shows I’m watching on my days off here, THIS is the one leaving me with more frustration. At least better episodes followed. . .

Blog Off

I'd like to pretend I don't care about pop culture but it is part of the noise around us and once in a while a glimmer of intelligence hits us. An actor I'm not familiar with was quoted on imdb and he in turn was quoting Will Smith who may have been quoting someone else but is to have said, "You can tell how far you will get in life by the five people you spend the most time with." He remarked that he can see a lot of people cleaning house and changing up their friends. Likely the quote was New Years related.

I think there are many reasons to blog or to write, maybe it's just a substitute for the "four pages" of random stream-of-consciousness writing recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way - something others don't have to and perhaps shouldn't read but which purges the writer of baggage. It's supposed to be done first time in the morning. For me, morning is a changing concept because I work four night shifts per week.

Every now and then you may get a toxic e-mail, one that you have to examine to its root and find that whether the sender consciously understands it or intends it there is something disturbing behind it. If you are an actor older than 50 and wish to revisit a character that has a brand name, there will be critics and bloggers and common idiots who state the obvious "he's old," "she's old." The implication of this is "the world would somehow be better if that person sits in a corner and rests on laurels and "ages gracefully (read: unproductively)" and the world is somehow worse off because a popular title has been revisited. As stupid and and pissy as that belief may be, it is the least damaging example of this kind of thinking.

There are too many nay-sayers in life. Failure will take care of itself. If you know someone who is in his/her DNA a producer and they COULD help to facilitate the organization of a project you have in mind but they do not, whether you are rude enough to broach the issue or not THAT is the defining aspect of your relationship.
You do NOT by any stretch of the imagination need a friend or family member to tell you to be "realistic" when they mean give up. It is FAIR to insist that you be in a state of readiness for whatever you dream and aspire to do. In my case, believe me, I know every time I stand up let alone walk a flight of stairs that I have to improve my fitness.

But physical action and getting psyched up are interactive. Once in a while I'll identify a source of input as toxic, shut it out, and actually make progress. Then time passes and you relax the defence, like filing away the "Do Not Access" photo for an estranged person posted behind the security desk. Eventually, people relax and coast because adrenaline and anger usually can't sustain and there are other issues to concentrate on. But the same toxic input can worm its way back into your attention and waste even more of your time. Consider those the words of Satan or whatever other negative image you subscribe to. What is this in service of?

I get along well with my siblings. Others don't. If they lived in my town I would make the effort to phone and visit. I'd like to succeed where I must and then maybe return to my home town some day, even though I've missed a lot of life there while following my main passion in the big city (even while paying the rent by less grandiose means). I can imagine how even siblings would stop talking to each other if certain mental roles life scripts or mind games were being acted out. Once a person is free of the childhood home, they frankly don't have to listen to scoldings and advice. It's toxic. The toxic person may even look for surrogates they can damn with faint praise or mentally mess with all in the guise of support. But again that is so subtle and diabolical it likely will not be a conscious choice. That's giving the person benefit of the doubt. But whether they own and intend the harm behind it, a toxic influence is just that.

It should not be expected to improve anymore than an alcoholic should be expected to recover fully.
Maybe this applies to me more than most and it may be of no use to the average reader. I have what might be called a co-dependant nature and an addictive personality. So there is no grey area, even if I fool myself into thinking there is one. An innocent discussion of movies on a website can be one more irritation instead of the audience research that is intended. If you find yourself reading mostly things that irritate, and it isn't giving a spark of inspiration, maybe it's time to cut that loose.

If anything, those of us who want to make progress in writing, theater, comedy, films or another coveted vocation will have plenty of critics. Those are inevitable. But before the creation the last thing we need is to actually interact with them. I think evaluating the quality of thought behind reviews (or lack of it rather) will help me accept the inevitable blasts I will get in the future from my own work. But that's about all I get from that.

All I can say to other people is good luck.

New Gilligan movie ?

If Payton Reed directs it, the tone might be right.Cera is appropriate for Gilligan, Beyonce is plenty sexy but I would cast her as Mary Anne rather than Ginger. There is a chance for Satire with a shallow movie star that we love to hate. We don’t want to cheer for indignities suffered by Beyonce. The girl born to play Ginger is Lindsay Lohan. Lohan as Ginger, problem solved.For the skipper I can only see Horatio Sanz from SNL but they might want to re-team Cera with Jonah Hill who is actually much older. Professor: Vince Vaughn, The Howells: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.

New Year Crap-Clear

So I'm sorting through the gym bag that usually keeps vital work-related materials I take to the workplace, pills, work shirt, body spray and random free newspapers I have read on the subway with articles I hadn't finished importing into my brain. Garbage in, garbage out.

I can understand keeping an issue that boasts one of my letters to the editor. Those may not be thrown out except by accident. Whether I should keep them or not. But since it is perfectly acceptable and thoughtful to leave a Metro or Eye Weekly on the subway seat, I have chosen to stuff the most worthless material in my gym bag. So as I throw these papers out it's a review of the year's news that isn't quite news.

Jerry Lewis went to Australia and when asked if he liked playing cricket he said, "That's a faggot game" and did some physical comedy miming use of a cricket bat. So there's an article about GLAAD slapping him on the sturdy wrist and asking him for an apology. Like millions of Rat Pack fans will abandon Jerry for using the "new F-word." It amazes me how lobby groups seem to be in the business of telling people to lie to them. I don't have to pathologize Jerry for being out of touch with the latest edition of Newspeak. But you can understand if he has lingering resentment for the 2002 TV movie Martin and Lewis that was made about him where a guy from Will and Grace - Sean Hayes - played him. I remember saying to a friend after seeing a clip, "I didn't know Jerry Lewis was gay."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318908/

That gives an idea the kind of time and thought wastage results from reading a newspaper.
Did I have to know about that? When Issiah Washington was fired from Grey's Anatomy for calling T.R. Knight the same derogatory term for homosexual, my first instinct was that this is an over-reaction and extremely political (read: cowardly). T.R. crying on Ellen's couch didn't help boost his preferred image as the stoic leading man he was destined to be. Somehow since those articles we have more recent useless information that his role has been reduced on the show since Mr. Washington went to the Bionic Woman (much to the glee of snarky, fey critics). I'll be honest, I thought the Bionic Woman pilot episode was okay and I like Katee Sackoff as a satirical antagonist. A can't comment on Gay's Anatomy, because I've never seen an episode.

Still the new Bionic Woman pales by comparison to the original Bionic Woman and The Six Million Dollar Man which have been mired in a legal dispute between Universal and I forget what company. I try to google it and the term "Million dollar" is pretty common and "Bionic Woman" tends to bring up reference to the new-fangled version.

I seem to be finding a lot of blurbs about the apparent comeback of Tom Cruise after having supposedly killed his career. Imagine Tom Cruise in the early days of Top Gun and Rainman, with Barbara Walters bringing in a psychic to tell him this: "You will be very popular for many years until what kills your career is that you are so happy that you jump on Oprah's couch - but of course that's not enough to REALLY kill your career; you also criticise Brooke Shields."
What else hurt him? Of course Sumner Redstone making a point of saying that his behaviour hurt the box office of Mission: Impossible III. I see in another trash blurb that they have since reconciled and had lunch, but only after Tom had to become head of MGA/UA. Old Redstone seemed to be administering the death blow, and he was motivated because his lovely wife had a head full of this disposable tabloid crap. The guy manages to survive as a top Box office draw with a name like Cruise and what almost sinks him is an old man's wife reading the kind of crap I'm now finally throwing out.

What I can't have the pleasure of physically trashing is the sort of "news" feed you get signing into certain websites for e-mail. How do they choose these columnists? It has never been more true that somebody got a job by giving a blow. Do I really want to see an idiot's list of the "forgettable movies of the year" or a rant against Mel Gibson and the gossip about his marriage? Just another distraction. I have to reign myself in or I'll spend all of my time e-mailing incompetant cyber-columnists. Those that actually have a talk-back e-mail provided. Even then, likely it only bolsters the impression that people are reading the shite.

I won't mention a local Toronto film community that has a pressence on the web and sends out shameless viral marketing. I like the people involved but I've had to withdraw from involvement or the loop of promotions. It's too much. You get double and tripple versions of the same link and it takes up space in your Facebook feed even if you sellect "less from" this friend. And again I've had to confront this mentality and I've been told point blank that their columnists deliberately take extreme and controversial positions - many of which are inarticulate and non-persuasive - to get people fired up and attract feedback. I just thought why make myself crazy. Throw it all out. Ignore, ignore.

Now I'll have to look at my mostly blank Day-timer from last year, with its pages used as a notebook for some random ideas and snippets of dialogue. Maybe I'll actually have more time to plan things to do this year if I'm not wasting a little bit at a time paying attention to the sickening void of pop culture.

I should add another note for the sake of the few knee-jerks who might happen upon this blog and take offence at my issues with GLAAD and groups like them: I'm all for gay marriage and gay adoption and all of those many bench marks of progress that won't have an impact on what I want or have to do in my own life. But we live in a climate where we don't know each other and few intelligent people dare say anything that isn't affirmative. I'm not surprised to see a full-page article about the return of Andrew "Dice" Clay to comedy. People may very well need to listen to something that is expressing a very valid feeling of discomfort. I don't think discomfort should be lumped in with fear and certainly not hated to the point where someone's disinterest or a market's disinterest in something is branded "non-inclusive." I think it's great that the net version of Star Trek has introduced Captain Kirk's gay nephew, but I'm not rushing to find out how that is illustrated. Live long and prosper, as long as I don't have to pretend T.R. Knight is cool. Roddenberry was bucking the system to deal with race and staff the Enterprise with a multi-racial crew, but these days to buck the system is to be politically incorrect and outrage lobby groups.

All of this cluttering my head as I haul fresh new garbage out the door.

Lemons and Lemonade

Have you ever sat down and kept record of the daily progress on a project? I've done that. As a matter of therapy than posterity to log what went wrong or what I did right when working on someone else' project. I even came up with a checklist or two that could at least bring to the surface any potential conflicts earlier rather than later, since at the start of any venture - a film for example - people are likely to let fights go until it would be a disaster to dissolve the partnership. That said, I'm not sure many people would have it together enough to be so deliberate as to provoke each other early on. It would seem like an insult, a lack of good faith (or bad faith) and they say a liar won't believe anyone else. It's like a Catholic pre-marriage course designed to raise the tough questions. And some people aren't into that. You are looking a gift horse in the mouth, which is a term I've never understood. I mean if you look into the mouth of a Trojan horse before dragging it into your gates, you may see the soldiers hiding inside and burn it instead. So looking a gift horse in the mouth should be a wise routine.

I can think of one producer I worked with back in 2003 who I'm sure is the one who makes up a new Youtube account every once in a while and does a blitz leaving demoralizing and insulting messages on the videos I've posted under the one ID of mine she knows about. When you really don't have many enemies, at least that narrows down the suspects. But what good can I extract from a bad experience? What can I pass along so that it wasn't just a case of poorly spent trust costing me thousands? Well, even if you know better it won't be applied in time. I know I had seen The Spanish Prisoner by David Mamet a few years before. I should know the role politeness plays in preventing people to ask the right questions or refuse the wrong help. Faith in people and lack of imagination make us all marks.

There are some people who hear the word "money" when you say "movie." They may believe "why you and not me?" when it comes to the leadership or "why this idea and not mine?" They may feel I MUST BE PAID as the only measure of worth and value. But they will look at the limited resources for a volunteer-driven film and somehow try to be paid. If they don't sign off their services for a specific amount (even a dollar) they may try to bill you later. You may expect that it makes sense for every contender to bid for a job or a role, but it is not unusual for someone to join under implicitly volunteer conditions and shun signed documents and then consider themselves welcome to a blank check onc work is done. I don't know any filmmaker that can agree to blank checks. I know the movie is a square peg and the round hole is the amount of money available to pay for it.

Years later I still end up paying for the honor of directing my own scripts. Getting excited about the next project can happen immediately and be sustained, but most often now the state of drive to create comes and goes.

One thing I can take from the worst experiences and own and control to an extent is the question of readiness. Am I in a state of readiness? At present, no.

Emotions and thought play catch-up with physical health. I can walk along with a fully developed negative philosophy, then force myself to eat some celery and it's all gone. Or I force myself to get some tedious cardio or go for a swim and a writing problem has worked its way from vague sense of something wrong to problem-solving idea. I plan to swim more in the new year. I don't watch Jaws before swimming nor before sleeping, and I miss the film but I've been sleeping too much and so it's tricky to fit that in. I'd have to start my day watching Jaws while eating apples. Lately I've had no excuse not to swim. The habit I still have from my childhood may have nothing to do with fearing shark visions in a swimming pool. I would stand on the diving board or on the deck ready to jump in but not ready enough. I don't like surrendering to the adaptation of the water, and there is no plan around it. It is all about accomodating the water. Same with a woman. As long as I stay on the deck everything will be fine. Dip my toe into the surface and it will seem a lot colder.

I have to lose weight, and read more often and stick to books rather than what passes for news and concentrate rather than addle myself with even the best movies or TV streamed on-line. As much as I have to catch up on Californication, I also have a backlog of scripts and outlines to complete, prepare and shoot. I'm not sure I care to attend a film festival and schmoose and promote something I've done. But that's another blog.

Amazing Stories

Volume 2 hasn't been released to DVD. I'll be one of the few people in Toronto who buy it.
I used to tape each episode on VHS and edit out the commercials by pausing back in 1985.
I'm a fan of Steven Spielberg, even when that isn't a popular thing to admit. But in 1985 it was fairly safe. His first TV series - not including series' he had worked on before breaking into features - wasn't embraced by Neilsen families, but I liked it. Had Spielberg given us a ritual - like personal introductions or bookends in the style of Alfred Hitchcock Presents - it may have gone beyond the two-season contract it had. But back then Amazing Stories and Alfred Hitchcock were part of the same entertainment block hour in most markets if not all.

I wouldn't make a blanket statement about anything. I take each episode for what it is.

Season 1 Season 1, Episode 1: Ghost Train (fun and somewhat touching - esp recently, for me)

Season 1, Episode 2: The Main Attraction (superficial, mild fun)

Season 1, Episode 3: Alamo Jobe (A few amusing moments but a lame idea)

Season 1, Episode 4: Mummy Daddy (Total fun, good idea well executed)

Season 1, Episode 5: The Mission (Certainly well directed; takes a big risk with it's ending, a deus ex machina that could be the heart of the problem people have with AS - one can't be amazed by a device that takes a story from somewhat realistic and harrowing to magic-solution)

Season 1, Episode 6: The Amazing Falsworth (Actually quite well done and involving episode.)

Season 1, Episode 7: Fine Tuning (This Uncle Milty stuff barely played in the 80's and likely wouldn't work for kids today. It might have good intentions but it's terrible aliens. hamming it up.)

Season 1, Episode 8: Mr. Magic (I like this one. Sid Caesar strikes the right note and it is clearly somewhat about his own ups and downs so there is more than the story itself. The premise seems to have been recently lifted and used in a short that preceded Wall-E in theaters.)

Season 1, Episode 9: Guilt Trip (Fun, light romp, harmless though somewhat a rip-off of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality. The lame factor kicks in with the Casablanca "beginning of a beautiful friendship" which plays to me like finger-nails on the chalkboard. Over all, it goes for a few dark laughs which could have had more emphasis.)

Season 1, Episode 10: Remote Control Man (Basically fun Bob Clark fluff. The TV character definitely date it, and Adam Sandler has recently made "Click" which shares some of its content, but it is certainly not badly done.)

Season 1, Episode 11: Santa '85 (I have to watch this again now that I know Matt Damon is the boy. This was a favorite for the kids in my family. Pat Hingle is excellent and the magic of the ending works because they don't waste time making us guess if he is the "real" Santa.)

Season 1, Episode 12: Vanessa in the Garden (Interesting Eastwood episode that may be too slow and aloof or too mature for my own tastes. I was bored despite likeing everyone involved.)

Season 1, Episode 13: The Sitter (Total fun with a central character I think about often. Great example of a high point for the series.)

Season 1, Episode 14: No Day at the Beach (I have nothing against this episode but I'm also not sure of it's message that we should be nice to the geek because one day he might magically save everybody. Still well done for what it is.)

Season 1, Episode 15: One for the Road (This has the content of an O. Henry short story but it made no impression on me.)

Season 1, Episode 16: Gather Ye Acorns (Great fun present for Mark Hamill fans the world over, like myself. Anyone else might find it over-stated with the character reaching an absurd low. I agree with the message, but seeing it illustrated makes me question it.)

Season 1, Episode 17: Boo! (I actually like this idea and the approach of it. Nothing wrong with it's clash of generational tastes and tolerance.)

Season 1, Episode 18: Dorothy and Ben (This may be my favourite. Certainly the most emotionally moving. I find it very involving to the point of being embarrassed. The actors are terrific. What some people call "emotional manipulation" I call good filmmaking.)

Season 1, Episode 19: Mirror, Mirror (Clearly about Stephen King and his demons. I find it fun and it's interesting to see Scorcese just concentrating on shot design and having fun.)

Season 1, Episode 20: Secret Cinema (I'm a Griffin Dunn fan, so this kind of insanity appeals to me.)

Season 1, Episode 21: Hell Toupee (Whimsical idea that is harmless and sort of has something to say about vanity, so I like it. Cute fun.)

Season 1, Episode 22: The Doll (Kind of a touching John Lithgow episode. If you are in the right mood for it, this one is quaint and full of empathy.)

Season 1, Episode 23: One for the Books (The old janitor absorbing information from being near books has a progression of events but I'll be darned if I remember it adding up to anything or having much to say. It's a waste of a premise, from what I recall.)

Season 1, Episode 24: Grandpa's Ghost (Kind of embarrassing and uncomfortable.)

Season 2 Season 2, Episode 1: The Wedding Ring (Danny and Rhea are terrific in this. Actually it's the best thing DeVito has directed, even War of the Roses. Total fun.)

Season 2, Episode 2: Miscalculation (I think I liked it better when it was called Weird Science.)

Season 2, Episode 3: Magic Saturday (Liked it better when it was called Shoeless Joe - and later Field of Dreams)

Season 2, Episode 4: Welcome to My Nightmare (I have a dim memory of this. Have to get Season 2 on DVD. Sounds great, though my memory has it in the mediocre file. He ends up on the set of Psycho?)

Season 2, Episode 5: You Gotta Believe Me (Charles Durning does the best he can with this vehicle. It's okay, but totally reliant on him selling his dream and following through. It's not a personal favourite, but you pretty much know how it has to pay off.)

Season 2, Episode 6: The Greibble (If you are a Hayley Mills fan, fine, watch it. But this is overblown Joe Dante at his worst with a puppet that is just annoying. Basically a giant Gremlin.)

Season 2, Episode 7: Life on Death Row (Oh my God, this one I haven't seen. Apparently it is like The Green Mile.)

Season 2, Episode 8: Go to the Head of the Class (Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Lloyd, case closed: 100% approval by me.)

Season 2, Episode 9: Thanksgiving (David Carradine as a mean step dad gets to greedy for the generous people in a well on his property. Nice little episode. Very nice.)

Season 2, Episode 10: The Pumpkin Competition (Technically well done and we get Polly Holiday as a mean old jealous lady, so I have to admit this one should play well for everyone - very folksy and fun.)

Season 2, Episode 11: What If...? (Anne Spielberg wrote this one about a boy born into a family who doesn't appreciate him and shouldn't have kids, who gets to cross over to a nicer couple. Some of it gives me a chill.)

Season 2, Episode 12: The Eternal Mind (I have not seen this episode.)

Season 2, Episode 13: Lane Change (Have not seen.)

Season 2, Episode 14: Blue Man Down (Have not seen. Very interested in it. Max Gail as a cop again.)

Season 2, Episode 15: The 21-Inch Sun (Have not seen. But a plant writing sit-coms sounds about right.)

Season 2, Episode 16: Family Dog (Episodic but entertaining animated episode.)

Season 2, Episode 17: Gershwin's Trunk (Have not seen this one)

Season 2, Episode 18: Such Interesting Neighbors (Have not seen this, but the outline sounds shrill and annoying.)

Season 2, Episode 19: Without Diana (Have not seen this one.)

Season 2, Episode 20: Moving Day (Have not seen. Moving to space. . .? I dunno.)

Season 2, Episode 21: Miss Stardust (Have not seen this one but apparently it is the old joke about an alien challenging the winner of "Miss Universe.")

Overall I would be interested in buying Season 2. Family Dog is the only episode I have been able to find and watch on-line. I used to watch Amazing Stories and tape it regularly, so I don't know how there are so many episodes I have missed.