Dick Gregory On Bill Cosby Scandal~12/18/2014

Gee, with Howard Stern playing a clip from 2006 that established an unspecified issue about Cosby (did he exploit women coming out of rehab? Are any of the 20-30 accusers from rehabs?) and the re-circulated Tina Fey clip where she mentioned an accusation, as well as Bill Maher relaying a female friend's anecdote about the Cos hitting on her relentlessly and reacting to rejection by making a movie shoot hellish for her. . . we can get the idea that at the very least Cosby seems to have been not such a nice guy and maybe we develop a distaste for trying to defend him against the onslaught of allegations. That's where I was at until I listened to this 32 minute interview of Dick Gregory. Mr. Gregory mentions a few things that are excellent points and creepy on a grand scale. It has not been revealed in the media - despite all of the Cosby talk - that NBC still is obligated to pay him $50 million for the cancelled sit-com. IS THAT A FACT ? It is mentioned like insider information. And that Netflix will have to pay Cosby $60 million for the star-up show to being aired. WF ?? And he makes an excellent point about the financial hit the cast of the Cosby Show will take by losing the income they get from airings of episodes i syndication. But if you had the patience to sit through this whole thing Mr. Gregory's own experiences and the point-for-point about Cosby's history makes for a nasty conspiracy that perhaps should get more exposure. Before the gun death of his son Ennis, under those bizarre circumstances on the roadside, WAS Mr. Cosby poised to buy NBC ? And why indeed was he "not allowed" to advertise Jello after the tragedy? How does it reflect on him? Was Ennis getting help to change a tire from a woman in a fur coat? And is that model of car capable of repairing itself? At the 21:30 mark in this video below, Damon Wayans takes a more broad (and potentially insensitive in its frankness) view of the Cosby scandal(s) when asked about it: Ultimately, of course, on a ground-level there is the conflation of this high-profile case where rape is alleged and where it is under reported and under-convicted. Society is at least talking about those issues, but perhaps unwilling to examine the source. We say "consider the source" at any other time, except when to do so will be called "blaming the victim." Cosby may have made some enemies over the years. At least some people are asking questions. An affair can go sour and someone might want more of a leg up from a celebrity and resent expectations not being met. I'd argue against Maher's idea that there is nothing glamorous about stepping up as a victim of the demonized figure. It can mean either inspiration to some or fulfill a need for attention and importance. None of which would ever excuse an actual rape, let alone serial rape, which is one of the most loathed crimes. People are piggy-backing on celebrity scandals to such an extent that it can have the opposite of its intended impact. It might just remind us of the basics - these things have to be addressed in a timely fashion a) to limit the possibility of someone else being attacked, b) to gather evidence while it exists c) to establish a credible narrative. Right now, jumping onto a band wagon or joining a mob against a 77 year old man is an empty gesture, and if what Gregory says about financial compensation for cancelled shows is true then Cosby won't suffer at all. Canadian venues that drove Judd Apatow into a tweeting frenzy have established that it would be an expensive mistake to be the ones to cancel the space rental booking for Cosby's live performances in Ontario. I expect a security nightmare as Cosby shows up and either addresses the elephant in the room or does not. I'm not really interested in alienating people with a firm stand, but I think even coming in with a dissenting opinion on this may have caused annoyance on a par with that which I feel watching something complex be sold as something simple.

30 Years a "Director"

2014 marked 30 years since directing the first video short I had aired back in 1984. I may be repeating myself, but since it is unlikely that the reader has combed through all my blogs, this won't likely seem redundant. It cycles around in my head anyway, so it all remains current. Ten years in, it was 1994 when I graduated the Humber College three-year program in Film and Television Production. Ten Years after that was kid of a pivotal year, 2004. By then I had started over somewhat and I had a Bravo!Fact short Klepto the Clown and an Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artists grant for my 22-minute short musical satire Big Babies. I had joined the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) in 2003 and had taken over that year as instructor for LIFT's Directing Actors For the Camera course, which was an interesting experience I embraced; I ended up calling some of the students back for a free additional class once the camera actually became available. Would have been handy in the actual two-day class. 2004 also involved some fallout from taking someone at her word and not yet understanding the pitfalls of collaboration that may be unique to one unfortunate case. I took a workshop in Legal and Business Affairs for Filmmakers and Producers, but it would have been more handy a year previous. Everything must be in writing in terms of what is expected and what volunteers are agreeing to. It's not enough to say here is the square peg of a movie I plan to make and here is the round hole of money I plan to spend. I can pat myself on the head for being right in the abstract, but I would have preferred to anticipate and protect myself better. Sometimes people avoid bidding on a job offering to volunteer for work that a production can't afford to properly reward anyway. I also that year spoke out and let myself be the lightning rod for criticism when I questioned the founders of a film troop raising money ostensibly for the group and then deciding to spend it all on one of their own personal projects without subjecting it to vote. Money can be a real monster. Those funds were earmarked for at least four unspecified shorts to be voted on by the collective. Time has healed most of those wounds, but I'm sure at least one ally of my adversaries then went on to actively badmouth me and continues to be a dreadful person. 2004 is also the most recent date for a directing credit I have on imdb.com. I finished out that year with a barium enema and colonoscopy, appropriately enough, the results of which were apparently mishandled and lost -- which I did not discover until a year of inquiries passed and 2006 began. 2006 brought the passing of my dad from cancer and a loss of interest in a screenwriter's circle at LIFT and also the drowning death of Roberto Arigenello at LIFT who had been such a community-binding figure there. A couple of years passed where I continued renewing my membership, but I was not as active with the group. It also changed locations, which seemed to mark the new era even more firmly. Flashback to 2005 which contained one dialogue-heavy script that I let someone else direct, which turned out okay once the chore of editing finally fell to me, and a mind-reading adventure feature that I tried a few times to shoot with Super 8mm film and which I recast and re-started at least 3 times. Having our own cameras and editing software can be the difference between one or two years. 2005 also brought my diagnosis of type-two diabetes, which explained bouts of sleepiness. I continued to get short films and videos accomplished over the next few years and used some night shifts to evolve my screenplays and other writing and storyboard sketches. Without that. I might have been in limbo. 2014 has meant some progress and closure to writing projects and a sense of new energy and focus. An aneurism from late 2011 did not put me down for good; instead, it might have goosed me into improving projects that had stalled. It put off some work that might have gone into improving a 2010 short The Fashion of the Christ, which is currently still having its audio replaced due to my mistake of using the built-in mic of my Canon XH-A1. At this point, I need to get momentum and a sense of mission again. Movie writing and directing are not a "hobby" for me. They are my vocation. I still have a job insecurity, but if that erodes my identity then I'll be dead in the most significant sense. Life in 2015 as I enter the forth decade of my relationship with movie-making it has to be more than an unrequited obsession. In October of 2013, a directing workshop I paid to attend frankly stated that "people get hired to direct if they are the sort of person the producer wants to have a beer with after a shoot." That seems evident by much of the TV we see, and by the apparent new normal where storyboarding is rare and the cinematographer may be coming up with the shots (or calling them). If this is the case, I'll continue to be the odd man out. I like and respect storyboarding and I say it's okay that the "cut" is implied or forced by it. The frame and the cut are critical tools of the director, and merely to "cover" a scene in "real time" is just not interesting or cinematic. Hypocritically, I will end up doing a feature this year -- which will indulge in what Hitchcock called, "Pictures of people talking." But even that will contain a few careful cuts or moves that might make it more than the close-ups, overs, and establishing shot that will carry the bulk of it. I've transferred some updated copies of my footage from Klepto the Clown, Big Babies, and a film short from 1994 this past year for the internet and posterity in general. There was a 2014 20-year reunion of some of my Humber classmates. They seem to be doing well and most of them still keeping a foot or more in the movie industry. I feel like I have a toe in it. Another issues that caused reflection was that a screenplay I wrote for during my time at Humber for an independent filmmaker (around 1991-1993) was produced in 2011 and released in 2014 without giving me proper credit for co-writing nor any money. I still have to sit down and air my grievances about that, which I should have done during Festivus. Meanwhile, I have tried stand-up comedy for the first time, and though I don't know if it will be a lifestyle or craft that I cultivate, I can if it helps position me or goose me with my movie-making. But even visiting home for the holidays I am reminded how it can be an effort to even coral family members to co-operate with a short. Even reaching back to original resources can be a stretch. It is just so easy to put things off that maybe there is nothing wrong with being a nag and beig willing to inconvenience people. There are qualities I took for granted in my youth which can be replaced all to easy with neurotic second-guessing and self-negating faux etiquette. There will be people who accommodate an idea or a prank or a project. The point is to keep looking and maybe cast the net wide.

Tina Fey jokes about Bill Cosby allegations NINE years ago

christmas dance

First Stand Up

Although I have performed written monologues and acted on stage or in shorts over the years, I chose to end this first attempt at stand-up with the somewhat false statement that I haven't done anything like this. The new aspect is talking mostly off the top of my head, which is not something that I embrace. But whether I choose to pursue this or not, at least I have gotten around to trying Stand-up. It was done at a relatively new small venue called The Barber Shop. There were a scattering of people, but it still counts. I have trimmed out a couple of beats that were outside if my control, bringing the set fro 7 minutes to just under 5, with images added later to support whatever flash-in-the-pan pop culture issue I might be talking about. When talking about Christmas blues I used an image from Mixed Nuts by Norah Ephron, a remake of a French film which has a title that translates to "Santa Clause is a Motherf**ker." All things considered, in the future I may just write and memorize something. And maybe stay away from current issues. But for now, whether it represents my opinions or an inversion of them, at least this is a stab at stand-up of some kind. It was last minute enough that the only recording device I could set up was my laptop camera so I just put it on a chair. Also recorded some dancing which I hope to post elsewhere. (Not my dancing, don't worry.)

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Whoopi Goldberg Skeptical of Bill Cosby Rape Accuser - " I Have a Lot of...

Jian and the way Rape is discussed

It could also be that the term "rape culture" normalizes and trivializes the violence, to use the columnist's words. The term conflates cases and issues, creating the idea that we are all complicit in any given violence or rape. Jian for example sounds very twisted and sadistic, but the discussion of the case and his firing very quickly swung away from specifics about consent as a non-issue in fetish acts (can't consent to a spanking, let alone whips) and became a town hall on anything but. It became personality over principle. Should those fetish BDSM activities be folded into consensual sex (as it was assumed to be) or should there be more of a stigma and education about the law. I was watching Nymphomaniac pt. 1 by Lars Von Trier last night and I thought I bet this flick draws haters on-line. Some people feel a need to go through abuse. Maybe the climate is so charged with banner terms like "rape culture" that intelligent discourse swings from Charlie Rose to Jerry Springer. Many media personalities are charming yet manipulative and use or abuse people. Maybe it isn't particular to Jian. As a side note, one obscure comic videotaped with a cell phone (likely a friend of the comic) brings down Bill Cosby eight years after he settled allegations -- and we would be painted as monsters if we dare to make the point that we don't know what happened and that any rich household name likely gets many extortion bids we don't hear about. The punishment has happened. And the branding will be on Google indefinitely. Even if vindicated later. It is usually enough to accuse. And a victim could also skip the cops and tell a violent friend. As it is, the villagers are lighting their torches. Rule of law is barely a factor. Make no mistake - if we are talking about RAPE, it is on a par with murder. But rape culture is an umbrella I think will cause more angry debate than anything constructive.

What Happens When Fossil Fuels Run Out? Russell Brand The Trews (E166)

What Happens When Fossil Fuels Run Out? Russell Brand The Trews (E166)

What Happens When Fossil Fuels Run Out? Russell Brand The Trews (E166)

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Hearing Things

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Official Trailer & Interview: Tusk Stars Justin Long & Haley Joel Osment...

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Rape and Blog Panic Buttons

They say that if you are being attacked by a rapist it is more likely to draw help yelling "Fire!" than, "Rape!" I wonder if that has changed over the years. We ignore car alarms. I have not seen anyone scamper away guilty when a car alarm goes off. It is likely just the average car owner who may or may not know how to use the controller and shut the damn alarm off. This last half of the year a couple of blogs hit me as very annoying car alarms. One was about Louie CK's TV series and the other was about the (at the time of this writing) unaired Family Guy episode which crosses over with The Simpsons. The Louie episode reportedly involved a scene where (writer-director-star) Louie playing version of himself attempts to rape his co-creator, co-star Pamela Adlon!!!!!!!!! (animation trivia: Pamela was the voice of the boy Chris on King of the Hill; she's better known as Marcie Runckle from Californication though) I had not yet seen that episode, despite being a regular viewer, and I thought this was a disaster. I could not reconcile that image. The still was simply Louie and Pamela at the door and he is leaning on the door to block it. Well, I saw the episode with reduced entertainment value because of the misleading blog and lo and behold leaning on the door is the absolute worst of it. The episode was about his vulnerability and his sputtering lack of game in trying to re-introduce an interest she had in him previously. It was an awkwardness with which many of us are familiar, the need to be heard out, as if there is something reasonable you can say to make a moment happen. Yeah, he gave her an awkward kiss and she ket him with a wince. And yeah, it is rude to push a door closed and seem to trap someone even though realistically there is no trap. He is guilty of attempted sex, or attempted seduction - and failing to do a good job of it, and having poor timing - but not attempted rape. She ends up moving in and they are a couple an episode later. The danger of a blogger sounding a false alarm is that, frankly, if what I saw on Louie is "attempted rape" then the term is of less concern. The Family Guy or Simpson Guy "rape joke" people were up in arms about was not a joke about rape after all. Having seen excerpts from the episode, it was a scene where Bart is showing little Stewie (his guest on the show) how he has fun doing crank calls. He does one of his trademark phone calls to Moe at the bar with a name that sounds like a sentence when spoke in full so that Moe can be embarrassed after asking patrons. Then Stewie takes a turn, calls Moe, and instead of a harmless play-on-words he tells Moe, "Your sister has been raped" and hangs up telling Bart that yes indeed it is fun to do crank calls. The joke is not making light of rape; it is actually a stark contrast between benign brat Bart and the evil Stewie, obviously intended to address the accusation that one is too much like the other. While these trivial things are going on, in reality a 36 year old woman participated in a rap contest and apparently her rhyming improvisations won a contest which caused some of her male competitors to attack, rape, stab, shoot her and leave her for dead. She survived, but it is ghastly to think that such a demonic sort of poor losers would have that reaction. It wasn't what she wore. She went to a music competition and got targeted for being talented. This underscores a signature quality of a rapist: a loser mentality. I don't know what the campaigns against rape and exploitation will do to communicate with rapists. Peer pressure won't persuade them, because their peers are likely rapists/losers too. I don't know the solution, and saying this in a blog is ineffective because it won't be solved by blogs. Especially crying over TV shows when the real thing should get more coverage. I don't know if people need to get angrier. Like there is a house currently ablaze and you can actually yell "Fire!" to get any attention.

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20/20 The Life and Death of Robin Williams Special Full Episode.

At the 26:00 mark into this video, he refers to his charitable outreach efforts as the Buddhist gift and then says, "I would call it the Christian gift. . ." which is about giving back and being part of something greater than the self. Like many people who might identify as Christian, he never shied away from pointing out hypocrisy. How many big-talking conservative Americans actually went to Iraq or Afghanistan ? Though I was dimly aware that his mother got involved in "Christian Science" I admit that despite being a fan of Robin Williams since at least 1978 I was sure he was agnostic or an atheist. It is sad to find out in this context, after his death, he believed in " a loving God" as he says in that segment of this video, 26 minutes in. We can believe what we wish with the full power of our will and intuition, but if the mind/body chemistry is off it can end up driving the bus and obviously any one of us might be passengers in our own lives or deaths. It must also follow that we may not be in full control of our day-to-day plans and routines and choices to fully live life unless we can make sure our health is right and don't kid ourselves that we are totally in control. The unconscious mind, our food, our water intake, medications, the onset of an illness, our sleep, and our unwillingness to face weakness may together wrest control unless it is managed. People can be fickle. Moods can be fickle. If character is action, then Robin Williams confronted many demons from himself and others when he had control. Turns out his contracts for events even had a rider that insisted homeless people be hired and put to work during any show. Hopefully others carry that on.

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From Jerry Lewis' The Total Filmmaker

What follows is pasted from a pdf readily and freely available on-line. It is for a book that is out of print, a well-respected publication of Jerry Lewis about movie-making, mostly transcribed from recordings of his classes. I THE HUMANITIES OF FILM I'll tell you what I did to become a film-maker. I had this drive and I was curious. Of course, I was already a Jewish movie star and that helped get me on the lot. But in front of the camera, acting like a movie star. Not behind it~ Then one day at Paramount, long ago, I was missing. They found me crawling around up on a catwalk over the sound stage. I had to know if the catwalks, where the electricians and grips do things and sleep, were made of two-by-fours. Were they built on a temporary basis? How did they hang them? Next day, when I had a nine-o'clock shooting call, I was in the miniature department at eight, watching thirteen inch submarines being photographed for a Cary Grant picture, Destination Tokyo. I had to understand why that submarine looked full size on the screen. They told me to go over and see Chuck Sutter in the camera department. I was friendly with all the technical guys. Chuck showed me a twelve-inch lens and then showed me how they utilize it in the tank. Well, I didn't understand how they got the right dimensions on the sky and sea backings around the tank. It made it all look so real. Chuck sent me over to the transparency department to look at the backings. "Well, where do these backings come from?" "Well," some guy says. "They soot ' em, Then I went upstairs to see the artwork. It was almost nine-thirty when the assistant director found me. He requested, politely, for my ass to get back in front of the camera. Before the day was over, I was looking at generators out behind the recording building. Yes, generators! I'd heard about them. "How do they work? Where do you plug that in? 'What does that do? Who turns it?" Then I found out there is such a thing as an electrician. I shook his hand and bought him cigarettes. "Tell me things!" When I found out that all he did was throw a switch, I took back the cigarettes. Day after that, I saw the assistant director on the phone. "Tomorrow's call is ..." And I saw the penciled sheets. "Well, who's he calling?" "Oh, he's calling down there, the production department." I spent weeks in the production department. They could never find me. Or I was by the camera. "Why does that turn? How does it turn to what? Where does he get the pictures they make? Why does it see people in that part, but when it turns over, I see no people? I see a black thing. What's moving? That part in front is what? It's a glass piece? A prism. Oh, I see. And why does that boom go off and I can't step off it unless they give me permission because it will swing up. Well, why does it do that?" "Well, it's counterbalanced." "With what?" "Mercury." "Oh, mercury. I see. Well, why does he push it? And why doesn't the other guy?" "He can't. He's not in that union." Laugh! Hollow! Lights? "You have got to have all those lights?" "Yes. " "Why?" "Because you have to have four hundred footcandle." "Footcandle? You have candles you bring in with your feet?" "No, that's a light measurement." He's serious and so am I. So in about three years of that kind of running around I learned a little. It is not unlike medicine. The mystery of medicine, trying to cure and fix and find out the why, must he to doctors what film is to film-makers. They cannot start working their mystery until they have much more technical information than they ever really need. But it's there to be called on. Then the intangibles! What are they? How many? Can I teach the intangibles of film-making? Not really. Maybe the only answer is: How do you touch another man's soul? It might develop from that. Sit down and say, You're dealing with lovely human beings. Each one of them is an individual. Each one of them in his own right a lovely, important- to-someone human heing. Some will behave like turds, but you must try to understand why. As a film-maker, you will find them influencing your actions. Perhaps the key to the intangibles is intuition. Old instinct. Rut the touch question when dealing with people is: How do I know when I'm human enough? I'm going to use a word wrong because that's the way I want to use it, letting the language purists make funny noises and feel superior. The word I'm talking about is humanities. There is a great deal of confusion between humanism, which means a cultural attitude, and humanity, which really means a kindly disposition toward your fellow man. Well, for me the word humanities refers to the last definition-that important thing, that feeling of warmth and love and kindly disposition toward your fellow man, the way you look at him, feel about him, treat him, respect him and relate to him. No matter how you slice it, the most critical aspect of making films is dealing with people. Whether you think he's a hero or an occasional creep, you must have a rooting interest for the next guy and his reason for being on that sound stage. He's the key to your technical instrument. He can help you to be very good, or he can sabotage you. There are many technical-minded people, some hrilliant, in the industry who can't get a job. The ones who function best seem to be very human. They might not he as well qualified as the super-technician but they bring a tremendous insight to the material and its projection. So I maintain we're dealing in a humanities area just as critical, in its way, as open-heart surgery. I don't care how much technical information you have stored away, you blow the picture when you hlow the human end. Everything is going for you-beautiful setup, marvelous cast, wonderful sets, crew, et cetera. And then someone says, "Good luck. It's your first day. It's nine o'clock. Make your first shot." "Wha-wha-wha-wha!" Here he comes now! Here is Ray Milland and there is Ann Sothern! "Ah, Miss Sothern, I saw you on television and you were pretty shitty. Now, here's your first shot ..." Forget it. It's over. Burn the set. Forget it. "Mr. Milland, you look a little old tor this part, but we'll see what we can do." Out! It's over. Actors will kill for you if you treat them like human beings. You have to let them know you want them and need them; pay them what they want, but don't overpay them; treat them kindly. Give an actress a clean dress and see that she gets fresh coffee in the mornings, and other little spoon-feedings. She will kill for you. I once worked for a director who had a personality like Eva Braun's. I was doing a scene, a fall, and told him to forget the stunt man. "I'Il fall downstage. You're in a close angle and you're low. It'll be a rough cut for you. I'll do the fall." "Okay, great!" I wasn't doing it for him, really. I wanted it to work. Although in the end I suppose I was doing it for him because he'd have to cut the film. So I did it. "Perfect," he said. "Cut! Print!" He proceeds to the next setup while I'm cocked down with one leg hanging. The son-of-a-bitch didn't say "Thank you," or even nod his head. Just "Perfect." He lost me with that one scene, and never got me back. I did my funny faces, and took the money; wished him good luck, and lied about that. I guess I hurt myself, because the comedian on the screen wasn't very funny when the film was released. Frank Tashlin, on the other hand, was great at handling Jerry Lewis the comic. He has a feeling for people. Very possibly I learned more about the humanities of making films from Frank than I did from everyone else combined. He was a caring director. I realize that I am basically a miserable bastard on the sound stage. It comes from trying to be a perfectionist. If the toilet seat is left up, I faint. It's like Queeg and "\%0 ate the strawberries?" "Who left the toilet seat up?" To work for this kind of maniac, you have got to be some kind of dingaling. Yet I get the good dingalings film after film, and the rewards are great. I consciously root for them, and that is what it is all about. The relations with crew are not much different from the relations with actors. A strong feeling, for good or bad, n1l1S through a crew. They are as adult as I am, and as childish. They like to be "made-over" a bit. You are going to walk by a grip or electrician? What the hell is wrong in recognizing him? I've always done it, not so much for their comfort, but selfishly for mine. I'm more comfortable not hVing to turn my head away. If I don't know his name, I'll say something: "What right do you have to be working here, you dirty, lousy old ..." It is a wild goddamn but very understandable thing. You take a guy who is yawning away, and then suddenly make him special by saying, "How's it going? The first day's tough, right?" And he answers, "Yeh, but what the hell?" All of a sudden he's a tiger. "Hey, can I give you a hand here?" If a grip walks past me and says "Hi," but doesn't add "Jerry," I act offended, and it's not all acting. "Hey, how come I know your name, but you don't know mine. I'm the movie star." It works. I want that personal relationship. For years I've had a thing in my operation that I call fear extraction. The first thing I try to do with a new member of the staff is extract the fear that insecurity, God and Saint Peter handed down. 1 try to do it simply-tell him that I care, that I don't want to hurt him, that I want him to excel, to be happy. Then I'll be happy making what I love best, film. It works, too. One night on The Ladies Man I had to wrap up a sequence or it would have cost an additional hundred thousand. The crew knocked off at eight o' dock, went to dinner, and then came back to work until three in the morning to finish it. Two days passed before the unit manager told me that the J 16 technicians had all punched out at eight o'clock, and had dinner on their own time. They contributed the time between nine P.M. and three the next morning. Had they stayed on the overtime dock, it would have cost something around $50,000. That's a pretty good example of rapport, and the humanities. It doesn't happen often in this town called Hollywood, hut in this new day of making films, it will probably happen more. Everyone will be the better for it. There are other examples, of course. Rossellini fell in love with casts and crews, and told them so. He took trite scripts and developed fine films out of love, and the labor of love. That love magic enters into it big. The funniest part of creative people, particularly people who love film, is that they get up in the morning and can't wait to run into somebody to hug. A hug does not have to be embracing a male, so that the cops pick you up. A hug is in the voice; a hug is in the spirit; a hug is in the attitude. Kibitz or tease someone to put him down for a second! It only takes another second to let him know it wasn't meant to be unkind. If there isn't rapport and communication, those love magics of film, then the technical information isn't worth a damn. Hugs, kisses and happy talk don't mean I favor playtime on any set. If there's someone I don't like, I have to let them know why; then see how well I can function with him on a human level. Otherwise, one of us will sabotage. There will be shmucks midst all the hugging. They take advantage. There is always one who doesn't understand honesty when it is laid on the line. He'll try to undermine. Get rid of him! Save some sabotage. But care must be taken not to let that experience start you off wrong with the replacement. The past screwing has to be forgotten; the humanities pulled in again. Part of what's wrong with the film industry in America is a couple of goddamn greedy unions and some crew types protected by the unions. But what film-makers, new and old, always have to remember is that there are usually I 16I men around who are willing to kill for them. They will gladly assassinate as long as there is rapport. Humanities go beyond cast and crew rapport. Those who are loving film-makers don't hope another producer's picture will go down the drain. Sam Goldwyn doesn't do that. Louis B. Mayer, who was the murderer of the world in business, didn't do it. Mr. Mayer once told me, "If you don't want that picture I make to be a smash, you're stupid. Your coming attractions might be playing with it." The people who don't root for another guy's film are the ones who are fearful their own product will bomb. If there can be thirty other film-makers in front of their own demise, it won't be such a bad fall. If they had confidence in their own work, the first thing they'd do is pray for the next guy's work, because he keeps the theaters open. I could be shooting on a sound stage on Vine Street when a film like Funny Girl opens in New York. Should I worry? Absolutely. That theater may fold if Funny Girl goes on its ass. Then where will I go with mine? That's healthy thinking. Additionally, I just happen to be a rooter. But Hollywood is a pretty strange place sometimes. For instance, I took out a full-page ad in a trade paper to congratulate a certain studio for making a certain film, simply because I could take my children to see it. I said, "Bravo for making a good film." But I didn't hear from the producer, didn't hear from the studio. Dead silence fur boosting their picture. I had rooted in vain. Now I take the trouble to call attention to what I do. It is no longer a nice thing, but rm spelling it out in the future. In contrast to that studio's behavior, I remember going into Abe Schneider's office at Columbia. He runs that studio and is a man of dignity and taste. Very excited, he said, "Look at what Funny Girl did!" He should have been excited at the box-office figures. It was a Columbia film. But then he added, "The business is churning. How the West Was Won, Metro. Warner-Seven Arts, Bonnie and Clyde. Did you ever see figures like that?" The film-maker who really has the ball park, with the bat and the ball and the ground rules, loses none of his strength or integrity by dealing in humanities on the set as well as throughout the industry. He doesn't have to. If he knows his job, he doesn't need to slam a fist down and yell, "Coddammit, this is the way .. ," It never gets to that, because he is honest with himself, with those around him, and he cares for the product. He'll lick the face of a man who can make an important production contribution. I suppose what I have been talking about is simple, decent human behavior. But it is the most complex thing around. Some of it can be cut through with a hug and a smile. It is that tangible, intangible basis of it all-the all-meaning relationships with actors, crews, executives and the public.

Anthony Robbins - Motivates you in 20 minutes TED Talks

story pitching

Regulating Behaviour, Total Freedom, and Blame

A question was asked on a Facebook link to a blog about conservatives pushing the idea of dressing modestly and so on to reduce the risk of rape. The friend who posted it asked, "Somebody please explain why women should change how they dress and live and men can't stop committing rape?" So I tried to answer that with the following. ______________________________________________________________________________ Why do we presume to speak for rapists? And to what extreme should people be encouraged to live "dangerously" ? Should you feel free to leave your drink unattended? Should you neglect to bring friends to a club to watch each other? If I ever have a daughter I'll be advising she practice defensive driving because there are idiots and half-asleep and texting people on the road. That might make me square or controlling to some. You could argue that if you change your dress or party ways the proverbial "terrorists win." And that may be true. Clubbers are in another world from me, lousy music and too much volume for a useful conversation. People feel sexual liberation is paramount, but that's where it gets into informed choice. If you want to live in a log cabin where bears roam, then maybe keep a gun. If you want to stroll Detroit at midnight alone in a bikini that still has cash tucked into it from the strip club, because you are so sure of the humanity of all men, hopefully the police will find you before anything happens. An lone rapist is likely too cowardly to approach a confident woman, and may prefer to home-invade an old lady, but gangs or swarmings happen and people still play "knock-out" and even if you have the "right" to cross a street on green it's still wise to look both ways before stepping off the curb because bikes and cars can lose control. I can sit here with my Princess Leia Yavin battle map desktop and say rape is 100% unacceptable and the victim is not at fault, and my opinion won't matter. But if I am working a security detail and someone wants to enjoy the extreme sport of swimming in a shark tank, I'm going to say no and reason with the person capable of reason rather than lecture a shark after the attack. _________ After being challenged on the above points __________________________________________________ You did ask, whether with irony or not. Any guy going off to prison thinks there is a chance he will be over-powered and raped. Someone from Now magazine wrote that off as "homophobia," but he would have to start clearing out his desk if he referred to a woman's fear of rape as "heterophobia." The "big bad wolf" speech as you call it is at least not CRYING wolf. I recall one day years ago clicking through channels Geraldo and Oprah both had a rapist on. Geraldo's approach was to say to the live satellite feed screen the rapist was on, "You disgust me, sir !" to a round of cheap applause. Oprah was seated beside her guest-rapist and asked information about his process - that he watched for patterns of behavior; one victim habitually left her back door open while taking garbage out to the curb, so he used that as the moment to slip in so when she locked up he was already inside with her. So rapists telling "their side" actually has been done. It's the difference between banging one's head against the wall in willful ignorance or being aware. Brian DePalma made two movies about the same premise, Casualties of War and Redacted - the one guy in the unit who does not participate in a rape. We can't help asking what would I do? Is there a solution? How often does that happen? If I were a ranking officer, would I pep talk the troops with my personal view? It would be: See these movies and know this. If you rape, you are the enemy, not a soldier on my side. No friend of mine is a rapist either, so the loyalty card won't play. Anyone complicit in it would also face court Marshall. I guess RoboCop had the ideal answer to rape, as Ellen page in Hard Candy. But a true rapist watching the latter may conclude only, "don't let your would-be victim pour the drinks." PEER PRESSURE, however, will not play out like a PSA where the guys ask why the wife has a black eye and admonish an abuser with "that's not cool, man." It's clearly hard enough to persuade sane, civic-minded people with reason ("Now we have freedom AND responsibility, baby, yeah!" to quote Austen Powers) without believing that reason and logic will reach a rapist. Maybe one who has remorse, like the Oprah guest, will say something useful. But it is pure folly to count on control from those defined by loss of control or a psychological compulsion to exert temporary dominance over someone else. There IS a shark out there, Mayor Vaughn. Close the beaches.

Star Trek Continues E01 "Pilgrim of Eternity"

My childhood (and ahem, teen) bedroom wallpaper !!

Haven't seen this wallpaper pattern in 28 years.  What a blast of nostalgia.

Strange thing to take me back when I can watch the movies any time,

but this exact wallpaper was on a third of my upper bedroom wall near my

window long enough that it was a taken-for-granted part of my environment.

The transitions of life.

Can't Complain

A meme suggested giving up complaints for 24 hours. I agreed. Out of faithfulness to the meme, I will continue to put a positive spin on what I say. Tomorrow I am to improvise a bit of a shoot in a park so I've been thinking of general ideas. I suppose it is meant to be me talking about movies to a bored listener on a bench. I guess I can rant. There is a certain built-in conceit that maybe someone will find it amusing or useful. It's my hope to keep it happening. We will be recording proper sound, which I have not done for about 10 years. And it has been 20 years since I graduated Humber and a directing instructor left me with the inspirational question, "So you're going to pass yourself off as a writer-director?" And it is 30 years since I directed my first video at age 16. These numbers are somewhat intimidating. I will either be a successful writer and director or I will be a failed writer and director, but in any case that is what belongs in my obituary. I have been working, meanwhile, as a security guard and I feel that the research for my film or play on security has just about concluded. I think I can see the end in sight for that project. I have still managed to keep my soul. What am I randomly thinking about today? I went to a Comedy Bar event last night, had a beer and greeted Sketchy the Clown For Mayor, who got enough votes to win the competition. Today I went to see a Fringe play about the Robert Ford who killed Jessie James, its many asides reminding us that it is not to be confused with any other Rob Ford. I had a swim, and enough coffee, invested some time on the inter-net, and now I am in a caffeine daze deciding whether to focus on a script I need to finish. I can't and won't give up on the movie thing. That is already too big a part of who I am. It isn't like the character in Adaptation who one day says, "Done with fish" and starts collecting plants instead. ********************************************************************************************************** Is a video of myself ranting to the screen more effective than, say, text blogs like this? Maybe. But I'm not always of a mind to flap my lips. I think it is usually best to keep opinions close to the vest. Spike Lee said "Those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know." So is he saying that he doesn't know if he is telling us this? I think the message I get from someone has to do with what stock they own. It is only natural to try to boost that stock, what they have and what they are. A director with an A.D. background may say it is vital to be an A.D. before rising in ranks to director, even if the good ones will be encouraged to remain A.D.s. As I see the immediate future stretching out for me, I don't see myself starting out with the Director's Guild of Canada as a P.A.(Production assistant)/A.D. and then going to 3RD AD, 2ND AD, and finally First A.D. . Assuming I don't drop the ball in that capacity. One can be a talented director without being an effective Assistant, or a brilliant and vital A.D. but a mediocre director. If you are young, you might insist that a director of anything exciting and hip should be young. If you are a musician, regardless of talent, you might say that rhythm being so vital to filmmaking and editing a director or editor must also be a musician. Robert Rodriguez at least says that, "everybody has music in them" and has suggested people can use programs that allow experimentation and print out sheet music even for non-musicians to take a stab at their own scores. That is at least generous of spirit. If a director is female, she might be focused on the message of the seeming need for more females to be hired as directors. If you are old, you might want to see more interest in older or more experienced directors. Objectively, there is little to any of it. As a viewer, I might be fooled into praising a movie that simply has good performances because the cast is talented, or responding to a story that has content that pushes my own personal buttons regardless of whether there was anything special about the way the script was written or the way the director presented it. But the movies I love most could not have been directed by a piker, or simply "covered" by rote. The co-ordination of actors, framing, movement, and everything that goes into the best movie direction is what makes me take notice enough to look back at something over and over again and appreciate a touch of cleverness and confidence in what we see and from which angle at which moment. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, and much of Tarantino's work stand out. Some say the director's work should be invisible and not showy, but for the general audience there will be an unconscious feeling of assurance that they are in good hands while someone who is a filmmaker and/or obsessed by cinema and its machinations will appreciate the joins - whether or not they are noticed upon first viewing. A movie where the director's job is merely to "get out of the actor's way" would not appeal to me. The director directs the attention of the audience, picks each person up and allows them to see what small item is the most important thing in the world and whether the moment is steady as a rock or subtly shaky. There have been times I have built a house on quicksand without knowing it. It is a team effort, but I now that if I am going to feel the journey was worth my while expectations have to be disclosed and the storyboard must be the common frame of reference; usually if I'm not somewhat on edge over a detail being correct then I am on vacation and coasting and ultimately taking false credit. If the crew is happy to be directed by me, then they are the right crew. But tomorrow I have few if any firm expectations. I used to go to a party and organize an improvised movie, a horror premise or soap opera we could all watch edited-in-camera at the end of the night as a goof. But while I would still do that, I would feel it wasteful to approach a serious project that way. A movie should be more fun to watch than to make. And if I am so keen to appease every collaborator's impulses at the expense of my own instinct, the end product will be a monument to failure, compromise, and chaos. I would prefer it to be by design and not a mystery. I can bet on myself, and on people who also believe in what I am doing.

Far from over-Frank Stallone - directed by Sly

I wonder what the average Sly Stallone fan thinks of this movie.

Much of it falls into the "so bad it's good" category.



It's not without entertainment, and the song is pretty good, but if someone buys this

expecting the typical Stallone subject matter they will be in for a shock.



The "Satan's Alley" production seems kind of overblown, but I assume that is

the world being depicted.



I had seen a headline about a politician "Far from Over" and it reminded me of

this tune by Sly's brother.  The only reason I have this on DVD is that it came

with Saturday Night Fever.  I think the fact that in the original movie Tony Monaro

(Travolta) has a Rocky poster on his wall is the reason Stallone ended up directing

this sequel.

Mark Hamill interview on set of Star Wars

Conservative Pundits Demand Bill Nye Stop Bullying Them on Climate Change

Monty Python All Things Dull And Ugly

Have to admit this parody of All Things Bright and Beautiful is perhaps the smartest and most pointed re-wording of a song.  Despite not being an atheist myself, I've got to respect the ZING here.

The fact is that I remember these lyrics and have long forgotten the religious original.

Directors Getting it Right or Being "Loose"

A benevolent dictatorship is how I have heard people describe movie-directing. It might be out of fashion, but I like that way of looking at it. I envy the Farrelly Brothers telling their crew at the start of Dumb and Dumber, “Hey, we don’t know anything about filmmaking so we are counting on you to save our asses.” Very disarming. Peter Farrally has said that if you come off like you think you are Stanley Kubrick the crew will make your life hell. I don’t know how true that is. But if I believe in being fair and up front I think it is essential to say that especially when doing a low budget movie the ethic of preparation makes sense and respects everyone’s time. Roger Corman liked storyboards. The sleepless nights and the anticipation of directing a movie would not be worth my time and I wold have no clue as to the final result without being high maintenance or at least specific about certain things, namely the frame and the cut. The myth of “coverage” is that as long as you “got” the content on one camera, you can cut to that wide shot as a bandage if anything else doesn’t work. There is nothing wrong with wide shot, over, close-up, over, close-up for the whole scene, except that you are stuck in the mentality of recording a stage play. It is fine to give the actors a running start, but I likely already know what segment of a scene will be shown from which view. Each beat within a scene might have its own best angle. I may also work “joins” into the scene where I know that in this or that motion the edit has to occur. That might make life tedious for the editor, and if that is a deal breaker he or she must have the opportunity to beg off the production so that someone more amenable can come in and accept direction. I know from past experience that it will eat away at me if I have found the best way to present something and – for example on a student film – it isn’t followed and there is no way to correct the problem. Coppola has said that the reputation of a director as “dictatorial” can come from the tendency of an experienced crew to have such a routine and to know so many variations of how something is usually approached that they want to do things by rote. The more vision and preparation the director has, the more this machine will seem to be impeded by specifics. But I expect that a good cinematographer appreciates time being properly budgeted and a day being planned. One can spend all morning tying to get an all-purpose master shot done and close-ups where there is a best performance and no flubs and ultimately have a dull scene. The audience may feel the generic shots intercut the way they might feel a live multi-camera interview. Those set-ups might provide a hiding place for a director’s entire career. Contrary to what I was recently told in a workshop, I would not equate this with every shot being “coverage” after you record a wide shot from the hills looking down at a traffic intersection. That bump might only be good for one early establishing shot or a reveal, but it is where the “master” concept breaks down because the rhythm of the scene will be made in specific shots and specific cuts. A director might claim, “I can do fancy shots but I find them distracting” reveals by the broad use of the term “fancy” an indiscriminate attitude about the use of cinema tools. I do not love bullets and guns, so I would not justify a loving slow-mo or digital shot which tracks a bullet. But there might be a story-relevant instance where that information is important, namely a shot in the TV series Fargo which follows a piece of buckshot from a shotgun, through a cop, and into the hand of an antagonist, and its resulting infection. Had that shot played as is the first time the scene ran, it would have felt showy and fancy but as a subjective recap or flashback, it was a strong use of modern digital technology. Some people include crane shots for “production value” even though they usually ruin the rhythm and flow of a rom-com and often get cut out. So if you can’t imagine spending half an hour or even ten minutes storyboarding that and reflecting on why the crane shot needs to be there, it might not be worth a morning on the clock shooting it. In High Noon, I often mention Gary Cooper stepping into the street of Dodge to find himself alone and the camera craning up to look down at him and establish how he feels – abandoned and small. That is historically perhaps the single best use of a crane shot. If it feels integral to the inner life of a character or to the story, it will be rendered somewhat invisible because it plays as content. What if in a dialogue scene, two people meeting in a coffee shop, the talking heads and the words they say were not the only content? What if the way they are framed and the bustle of crow around them also had to be considered content? Then the director would be tested. Of course, the behavior of extras and their timing and the assistant directors managing them will play a part. The cinematographer will want to know the workload for the day or the morning, so the preparation should be outside of your head. What if this dialogue scene was going to be what your next job prospects hinged upon? Is it then enough to just get along with people (which does matter) and get a job done as opposed to THE job done? The actors will also want to know that they are not playing their hearts out for nothing. I have acted and worked on sets where there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel and where I have lost faith in the idea that there is a plan or anything special going on. I’d usually keep it to myself, but I have a feeling smoke might be seen coming out of my ears. It is usually the non-storyboarding director who will create this unease. Better to have a plan that is not 100% followed than to say that because they won’t get 100% done there is no need for a plan. Fail to plan, plan to fail. Some writers don’t mind taking full screenplay credit even when others have made substantial contributions of even more than 50%. Some directors feel comfortable letting the crew “do their job.” Which is likely fine and healthy. If the cinematographer’s job ends up incorporating decisions that should be part of the director’s work – like deciding what the angles will be or literally calling the shots – it is less because this director cares so deeply about the actors than that he or she just looks at the camera’s job as something to “cover” the action and not be part of the action and part of the whole performance. When a live person sits from an audience watching a play, the brain creates cuts and close-ups and zeros in on what it must. A camera covering this from the same position does not. In a movie, the camera and the cut hold the sensibility of the audience and either jerks them around or carefully crafts a journey and a way to perceive the events and it should feel even more like we are there and involved than the objective audience in a live theater. Sometimes I care so much about this that it freezes me. I know people generally fuse director and producer, and that even though these are two very different disciplines the director’s ability to get across the proper message and feel is reliant somewhat on production value. I rue every compromise I have made in the past, and each time I was too relaxed or trusted too much. If I ask to see a shot or a take or a cut a certain way I NEED to see that first, before any other options are presented. Some people may test the role of director and feel somebody else gets the last say, but it is a long journey and when the omission of one bit or the addition of an other in the alchemy of good cinema it can be as different as the temperature between light and shadow on the moon. I like my work, for example, to have a prickly edge that others will file off. It may travel better if it is very smooth and offends nobody, but there is no shortage of that kind of thing. So it is especially vital that people know a plan is on track and a screenplay will remain much as it was when they said yes let’s make this. A storyboard is much like a script as well, especially if the movie is not a rom-com or talking heads. Even in that case, new approaches to a less director-friendly genre can make them interesting, and create problems that can be fun to solve. Sometimes I am willing to let someone else direct a script until I sit down and storyboard it. Then my appetite to direct it returns. I mean, you can and certainly want to be friendly and keep the actors relaxed so they can make mistakes or try things you might not use, but in terms of allocating time to get the shots and managing the crew I would rather run a tight ship than a loose one. And that might just be something that is understood in advance. I know that's the way I prefer it when I am being directed or when I am on a crew. We don't need more directors or fewer directors from any social stripe - except those who are both talented and organized. The field is crowded. In film school, it's difficult to put your foot down. But anywhere, anyone would expect common sense and communication. If a take is chosen, it's not asking much to use that one in the edit. If a zoom-out should stop on the shoulders, it is astounding if it ended up going to the full body and becoming a heartbreaking "wrong" shot that might mean re-do.

Taxi Driver Audio Commentary (Director & Writer)

The Day After (1983) - Director's Commentary

The Fly Audio Commentary

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Criterion Audio Commentary

2001: A Space Odyssey Audio Commentary

Starting Movie Co-ops

Badness

http://oitnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/111.jpg Finished watching Season 2 of Orange is the New Black. Every now and then what is in the zeitgeist filters into their dialogue. One example that struck me was a woman talking about her marriage being too tame or nice guys negating the “fear” of romantic or sexual engagement. She says that fear is an essential ingredient in her passion, whether it is fear of discovery or danger projected onto the male or partner. This is an idea that has been pushed aside by the blogger culture and those who might compulsively post links on Facebook. One recent post I’ve read asked men to ensure that they project a non-threatening presence when approaching or sharing an elevator with a woman, to engage her to diffuse tension, all of which sounded contradictory to me and overly self-conscious. Much is being said about something called “rape-culture.” This appears to be in bizarre tandem with compulsive use of the term “slut-shaming.” Shame in general is considered uncool, just as perhaps shyness may be considered repression. One – perhaps unrelated – line I appreciated on Orange was, “That stuff about don’t snitch was probably made up by someone who needed to be snitched on.” The concepts of loyalty are especially transparent for their contrivance in a prison setting, where loyalty to a psycho or a criminal is especially absurd and most likely one-sided at best. There are conceits in life that are exposed as false when placed into a dramatic structure. If we talk about cracking down on bullying, are we pouncing on the kid who throws a punch or the person who badgers him/her verbally leading up to that? And are social dynamics in school part of a set of trials we have to go through, or should schools micro-manage kids to make sure they have to make a show of including each other? Is it naive? Is it necessary for a child to identify his or her sexual identity as soon as possible and then be loud-and-proud of this through High School to test the system, or is it okay for kids to feel the slings and arrows of adolescence and rejection that everyone pretty much has to go through? Later in life, the reality is that many people put on whatever mask is necessary to get a job or to rent an apartment or make their way and package or market whatever goals they have. The same with marketing – instinctively – whether a girl is in control of her image or a boy is in control of his. One axiom going around is, “It’s none of your business what people think of you.” That seems like a head-in-the-sand mentality. Of course it matters. A girl might want to project a conservative image and if asked how many guys she has been with she may say skew her number lower than reality, while a guy being asked how many girls he has been with might skew his number higher than reality. This has been true for a long time, and might be the product of generations of frontier societies where a woman’s future was presumed to be either wife or prostitute. But regardless of its origin and its compatibility with modern society, people are still working the numbers that way. Thoughtful men don’t want to be jerks on-line and to be the target of lectures, so they will likely avoid playing devils advocate or offering the dissenting opinion when it comes to the assertion that equality means embracing all and pretending that we have no preference between a completely independent woman with hundreds of lovers or someone focused more on one person who may be content and less restless in a relationship. I mean if you throw out the idea of marriage or monogamy, then it is easier to be accepting of this trend. But if you don’t want a relationship based on a lie, eagerness and enjoyment of sex may not increase in a woman with the number of lovers she has nor necessarily will her confidence; a boy or man’s confidence will increase with the number of women he has had sex with, however, and this confidence does have more value to a woman than a man’s genteel or shy or repressed virginal image. Even his full dedication and devotion to her will not be ultimately what keeps the fire burning. This brings us back to the line in Orange about fear and now the nice guy or the tame husband routine is not going to hold her interest. There is an axiom that goes or may as well go, “Talking about sex is like dancing about architecture.” I’m seeing links to a lot of talk about what must be done to regulate “rape culture” and to get rid of the word “slut” while still making use of the neo-feminist-blog term “slut-shaming.” This all ends up in a context where every guy from Marc Lepine in 1989 to Elliot Rodgers who have done something horrible gets knighted as the poster boy for the ostensibly heterosexual male population. While I acknowledge that everyone has an opinion, I don’t respect every damn one in the sense of admiration. So I won’t throw around the word respect. There may be well-meaning bloggers and fans of these but most of what I see is just self-serving propaganda, and not even ideas to be contemplated and weighted but matter-of-fact-sounding babble that makes me nostalgic for Andrew Dice Clay being accused of isms and phobias. The culture is so used to being placated, for marketing or seduction purposes, that a person looks ten times colder and meaner by offering a dissenting opinion. Speech or conversation is inherently political. We make choices, either off the cuff or carefully considered. Therefore, what we say can be judged. What people feel, as instinctive reaction or attraction or repulsion, is not a choice and can’t reasonably be judged. But here’s where it gets mechanical and our flesh and blood humanity is turned into data and digitized and categorized until mere admission of taste calls for punishment or shunning. I’ve seen it too often, the artificial camps that pop up. Someone jabs two fingers at your eyes and if your reflexes are healthy you evade impact, and then your tormentor punches you twice in the shoulder, “Two for flinching.” There are many forced-answer questions out there, opinions or platforms we are supposed to pay lip service to, many of which are nicey-nice lies. In one’s forties, a conversation about whether high school girls call each other slut is exasperating. In my old Catholic high school, the girls pretty much did what they did. People are going to want to prop up their own stock market value. Whatever they have, that’s what you need in order to be cool. Pretty basic. But that is at the heart of bullying – status. If someone asks a guy at any age whether he finds a set of attributes or characteristics attractive, it is academic what the truth is. A woman might prefer a man with confidence, and might not care that some of it comes from his “score” with women; after all, it is part in parcel. She might find power attractive or his status, so if she ends up dating her boss maybe it’s not coercion or harassment but just mutual attraction. I’ve seen some exciting women with much older guys and appearing to be happy. Men are not especially attracted to the power or status of a woman. Those things are incidental and may even pose a challenge to his own ego and how he is perceived with her. As for external beauty, there is an expectation that a woman will lose appeal to a younger lover when she ages. If a man finds success later in life, in his forties or beyond, he might not be seeking out someone who merely remembers the same era of music videos but someone who has a physical draw and someone he expects to maintain interest in as a monogamous mate for decades ahead. He could compromise and lie to himself and to whoever he is with, because that is the politically correct thing to do. Imagine living to satisfy TMZ or the local gossip with who you are marrying, since they are not the people who have to sleep with her and wake with her. The opinion of the community therefore is useless. It may read as cruel to point out what should be obvious. What we know is there under the surface. I struggle with weight, so I don’t expect petite angels to fall at my feet. But I don’t want to register for any kind of dating service either and write in my weight when I know how it reads to me and when I historically feel no obligation to play couple with someone merely because we have the same size waistline. When that bubble bursts it will be a mess. I don’t feel the driving need enough to have someone fill the position of girlfriend for me to “learn to love” someone I might only have empathy for. But again all of that is noise, brain chatter that is like the pentagon shape of thought coming to terms with unpleasant reality – the finger turning in a circular motion beside your head indicating crazy. There is the effort to make the world better, even the will to do your part, and openness to ideas, but also against the tide of your own identity. We observe our own personal reactions and this can be much like observing characteristics of others and yet it will be judged if only because it has been perverted into language because words are often choices – truth can be rude or unkind. Maybe those of us who would rather talk about movies or sport statistics know more than they are being credited. Sometimes there is no point in openly pulling something apart until it shapes into the right comforting lie or over-simplification.

Why I'm Anti-Feminist and why Feminism does NOT equal equality

Had to share this in my blog. Not a fan of abortion, but I agree with much of what you said. "Slut-shaming" seems like a perfect term for this era being raised on advertisements and pandering. When people cross the street, I hear them complain that bikes and cars don't watch or abide the lights consistently, and yet the complainer persists in failing to LOOK BOTH WAYS before crossing, as he/she learned as a child. They see the green light and care only that it is their RIGHT to cross the street. Some drive defensively and avoid daydreamers and accidents; we also have to walk and live defensively. It is crazy to blame a rape on what someone is wearing, because responsibility lies with the rapist - or under the rapist - who in turn is expected to read rape-shaming blogs and tweets and socially responsible Facebook updates and learn to be a non-rapist. If I equate the aggressor with an animal - a predator - the answer from a "feminist male" will be, "Well I sure don't feel the impulse to rape when a woman is dressed sexy." That's because he is not the dangerous offender we are talking about. Bono sang, "I don't believe in forced entry / I don't believe in rape / but every time she passes by wild thoughts escape." I was once with my nephew at a hotel pool and my mother quietly made an observation that "girls today have no modesty" because there were girls anywhere from tween to 16 flaunting bodies and tattoos that cause an adult to turn his head and then blush and flinch away. The fashion industry has no problem photographing them and sexualizing them.



Some refreshing arguments, well put forth.  Had to share this, even if there are

sub-issues with which I disagree.  Not that anyone is asking.  I'm no fan of

abortion, legal or illegal.  That is to say that I don't respect it, and the rush to

whitewash it as a way to feel good about having done it I do not respect.

The fertilized human embryo with 46 chromosomes, begins a process that may

end 100 years later, that of a growing and aging human being.  It may be

spun as the same as a (23 chromosome) sperm, but THAT can be called a

belief, just as "the baby becomes quick at birth" is a belief.  Gestation being

a stage of human life is not a matter of belief nor of opinion.

  ----------------------------------

That aside, I like this woman's willingness to challenge the popular opinion

of her peer group.  I personally think that in theory feminism is a good thing,

in the sense that equality is a good thing.  Equal freedom and responsibility,

as well as equal treatment and accountability are vital.  If that - in practice -

is officially part of feminism, then there is no problem.  Otherwise, the word

seems arcane.

"Nighthawks (1981)" - Forever Cinematic Review

John Badham on THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL-STARS AND MOTOR KINGS

The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars & Motor Kings MOVIE REVIEW

LADY SINGS THE BLUES (1972) Diana Ross, Billie Dee Williams, Richard Pryor

Mahogany (1975) Diana Ross. Billy Dee Williams,

Idiot's Retribution

Apparently this is not on his own youtube channel.  I've checked that.

But this is at least eye-opening in terms of how a ranting villain speaks.



When a high school student is forced to write a monologue and then

perform it as an assignment, chances are it will sound a lot like this.



The attempt at maniacal laughter is especially like bad acting, but the

whole halting, flat approach makes me reconsider my harsh opinion

of actorly rants I've seen.  Maybe they were realistic after all.



Or maybe this twerp didn't get enough slaps upside the head.

X-Men Days of Future Past - thoughts after show

Apparently the character I could not identify from the post-credit bonus scene was Apocalypse who will be featured in the next film X-Men: Apocalypse.

Talking to a Wall 2: Courses and coverage

Painfully Bad Wonder Woman - 1967 Pilot

One of the worst 5-minute segments I have ever seen.  Just keep in mind that

a professional TV producer once thought this was okay.  It botches the

character completely and imposes on it whatever dated cobwebs were

tangling up the brain of the writer.  I don't know what they were thinking.

You will never get that five minutes back.  This is NOT the WW I

grew up watching, which may have been corny but was also right.

Says it all WHEN WILL THE BASS DROP? (ft. Lil Jon)

HUGS (feat. Pharrell)

The Lonely Island - SEMICOLON (feat. Solange) LYRICS VIDEO

Spike Lee addresses racist LA Clippers Owner Donald Sterling

You know something? When Anderson Cooper interviewed Mr. Sterling the old guy said something like, "I don't talk about people. I talk about ideas." Which makes me think of the axiom that has been a popular meme, characterizing the sort of people who think about one or the other. If this guy can claim as much, it throws the whole idea into question.

Dump Truck Directing - Gordon Willis - Craft Truck - Through The Lens

video blog Talking to a Wall begins

Occasionally I will throw one of these on-line, mostly random spiels about film making. From the perspective of a low-profile director clawing his way along.

What might Jaws: The Indianapolis be like?

Below is a scene from the original Jaws, a speech Robert Shaw edited down from a monologue mostly John Milius contributed. The story of the USS Indianapolis has been dramatized a couple of times, but there has been speculation over the years of whether Universal might dare make another Jaws movie with this as a core story, serving as a prequel to the original. The first concern might be poor taste - an intense movie giving us what we THINK we want, actually showing what the character Quint is talking about in the scene. They do, after all, tell screenwriters "show, don't tell," despite this monologue being an excellent example of telling that has been earned in the context of an otherwise very visual movie. As a moviegoer, I might welcome this prequel flick. (And by the way, no, I would have zero interest in seeing a %100 historical film about the subject as a substitute.) What I expect is that it will all hinge on the casting of a 19 year old actor who evokes Robert Shaw to a shocking extent, modulated for youth and minus minus much of the edge the story will create in his life. He would be the lynch pin, and our involvement would largely be about tracking his arc from a practical joking but team-player and believer patriot all the way to grizzled atheist where I expect he will see a very decent young father or someone else worthy of survival get killed right behind him as he waits for his turn to be lifted from the water. I expect the poster will have multiple versions of the Jaws logo (for which I have an aversion) ascending toward little soldiers floating above. I expect the Jaws theme would be used. I expect that these days digital technology can manipulate shots of real sharks and integrate them. I would also like them to be bold enough to include a shark that looks just like the original Bruce, with jowls where the hinges were kept, and perhaps insinuate that this is the same shark that will sink the Orca years later. That would be a Hollywood wink that a purist might not like, but that is the kind of flick I think would be appreciated by Jaws fans. One temptation I'm on the fence about is whether they should have the Captain receive information that the Russians have made progress into Japan and that it is not necessary to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which has been recently publicized as hidden history by Oliver Stone. They didn't have to use the bomb, but the White House decided it should be a demonstration of strength because now they wanted to keep Russia in line. But even if the movie sticks to the most dramatic structure, with Quint in each scene (he could of course overhead a cable being read), it would be worth doing. The issue of truncating a long ordeal of weeks of survival in the ocean into two hours or less might be a directorial challenge, but also an opportunity. Personally, I would use the old Passion of the Christ structure and punctuate the horror with flashbacks of better times and perhaps what kind of life Quint had up to that point, maybe living in Amity. Then he can try to impart something or motivate a fellow sailor to keep awake or to not be afraid.

Writer-director

Over Easter, I had beer with a few high school friends. It's the kind of thing where you expect to account for the last 20 or 30 years of your life. Even though the broad strokes are already known. Graduated from Film and TV Production at Humber, did a lot of volunteering and being unemployed, and kept writing and making my little movies even while taking on a job as a security guard, which I thought would be temporary. ************** Some helpful and supportive thoughts and ideas were offered. I won't mention one business plan which might easily be used by others. But along with that came the opinion that a person has to decide whether he/she is a writer or a director. I keep remembering what one of my instructors said to me as graduation approached and he asked what I planned to do. He asked, "So you're going to pass yourself off as a writer-director." Since this was someone who might still be able to mess with my grades, I must have said something polite instead of, "Better than passing myself off as writing and directing instructor." He must have failed upward because he became head of the department. I could have also said, "Yes, I'll pass myself off by writing a screenplay and then directing it; that will surely fool people into thinking I am a writer-director." :):):):):);):):):):) What I have been seeing typically for years is that many directors develop their own projects. If they have found an already written screenplay, it is considered a draft and they will want to "work with" the writer or just walk away. It is like the old joke of producers or executives lining up to take their turn pissing on a script. It's not like I have people lining up with excellent scripts for me to direct. But I have participated in readings over the years and given detailed notes on many scripts. It is enough to know that you either click with something or you don't. I may not have time to see every story idea through to completion. I have too much in my inbox anyway. I have directed another writer's work and the process was the process. Once a script is ready, it can basically be locked. Especially after group readings and storyboards have drawn out possible areas of improvement or necessary tweaks. All of my own scripts go through that process. And once I have drawn it out and had to meditate on each beat of the story or of a scene, I can relax as long as everybody else is open to actually looking at my plan rather than just trusting the whims of the day. ________________________________________________________________________________________Being the writer and the director does not mean that I do "everything." I have had a few people offer me scripts to "produce" which they would want to direct, but that is like hiring me to do many of the chores I only reluctantly do for myself or for which I have waited years to delegate. I would be the wrong person to finance a film, given that it is mostly guard income I survive on. But I have had to do just that many times. Even if you get a producer, you have to have that awkward talk about whether you both understand the duties and responsibilities of that post. If suddenly the director has to recover funding that had not been properly locked down while a project is near or in progress, that could be a disaster. If you start revising a script because it has to be done with no resources, you are wearing the producer had and Murphy's Law is not co-writing and co-directing. There are a lot of opportunities or windows to shoot something I have let go by because now I am not as naive and certain of my destined path. But for me it is a matter of keeping an eye on the expected final result. A compromise on one end of the time-line will have its result on the other end. Each crew member is important. Each is a link in the chain. ________________________________________________________________________One logistical snafu and nothing can nor should be shot without the necessary element. I have in the past accommodated people leaving early from a big shoot and I've had to shoot around them to disguise the fact that they were not present. At that point, the best shots for those moments may be lost. Except that I was in the habit of doing storyboards and it helped the re-organization considerably. What may be lost is subtle. A room full of people has a certain energy. At this point I've caught on to how certain shots can't be easily achieved in reality. Even a 360 degree pan of people might not give the smooth other-worldly mood necessary and build viewer confidence in the project. So those elements become part of preparation. Too much emphasis these days is on simply "covering" the content of a scene, and assumes that it is two people talking. I am going to blog about this in more detail. But on the subject of writers handing over their scripts to a director, each project is its own. If I have written a stage play, I am oddly open to someone or several someones directing and re-staging it however they like. Perhaps because of the expectation that plays will be remounted or go on the road indefinitely. A movie is rarely remade. Even if it seems like the Seventies and eighties are being raided constantly for remakes. Also, part of my interest in directing a script is its potential for necessary invention and use of cinema language. So many movies are just master shot, over shoulder of everyone, close-up of everyone, and the scene from top to bottom. Flipping a burger. In those cases it seems like the director's role is merely symbolic or a matter of reviewing whether the actors are sticking to the plan from rehearsal or casting discussions. Jon Favreau has said that often studios would give him storyboards and say "just shoot this." Or he has hired the animator from Samurai Jack and the first style of Clone Wars cartoon to "direct" on paper the movements and framing of a battle in Iron Man 2. To be honest, the proper application of cutting and shooting is the key to my love of movies. MANY articles and interviews I've studied pay lip service to storytelling and visual elements but then run a camera merely recording conversation - as Hitchcock said, "pictures of people talking." Ironically, I am poised to do something that simple perhaps just because I have no production team and nothing to pay them so I will be writing like the wind and confining everything to the simplest location for the sake of. . .well not just savings of money but the Aristotelian unities of time, place and conflict. Then at least I won't be doing my "first feature" when I tackle the larger project I have been developing. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________I would LOVE to have a decent income. I would LOVE to have more of my titles from the past 10 years on imdb. I envy an enemy of mine who was savvy enough to start a film festival and once it was recognized by imdb simply put her own film titles up there - even at least one I know to be some sort of inside joke (a so-called doc that isn't anything more than an interview of her boyfriend). Much of my play and my passion has gone into preparing projects that at least were my own and/ or had an interesting element. I would be doing more for other people, but in my nerves I feel I am out of place in that capacity. If you advise anyone else on directing you are pissing up a rope. Everyone thinks he or she can direct, so this may not be unique. I won't co-write the work of others, so the idea of working on someone else' script to direct is not on the immediate horizon for me. Maybe after I've gotten my stuff out of my system. Most projects I should have done in my twenties or thirties. I know how sane I felt immediately after completing a film shoot in late 2003 and my brain felt more free to write. I got a lot of good work typed up, and some that still needs to be fixed up. I would certainly give certain scripts to another director and let them stage them and even cast them while I am directing one of my other scripts. As long as I'm not expected to pay for the pride of being a writer-john. I haven't given in to the vanity press. For now all I can do is be thankful for the people who have taken an interest in what I am doing and have helped. _______________________________________________________________________________You know, as I recall, the Canadian Film Center had its Feature Film Projects that as a rule only budgeted for an individual to be paid for one of the positions he or she held. This meant that it made great economic sense for the writer to also be the director. I know that if I were merely surrendering a script I would consider my job done. It would be all over but the compromise. So better to have me doing something, actually directing. As a producer I would be a liability because there are producer-minded people who could be going to bat for the project. You need a load bearing member of the team to be the producer. Obviously the cinematographer and first A.D. are essential. People expect a producer to be production manager as well. There are many positions that I have occupied, but the only one where I feel I am actually the best for the job (for the money) is writer-director. Even then, when directing it is to an extend acting if the scope is large. I wouldn't want some pip squeak wandering along and sizing me up and trying to spread dissent in the ranks. George Roy Hill was much like a general. Apparently so was Milius (who is recently featured in a great doc by Chop Shop). But I tend to be more quiet and hope to plan enough in advance that we don't miss anything. It is a cause for concern that I have not climbed up the imaginary ladder of the DGC for be a PA/AD, then a 3rd AD, then a 2ND AD, with payments and minimum numbers of hours on set in between. Unless I get in straight as a director, I might have to forget about union shoots. I can't be playing that game at age 45. I pretty much have to stick to what I am doing. ___________________________________________________Every now and then you will see a directing credit like Vincenzo Natali on Hannibal that you recognize and you can settle in and watch more carefully, but for most shows it just seems arbitrary who comes in to direct. The shows have good image quality, so the shooters know what they are doing, but I think it will only be taken as a grouchy position to evaluate the quality of TV directing or movies at least in an open forum. I need to be doing this more often, though I have no love of logistical tensions and politics. I feel like I am getting back into it and starting over each time. I keep seeing posts (by female directors) saying there are not enough female directors. I can understand someone boosting the stock of something they've got. But the one thing definitely needed is more excellent directors and a better image for directors. There is clearly an impatient view of directors by and large and a perception that they are all doing something by rote that is so standardized that they are redundant. Whether it is me or someone else, we need to see the DIRECTING evaluated as directing and not so much for content and politics. Some films are more fun to watch than others. The writing is often a meandering mess, which might make it closer to life but also makes the proverbial natives restless. Anyone can do it, so why am I merely wasting my time blogging on a Saturday when my time and my ind are my own? I am either hyper-ambitious, or hyper-apathetic.

A Conversation with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola's quote @ 33:45 about "dictatorial" directing and how that means

fighting the tendency of crew to do the rote thing is the best part of this interview

with him and Scorsese. Makes a lot of sense.  It's the difference between

getting a job done and getting THE job done.

Two Van Tuesday

Film-making memory. This falls into, "the hand of Providence protecting me from what I want." It can be the smallest of issues that allows Murphy's Law to enforce itself in the demonic details of life, the o-ring that is frozen just enough to change size and let gas escape when heated at launch time. Friends were making what was then a Calling Card short film and the director asked me to help out for its five day shoot ostensibly as continuity but generally as "an ally on the set" which might be a term picked up from Buskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. I mentioned that all but the Tuesday would be okay, and that an actress we knew was moving and I had agreed to help her on that day and this was understood so Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were the days I agreed to. I also helped in the days leading up if there was input requested, and also ended up helping on a secondary shoot and with a sound recording day weeks after this main week. But despite mentioning the Tuesday prior commitment a couple of times and even during the Monday shoot on location and even being razzed about it as to my reason for helping this woman move, my friend the director was on the phone with me Monday night and seemed rattled that I actually did mean that I was intending to stay on course and help someone load and unload a moving van Tuesday instead of standing-up the actress and doing the more fun option of hanging out and filming and then just resume with the production on the Wednesday. They had my Polaroid camera (this was 1999) and continuity papers, and plenty of advance notice. To this day, there have been many of opportunities I've said no to just because filmmakers don't HEAR or have selective memory about availability and they believe "in for a penny, in for a pound" and that all else doesn't exist once a production starts. In hindsight, I would have let down the girl because she ended up having a few people help her. That Tuesday was spent riding in a van with the other helpers. I have an over-developed sense of commitment. When I checked back in with my director friend, he decided that the person who replaced me can stay with his project for the rest of the week. I learned later, however, that nothing had been shot that day anyway because they spent it traveling in their equipment van to a location and then finding it unsuitable and returning so the producer could find a different house. I missed a day of riding in a van because I was riding in another van. Had I relented on Monday night, and stayed on to (I thought) indulge in my preference of movies over being a mover, I'd likely not have been accused of disloyalty by the actress and no harm would be done; I would be climbing out of the film van and quipping something like, "Well it's a good thing I blew off my other commitment," If I wanted to be a dick. To top it off, the A.D. from the shoot, a young woman who seemed nice enough for much of the first day, who did not know me at all, apparently had a lot to say. When I picked up my Polaroid, I got the sense that a LOT of spin-doctoring had begun. My frequent runs to the washroom were the result of water pills treating cranial hypertension which had caused me to collapse months before and had damaged my optic nerves. I had recovered enough balance that by summer I was pushing myself a bit. I recall a lot of little things, like when the art department guy didn't have impressive enough prop groceries I suggested stuff from the craft services table and helped stuff the bags. I had thought the day had gone well. There was a little edge from her when it came time to take a Polaroid of the cast and crew. It that photo still exists, I am not in it because I am shooting. The A.D. offered to take the photo but when I explained a subtle framing issue to compensate for, she handed it back. Oddly, the photo was intended for our hosts at the location and I don't remember giving it to them. The A.D. ended up riding in the same vehicle as me on the way back into town, and there was a subtle bit of mustard when she remarked generally about how people should be enthusiastic about filmmaking or not involved - not that she would have been talking about me. Her only hint of anything "negative" would be that when she asked me about something math-related about continuity I had nothing because in any other continuity gig I had I didn't have to add up film footage, only monitor each shot and take that was done. I had thought the camera crew took care of that and I only noted exposure and lens info. But even then despite being a little sun stroked by the end of the day I am certain I was purely polite with her and only got wind of her dark side weeks later in post-mortem chats. I had mentioned that I was not strictly a continuity person and was only there to help out as a former classmate and friend of the three key crew, and that was only mentioned so that I was not passing myself off as anything more. Apart from my own projects, I have avoided doing continuity since. I suspect that much of that A.D.'s attitude about me might have resulted from my re-statement Monday night that I was not due to come in Tuesday. She likely fanned the flames of frustration my friend felt at that point. When I see a shot from that first day, I think of it as mostly positive snap-shots and the film itself turned out very well and it should have gotten more exposure. Given what was known at the time, there is a certain inevitability to it but not any predictability. There was no obvious gravity point in that case study. People frequently come onto a project for a day, and I think they actually used a few continuity people that week. I put all of my cards on the table in advance. Undisclosed expectations are generally the root of conflict on this kind of thing. I don't usually change course when I've decided something, and would have no reason to expect that a known open shift would not be filled and would be left open with the expectation that "don't mean" that I am going to honour an agreement to do something menial as a prior commitment. I was a volunteer. Perhaps the only one on the set. I didn't lose them a day or put them over budget. The person who did was chastised but never shut out as a friend. It took me years to let myself off the hook and realize that I was taken for granted. And the undisclosed expectations were not mine. This kind of anecdote I think might be of use in building teams and airing any concerns during the early phase where people are buzzed about a project and just happy people are willing to show up. #GuardedOptimism.