Run, Don't Walk, from The Blog

I don't know whether this blog should just be used for my "four pages" each morning a la The Artist's Way, except that people would be reading it so I might censor myself a bit. I just don't like the idea of spending time on something that is meant to just vent and to never be of any practical use.

But I know I have to spend that evergy on getting my screenplays solid and that means another pass for almost all of them through the laptop and through my thoughts and excreted out the printeer. If I can get my perfectly good printer to communicate with Windows 7.

I'd feel sorry for anyone actually trying to follow my blogs.

Last month I got to shoot most of video footage for a play's multimedia material.
Good experience to goose me back into the rhythm of shooting. I have to be careful not to let life beat out the filmmaker in me. I need to have my ass kicked once in a while to even take note of a time and location and commit to that. Things end up working out. Many of my own projects have been compromised one way or another - maionly by the idea that everything HAS TO be done within an allotted time, which is the case with every project. I have to ensure that in my own projects the script is respected and actors learn their lines because otherwise the lines read flat and there is less probability of the actor truly bringing more to it. The labor is the memorization. They have to be willing to do that labor. Now I've seen some actors pretty much commit themselves to someone's dialogue and build from there.

I've thought about writing a one-man show for one of the characters I've created, but the actor wants a teleprompter. That's kind of a heartbreak. And he'd rather have the play be more about himself, which is a no-go, really. I don't think I'll be writing anything based on anyone else's ideas, aside from specific adaptations of books I like. Working from anyone else' idea or life sets up a paradigm where it is all about "getting it right" according to someone else. Mind-reading interests me as a topic, but not as something I would have to do.

I also have to be especially careful about whatever I am eating. I can have great bursts of energy peter out so easily because of the type two. I have to beat that and lose weight, whether the work of weight loss is tedious or not. And that means a slightly new life. Not something to sneeze at.

Also, I have to refrain from watching so much TV on-line. I'm into No Ordinary Family, starring the guy from The Shield and Wired, as well as Julie Benz who was Rita on Dexter another favourite show. Nice touch on their anniversary episode where Benz' character at a restaurant changes reservation order with someone with the last name of Morgan. As in Rita and Dexter Morgan. I's details like that I apparently need to have grafted onto my brain instead of spending my time fine-tuning and perfecting the screenplays that are the reason I am in Toronto and alive.

So the last thing I need is this blog to update every now and then. Still not getting enough hours at work. Had a glimmer of hope that maybe the new company I'm with might inherit the last site I was supervisor at and maybe then I'd have a more clear say in how to ditch a troublesome guard who had been told showing up on time and leaving only when relieved was optional. Returning to a set site might be an improvement over the current situation, but I would also have to get rid of that problem even before committing. The same principle also applies to a film. Never accept responsibility over anyone you can't get rid of.

Glee creator and sour grapes

Here are a couple of posts I left responding to this news of a show creator griping about bands who have denied him permission to use their music, and his obligatory down-play of his rejected feelings. Not everyone wants to jump aboard the Glee bandwagon. I liked the show better when I was a teen myself, when it was called Fame. Back then there was a stronger message – work. The Glee thing is more of a counter-myth suggesting that everyone is special and deserving of fame – especially if they are considered outcasts. It makes Grease 2 look like West Side Story.

Jawsphobia Tue, Apr 5, 2011, 1:40 PM

Even as "musicals" go, Glee is poorly done. Simply covering the acts in a talent show or showing people rehearse a song just to get the songs in there is a cheat. The premise is lame. Madonna, Britney Spears and Olivia Newton-John I can understand participating; it's not like they could be any less relevant. If Victoria Jackson had kept quiet about being "grossed out" by gay kissing, she might have ended up singing on the show herself. As for the story-lines? A gay kid is bullied by one kid, so he transfers to another school which makes ensemble is even more unfocused. No unity of time, conflict and location. And how many talent competitions are going on in that area? Good for the Kings of Leon and anyone else who says no to Glee. John Travolta has to be the best, saying he needs 6 months to relearse. Like he got 6 months to dance in Pulp Fiction or Be Cool. LOL.

Read more: http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b234676_glee_guru_ryan_murphy_apologizes_kings.html#ixzz1IgTyqMrr

Jawsphobia Tue, Apr 5, 2011, 1:51 PM

I remember the full Ryan Murphy thing went beyond f-you to something like "They're not looking at the big picture, the awkward kid out there watching Glee and being inspired by it and Glee clubs starting up in schools." As if that is the big picture. There are a few token "outcast" characters on Glee, the man-ish female coach who was serenaded, the morbidly obese girl who is routinely also serenaded, and the guy in glasses in a wheelchair, as well as the gay boy who used to wear a cheerleader outfit and who won a Golden Globe for "acting" last year thanks to the belated reaction to gay suicides and the rush to prop-up gay as hip. Sorry. Neil Patrick Harris he is not. Sir Ian McKellen he is not.

Read more: http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/b234676_glee_guru_ryan_murphy_apologizes_kings.html#ixzz1IgTs78PR

Three Stooges movie casting

Wil Sasso sounds like a good Curley. Now it looks like Larry is going to be played by Sean Hayes from Will and Grace, which isn’t especially exciting. It’ll still be a good movie with the Farrelly Brothers as a quality control factor, but Hayes has to prove himself.

They should have went with a Jewish Larry. I have to see the TV movie about them, which I believe Mel Gibson produced. As for Sean Hayes, I remember thinking when I saw a clip of his Jerry Lewis, "I never knew Jerry Lewis was gay."

Lighting a fire under the Koran

The less funny, and less benign Terry Jones of the United States and a very small congregation of about 30 people followed through with the idea of public burning of a copy of the Koran after finding it guilty of inciting violence. As if to prove this verdict, Muslims in Afghanistan sprung into violent response. They burned an American flag, which might have been a balanced response if that was all. Then they killed about 8 American UN workers.

How reasonable is this? President Obama had discouraged the burning, as had the office of National Defence. The average American looks down on book burning in general. Even the atheists would argue the best way to turn someone off of the Koran or the Bible is to let them read it. So just how is it justified religiously or in any other way to kill eight people who are there to represent the United States in retaliation for the actions of someone who does not represent the United States?

Whatever opinions one might have about Islam or the Koran, it has failed to prepare its followers to deal sanely and reasonably, let alone with justice. Anyone who participated in those slayings needs to spend life in prison.

all supply, no real demand

Here is a rant I went on against a Star Wars fan who had posted on imdb "Star Wars returns to theaters in February!"

I had argued that The Phantom Menace is what is being released in February and that it
doesn't deserve the name Star Wars and that it was like
saying The Star Wars Holiday Special and the Ewoks cartoon are Swar Wars.

"The Six features are cannon.
Each film is as much Star Wars as the other."
- sanoma6

This is like saying Godfather Part III is
automatically on a par with its predecessors.
Or Jaws The Revenge is inherently as valid as
Jaws or Jaws 2.

Or that Dumber and Dumberer: When Harry met Lloyd
is anywhere near as good as Dumb and Dumber.

I'm sure Oliver Stone considers Wall Street 2:
Money Never Sleeps "canon" in his work.

Side note: Even though nobody would argue that TV's
Young Indiana Jones prequels are as engaging as the features, they were all released on VHS in numbered
sequence, including the features, counted as one long
epic and all Cannon by Lucas. And as much as I am a defender of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I don't
dare say it is "as much Indy" as Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Star Wars prequels are counterfeit Star Wars, even
if they come from the same printing press as real Star Wars.

They are inferior, and they have sunk a strong brand which
declined in value sharply after May 19, 1999.

Oddly, because the Clone Wars animated show require so much
content they are farmed out to a team of other writers and
directors. Despite being in an era that involves characters
I don't prefer, they are close to the tone of the OT.
The stories are all competant and often compelling, and
certainly fun.

But the Clone Wars feature - at a time when animated
features do good business - is regarded as the least
successful SW feature and Phantom Menace the "most
successful" which is nonsense.

The brand was damaged. I saw Clone Wars in a theater
and I didn't actually mind the baby Hutt because it
was the "boon" that is followed in good adventure
storytelling. It, arguably, is cannon, financed
and ordered by Lucas. But the distinction of "cannon"
means nothing.

People were burned from Phantom Menace through Sith.
Only the most hardcore fans will read all the novels
and comics, the rights to which are basically whored
out by now. Timothy Zahn's forst trilogy of post-Jedi
novels brought fans back from the late-eighties nadir
of Star Wars when the Marvel Comics had ended their
SW run and Kenner opted not to renew its licencing with
Lucasfilm. (On that last point it is terrific that Lucas
got the last laugh when Kenner was bought out by Hasboro
and Lucas was given half ownership of Hasboro in the late
nineties as the price of a new licence agreement when the
hype had returned with re-releases and optimism about the
prospect of Episode One.) How sad that Hasboro has gone
through Post-Menace period of being ready to give away
action figures, when KFC and Taco Bell cringed at the
prequel decorations in their restaurancts, and Exhibitors
resented the contract Lucas had insisted upon which kept
their screens occupied by The Phantom Menace weeks after
word of mouth caused audiences to dwindle.

The hard bargain Lucas once drove couldn't happen by the
time the Clone Wars feature was being made. He ended up
cutting a deal with Warner, but he got a lot of rejections
and for a while there were no takers even for the quite
good Tv series.

What is especially bothersome about these upcoming 3D
releases is that they will only be accepted by exhibitors
because of the 3D gimmich, which won't be Avatar quality.
it will just be another way to condition us for the regular
ticket fees to be jacked up again, even for non-3D movies.

Fans have to learn to be more critical. Nobody is really
asking for the prequels to hit theaters again. When Lucas
first showed examples of the 3D conversion at Comic-Con it
was scenes from the 1977 Star Wars made 3D.

So all this talk of a year to complete that process
is nonsense - HE HAS HAD FOUR YEARS SINCE THEN,
and has ALREADY GOT A NEW HOPE CONVERTED.
That COULD be the first one released. But he KNOWS
if he shows the OT first, nobody will go to the
prequels. And he floats a bully stance that "the
older films will be released in 3D if these ones
do well." Which is like saying "eat three turds,
with nothing to cleanse the pallet, and then I
will give you the best cheezeburger available."

The re-release of the prequels needs to be boycotted.

imdb debates -further trashing of Star Wars prequels

Okay, here are a few things I've said in response to a young Star Wars prequel fan who refuses to look at them with a critical eye. I know it's beating a dead cat, but the upcoming aboninations of 3D-converted re-release make it part of the soft boycott I'm sort of doing.

OCCASSIONALLY wooden acting? Compare the work of any cast member to their non SW prequel work. Even Jake Lloyd is more bearable in Jingle All the Way. And I'm sure it's no accident that there isn't any mention of Haley Joel Osment screen testing for Anakin on the DVD documentary.

Minor plot holes with OT - Padme's death in III despite Leia's memory of interacting somewhat with her, as described in VI ? That's minor?

- Here, have something to drink without even sniffing it for poison despite the disturbance you feel in the Force.

- Why would anyone want balance to the Force when there are supposedly two Sith in the Universe and a community of Jedi? That's the right kind of ratio.

- The wisdom of the Jedi is apparently to be humorless, reckless and fearless despite paying lip service to the opposite. A character must REACT with fear to new surroundings so the audience can feel suspense, even if they summon the strength to overcome it.

- In OT, decisions were usually made under fire and in a crunch, on the fly. In the prequels, there is usually no urgency and things are decided or discussed in periods of rest. (Except of course scenes like "rational" Obi Wan jumping through a window instead of pulling the floating robot to himself with the Force, despite saying he "hates when" Anakin jumps from a flying vehicle).

- One point in the Sith review that makes GREAT sense is that it would be common practice for the Jedi to "watch the watcher" or keep an eye on Palpatine or anyone else in power. Knowing that absolurte power corrupts absolutely. They need only look into the heart of anyone they encounter, including Palpatine, and if they are blocked then they know that person is communing with the Dark Side in order to do so.

- I don't care about the rationalizations. "I didn't really come here to free slaves, " is an INFURIATING line coming from "Schindler" but it is also not befitting any Jedi or any protagonist in a heroic adventure. Freeing slaves and disregarding an outlying system's WRONGHEADED tolerance of it would have been a rousing and engaging central premise. And LEAVING Shmi Skywalker to live as a slave and not even check in on her for, what, 10 years?

Fear of Anakin's mother suffering is a REASONABLE fear, and NO relation whatsoever to Fear that we overcome, like prejudice -- which I what I thought Yoda was talking about when I saw the trailer, and what other fans nodded appreciatively over.

The business of "attachment" being forbidden is paradoxial, since a Jedi may be attached to irrelevant rules at the expense of what is worth a hero giving his life to defend.

- Anakin talks about a device he has invented for scanning where slaves have their incendiary devices planted in their skin. THAT should lead to a quite worthy sequence! Is Qui-Gon removing Anakin's explosive when he takes the blood sample? I don't recall WHAT he was doing. Then why not Shmi's explosive next? Why not make a point of covertly ridding all of Anakin's friends of their bombs? Maybe Shmi is off at work when this happens and she has to be among the last, and maybe she crosses a perimeter and Watto sees this and activates his remote.

THAT would have been an ideal circumstance for her to die, right in front of Anakin, and maybe in reflex he mentally swats Watto against a wall like a fly. Might not be apt for a children's film, but certainly okay if Lucas cared to establish a tone that naturally ended with the PG-13 finale of Anakin's legs being chopped off before he burns beside a lava lake.

- The chief accomplishment of Attack of the Clones is they manage to have a battle between armies of robots and Jedi and make it boring. They have also made peace boring, which is quite offensive in a set of stories about war and mostly released during war time.

That's not even the tip of the iceberg. Years from now melchiahdimension-1 you'll watch these prequels and wonder WTF you were thinking.

On close examination of the most basic points, it all falls apart.
George Lucas is all about negotiations and deals and those transactions are a big part of the "story" in the prequels. It doesn't make them more civilized. It makes them false and out of touch with the human spirit.

The fact that Lucas will re-release The Phantom Menace in 3D February 2012 and not stick to the OT just willfull greed and shortsightedness. The prequels are a disgrace.

V for Vagnerian, Veneration, Vegetarian. . . .

A twit on the imdb.com discussion board for Scott Peters the current producer of the reboot of Kenneth Johnson's V found an old post of mine where I was rejecting the show and calling it an anti-Obama tract. But that was in the earliest episodes of the reboot where frankly it wasn't a well written show. The plotting and transitions were very scattershot and I think the scenes had an arbitrary rushed pace to them. The show eventually found its way. But the thing about an imdb post is that people find the old ones and reply as if they were written yesterday.
I still kinda prefer the old 1980's version with its World War II analogy, but I also think whatever had been intended as a subtext for the current V for Version of V isn't much there anymore and we're better off without that. Subtext worked for Battlestar Galactica's reboot, but now that the Bush era is over there is not as much to seeth over.
Here is my reply to that imdb user:

Actually the show has improved vastly since its first few episodes. And one thing that has eased off and then disappeared is any connection to that subtext. Now that the fuss over the flu is done there isn't much in V to mirror it anymore. Any connection between blue energy et cetera and healthcare would be laughable. There is nothing sinister behind universal healthcare in Canada. Let alone big, sharp teeth and pointy tails to impail people.

I'm not the one with something to cry about. I don't live in America where the people who still have a stranglehold are the Republicans. And by the way Ms ALLCAPS Esplin obviously by "EVERY OTHER TV SHOW" you skip Fox "News" and CNN, which is surprizing considering the Republican tendancy to cower from anything other than their own camp. In most TV there isn't any such thing as absolute right or absolute left. Just because someone supports Obama doesn't mean we TiVo Glee hoping to swoon each week as two guys sing to each other. There is just enough smart-Liberal stuff is out there that we don't have to settle for Pandering-Liberal.

Somehow I get the sense you are not an avid fan of Bill Maher or even Jon Stewart. V has become a fun show, shocking and interesting, and my boycott stopped after it corrected course returning from its abrupt break in the middle of season 1. Season 2 with Jane Badler is outstanding and they've shown excellent taste in the gesture of filling the void of her departure with the inclusion of Marc Singer. I no longer read any Republican underpinning into the program.

I do however think that it is vital that people "kill" their idols or heros in the sense that they say the highest level of Buddhism encourages adherants to "kill the Buddha" and Christians can get more out of our own stated values if we "Kill" our image of Christ and the facts of stories so we can see the forest through the trees. People need to band together and not expect an indivual to be the perfect saviour and solve all problems. Interestingly enough in the case of Obama you mention -- his biggest FAULT has turned out to be his bipartisan approach. Had he been as underhanded as Republicans had been for 8 years and had he shoved all left-wing policies down the throats of Americans during his first year while he had a Democratic house (which he should have) then I can understand the Right demonizing him as a V. Instead he let himself be mired in bipartisanism so even his allies at the Left are drifting to the middle (ironically, that's where he is and yet it is hurting his team).

So I wouldn't say that I'm "crying" but I am concerned. More about the real world than what has now turned out to be a pretty cool show more in the spirit of classic V than the mess it was during the first few reboot episodes.