d f mamea

22 September 2012

Hounds RIP

(Before you lot get excited, this post is about the TV show, not the departure of one or more of our menagerie.)

A little while back, I got an outta-the-blue email asking if I was interested in plugging (or not plugging) an upcoming TV show. That, my Beloved Readers, is one of the mean reasons why I’ve clung onto this blog: for free shit.

There were a few hiccups along the way – including a greyhound by the the name of Lundy–~~bain~~–dixon–watson who needed some audio finessing – but the show was assured, low key and damned funny.

How funny? The Goddess, The Girl (who’s at university now) and I watched the pilot and we all laughed. Not together, mind: we each found something to laugh out loud at. From a crowd that was a hard one to begin with – when I suggested it for a viewing the looks from my fellow viewers-to-be were none-too-friendly – that was something to hold on to. And it wasn’t just us – the critics liked it, too.

Of course, it was programmed to screen at 10pm on a Friday night.

And, of bloody course, it got cancelled.

It’s out on DVD now: a damned fine Kiwi comedy that I’ll proudly be adding to my library.

Go on: try it.

13 September 2012

Hypothesis One

P Lab‘s maiden production, Hypothesis One: a compound reaction from New Zealand Samoans, is a devised piece that is not the kind of theatre I generally have in mind for an evening out. The main reason for my knee-jerk aversion is “devised” (a natural enough prejudice for a closet control freak writer like myself).

Earlier this evening, The Boy and I went because we had connections (see disclosure below). With only three actors – Fasitua Amosa, Max Palamo and Beulah Koale – a large and varied extended Samoan family is sketched in around a dementing 91 year old grandfather (Palamo), his dutiful adult son (Amosa), and his doting grandson (Koale). That a mere three actors achieved this seamlessly – along with a good few flashbacks – is a tribute to their craft and devising, as well as to their directors. Co-directed by Shadon Meredith and Amelia Reid-Meredith, the play moves, the story develops, and – best of all for me – is beautifully understated.

Sure, the piece is a bit rough in places, and a bit thin – but it is as a theatre experience that it succeeds almost perfectly: I was transported; I was there. And not only that, I’m still processing my almost visceral cultural reaction to the piece – as a Samoan male audience member, I was just floored by it.

Hypothesis One is a pointer to the future of Pasifika theatre: New Zild theatre that’s also Pasifika theatre, and vice versa.

I want me some more.

Disclosure: I’ve had the pleasure of working with Fasitua Amosa and Shadon Meredith, and hope to again – and soon.

10 September 20129 September 2012

CMB

It’s Comic Book Month at the local library, which coincided with two recent blind purchases.

The latest Parker volume from Richard Stark and Darwyn Cooke. I think I bought the previous volume, The Outfit, sight unseen, too.

And the final chapter of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill‘s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century.

– Oh, and whilst browsing at the local library, how could pass up a blurb like this: Six new stories of love, crime, alcohol, and severed heads. Yep, Jason is back with Athos in America.

If I’m not writing, I should be reading, right?

8 September 2012

Another Letter to Aaron Sorkin

Dear Mr Sorkin

Further to my letter of 23 October 2007.

Your latest show, The Newsroom, has graced our screens and I want to say a couple of things: thank you, and welcome back. We’re enjoying the show, and we’re glad to hear there’s a second season due next year.

It’s nice to have you back on the small screen, Mr Sorkin. We missed you.

Yours sincerely

David Mamea

Post script: Some people have taken issue with your self-plagiarism.

You know what? I find it very comforting.

29 August 2012

Gone Soft

Channel-surfing earlier in the month led to us tripping over a Law & Order ep. Jack McCoy was now the District Attorney; reporting to him were new faces Cutter and Rubirosa. Anita van Buren was still the lieutenant down at the 27th Precinct – she had her own new faces in the form of Lupo and Bernard.

Curious, we tuned in.

The ep’s A story followed the detectives, soon augmented by the district attorney’s office, as they raced to track down an online blogger preparing for a big and messy shooting spree. Y’know: the usual L&O stuff that is so slick and smart and fast it still makes the majority of cop shows out there dumb and slow.

The B story was more interesting in that it followed van Buren (S Epatha Merkerson) as she underwent some scans for what we presumed was cancer. We learned more about her in this one ep than we had in the preceding decade and a half of (admittedly occasional) watching. Something was up – especially since the ep ended on her getting the results of her scan and showing us her reaction.

“That’s not right,” I said to my Goddess as the credits rolled. “They’ve gone soft, they have.” She nodded and yawned and picked up her briefly forgotten horseriding book.

A quick google to get to the bottom of this abberation revealed that the ep was the series’ finale.

Ah. Well.

Just this once, then.

22 August 201223 August 2012

Tony Scott, 1991-1995

When I heard that director Tony Scott took his life, I paused more than I expected. I’d long written off his films as overcooked excuses in directorial excess but… there was something about his oeuvre that nagged at me, something I suspect I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Then I read Dominic Corry‘s love post in the New Zealand Herald and I realised the mark Scott had left on me as a filmgoer. Despite inflicting Days of Thunder, Deja Vu, etc, on the world, between 1991 and 1995, he defined action films with muscle and panache with three films: doing justice to Shane Black‘s multimillion dollar script with The Last Boy Scout, showing a deft restraint with Quentin Tarantino‘s True Romance, and showing a hitherto unknown knack for intelligent, buttock-clenching tension with Crimson Tide.

Those films are among my touchstones.

And for that, I’m grateful to Mr Scott.

Travel safe.

13 August 201213 August 2012

Oh Well

Ye olde local started showing this one so we saddled up to support local business and see what the hype was all about.

As the end credits rolled, I turned to The Goddess and said, Well, and she loooked at me and said Well, and we hugged each other because it was nice to get out and support local business.

In an unprecedented move in our relationship, we returned forthwith to Fortress Mamea and watched the following two films in very short order:

It was an exhausting, essential cleansing process but well worth the time.

Postscript: Chris W at The Editing Room deconstructs the film perfectly, with my favourite abridged script line being:

CHARLIZE invites NOOMI and LOGAN to her FORESHADOWING ROOM.

8 August 201211 August 2012

Haywire

I’ll watch anything by Steven Soderbergh – and if it’s a genre piece, I’m quite likely to add it my library. Copies of Traffic, The Limey, Solaris, Out of Sight, and Ocean’s Eleven have pride of place on the shelves. (The absence of Erin Brockovich and the Ocean sequels is, I think, self-explanatory.)

When I heard Soderbergh was making an action film, my Pavlovian response was predictable. An awesome roll call of actors. The writer of The Limey. Exotic locales. Its arrival on these shores couldn’t happen quickly enough.

It skipped a theatrical release and went straight to DVD. I watched it and kinda liked it. I watched it again – this time with The Goddess – and liked it more. And I think I’ll watch it again.

This excellent Editing Room abridged script both captures and highlights what I really enjoy about Haywire: it upsets my expectations of an action thriller while still giving me an action thriller. It’s no masterpiece. It’s a genre exercise. The story is familiar as all get out. Lead Gina Carano‘s game acting is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast who get into the spirit of things rather than just slumming it. Soderbergh’s crisp direction and Dobbs’ deft script provide 93 minutes of action, thrills and suspense.

I think it’s a keeper.

27 July 2012

Occam’s Tafi

INT. CAMRY SPORTSWAGON – DAY

Our WRITER drives while his GODDESS rides shotgun.

WRITER

I’m thinking of revisiting my ethnic horror project –

GODDESS

I know what happens!

-- he glances at her, a little surprised, as --

GODDESS (CONT’D)

A bunch of islanders go to KFC --

(dramatic pause)

-- AND THEY’VE RUN OUT OF CHICKEN!

22 July 201218 July 2012

Fifth and Final

Yay that X-Files alumnus Vince Gilligan‘s Breaking Bad has returned to the airwaves Stateside.

Boo that a). it’s the final season, and b). that it’ll be split up into two parts of eight eps each*.

All good things must, I suppose, come to an end.

Fortress Mamea awaits our free-to-air broadcasters’ programming whims.