Category: Film

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2014

Goodness gracious, that’s 2014 done already.

Boring stats first. My exercise diary is a little depressing: less than half the number of runs this year than I would/should have on average (see here for where it all began) — but if I add the number of brisk walks and bike rides, too… total mileage is only a third of my annual average. Goodness gracious me. Future selfies for the blog will be from the chest upwards only. (Update: 2014’s mileage was actually two-thirds annual average — human error in the spreadsheet formulae.)

On to what this post is really for: what I watched on big screen and small. 128 titles were watched, equating to just over 500 viewing hours — and here’s what stuck:

Features

  • Enough Said
  • Monsters, which made me want to see Godzilla (which did not disappoint)
  • a dead heat between 20 Feet from Stardom and Fire in Babylon
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel
  • Ida
  • Wreck It Ralph, with runners up The Lego Movie and Despicable Me
  • The Rover
  • The Lunchbox
  • Guardians of the Galaxy, with runner up Edge of Tomorrow
  • The Dark Horse

Television

Happy New Year!

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2013 in Print

A terrible year for the reading diary: a meagre 72 titles passed through my grubby fingers.

Still — stand–outs were:

Comics

iZombie Volume 1: Dead to the World by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred
Beast by Marian Churchland
The Hive by Charles Burns

Books

World War Z by Max Brooks
The Good War by Studs Terkel
Glitz by Elmore Leonard

Scripts
Tyrant by Gideon Roff
Modern Family — S01E07 by Danny Zuker
Law & Order — S08E09 — Burned by Siobhan Byrne
Baghdad Baby! by Dean Parker
Midnight in Moscow by Dean Parker

Usually, whatever gets listed in these end–of–year posts is culled from a larger short–list of what made an impact. Not so 2013.

Late new year resolution: Read more.

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2013 on Screen

2013 went by rather quickly, didn’t it?

Here’s my best–of, in no particular order.

Features

2013 was a year when, more often than not, the fifteen or so bucks I paid to watch a feature on the big screen felt like money well spent.

Zero Dark Thirty
Iron Man 3
The Big Year
Chronicle
The Guard
Utu Redux
Gravity
Unit 7
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Saving Mr Banks

Television

For Mr White and friends, it was the end of an era — long live the king. As life goes on, Florrick & Associates continues to pull strongly, the Houses of Stark, Lannister, et al, remain compulsive viewing, and Nurse Peyton prevails in her adventures with prescription medicines.

Arrow — Seasons 1–2
Secret State
Hannibal — Season 1
Top of the Lake
The Americans — Season 1
The Newsroom — Season 2
The Fall — Season 1
Run

In another box–heavy year, honourable mentions to Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Endeavour, Karen Sisco, Last Resort, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and The Fosters. Not perfect, some no longer with us, some not really my cuppa, but good, well–made telly.

Onwards, ho!

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Filler: Elysium

INT. FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT

WRITER

You want to watch the latest “Elysium” trailer with me?

GODDESS

(over “Horse & Pony” MAGAZINE)

Only if it’ll stop your confounding grovelling.

Our WRITER joins THE GODDESS on the COUCH and angles his Macbook towards Her --

-- our Writer looks at his Goddess, eyes shining:

WRITER

Wasn’t that just effing awesome?

GODDESS

... Do we still have to go to the multiplex and watch the five minutes that weren’t in the trailer?

WRITER

YES, DAMMIT! ... Please.

She’s a good sport, She is.

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Legacy

Last month I was asked what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind – that if I had ten years left in my writing career, what would I want to be known for – film? television? theatre?

I was stumped in that moment as the following questions fizzed and Twister-ed through my head:

  • did I want to keep writing for the silver screen?
  • or did I want to try a running jump for the golden-age-of-television train?
  • or was theatre – with all its in-built ‘Nam-movie-like flashbacks to the terrors of Sunday school – my metier?

All I managed in reply was a drowning fish impression.

The past few months has seen me more focussed than usual on a number of projects*. Whenever I’d stall encounter a problem challenge – like a question of plotting, or a certain character inconsistency, or finding the right typeface for the title – the question of a “D F Mamea legacy” would flick about my head like an annoying insect.

I can understand the motivational aspect of thinking about a legacy. I already know what I want to achieve in five/ten/twenty years’ time. For me, the thing about the question of legacy is that 1). it assumes a level of control from beyond the grave, and 2). it infers the kind of ambition that I don’t think I have.

I want to tell stories. I want to keep close around me the people I enjoy working with. I want to hold onto my loved ones because they’re a dream come true.

So. The plan is to a). continue writing whatever turns me on – and/or pays handsomely – over the next five/ten/twenty years, b). enjoy the process not just by myself but with my fellow creatives and collaborators, and c). persuade The Goddess that the installation of an half-ton AS/NZS3809-compliant safe is a heckuva deal for as many Kaimanawa ponies as she wants.

Legacy, schmegacy: write it – and if people like it, good.

 

* Winning a couple of awards is a wonderful intermittent reinforcer.

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Toy Throwing

Saw Man of Steel with The Boy a couple of months back. Besides the decidedly age-based concern about the amount of (inevitable) real estate damage in the final showdown, I couldn’t help thinking about the little people. (I wasn’t alone either.) As buildings were pulped and dust billowed every-which-post-9/11-way, I kept flashing on this film:

By chance, the aiga had watched Chronicle the week before – and during that film’s climactic showdown I was flashing on this:

Yes, Alan Moore‘s Miracleman.  I doubt we’ll see any film or television adaptation of this revisionist beast (a protracted rights wrangle is approaching its twentieth anniversary) but Chronicle‘s tale of three friends who gain superpowers and whose good intentions go wrong not just for them but for the puny humans around them, is a nice and engaging substitute.

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Meet and Greet

The past few days’ burning question has been: Would I still write this post if I hadn’t been an award recipient?  Close behind it has been this Schrodinger follow-up: Would I still be an award recipient if I hadn’t decided the day before to attend the event?  (Employees and families of employees of the organisers are not allowed to answer the second question.)

So, yeah, wow. Last Thursday I went along to the SWANZ awards, cheering for the competition because that was the only way I could deal with the pressure… and Goodbye My Feleni won.  And the night itself, viewed in the preceding fortnight with dread and anxiety, turned out to be a very pleasant evening indeed.

I got to meet and talk with:

Ahh, networking. Not always as painful and dreadful as I imagine.

* I know they’re more than playwrights.

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