Film – Page 6 – D F MAMEA

12 July 2011

Self-Flagellation

What is it with long flights and the ~~bad~~ ~~terrible~~ tragically awful films that I choose to watch? It’s not the carriers’ fault. Nowadays, all international carriers have screens on the back of the seats with hundreds of channels of choice at each traveller’s fingertips.

So why’d I watch an eight-figure budgeted action comedy when I had the works of Tony Gilroy, Sidney Lumet, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers to choose from?

1. It’s an eight- to ten-inch screen. It’s bad enough to watch movies on the laptop but to watch VHS-like-quality images on such a small screen is irresponsible because I’m sure a movie-magic fairy drops dead each time a film is watched on a screen that’s less than twelve-inches across.

2. I’d started watching a couple of other films on the movie menu but all the swearing (even ass – ass!) was muted. I was scratching and scratching and scratching my head until I realised that flying Emirates might have something to do with the level of censorship.

So.

Ninety – ohmigosh! 120! – minutes later, here is what meagre enjoyment I dredged from the action comedy that played on the tiny screen in front of me:

1. Having leads with a genuine chemistry can help. Would’ve helped. Although maybe not as much as it used to since I was watching part three of a franchise. But the memories of the previous instalments… okay, the memories of the first instalment can carry you some of the distance. Oh gods above, I lie: the memories didn’t help at all.

2. Having supporting actors who can out-act your leads can give such a film some sorely welcome spots of genuine humour and/or pathos.

3. For all of the studios’ squeals of dwindling cinema attendances and how the internet is stealing not just from DVDs but from the starving children of Africa, I can’t help but think that, at least for all of the creatives and technicians and support personnel involved, they all got paid.

It is, just like they say, only show business.

And maybe, one day, if/when I can afford to travel better than cattle class, I’ll have enough room to be able open up the trusty Powerbook and exercise choice.

7 June 2011

Choose

Whenever I think of narratives that escalate as exquisitely as Aliens, I think, I should blog about that – y’know, how character decision A leads to situation B which requires character decision C but whenever I sit down to write it, I keep flashing on this, from Pulp Fiction:

INT. PAWNSHOP -- DAY

Butch sneaks to the door.

On the counter is a big set of keys with a large Z connected to the ring. Grabbing them, he’s about to go out when he stops and listens to the hillbilly psychopaths having their way with Marsellus.

Butch decides for the life of him, he can’t leave anybody in a situation like that. So he begins rooting around the pawnshop for a weapon to bash those hillbillies’ heads in with.

He picks up a big destructive-looking hammer, then discards it: Not destructive enough. He picks up a chainsaw, thinks about it for a moment, then puts it back. Next, a large Louisville slugger he tries on for size. But then he spots what he’s been looking for:

A Samurai sword.

4 May 2011

How We Got Here

The latest abridged script‘s opening made me laugh out loud:

EXT. LOS ANGELES

LOS ANGELES is getting ASS-FUCKED by ALIENS.

VARIOUS MARINES IN HELICOPTERS

(shouting)

OO-RAH! LET’S GO GET THOSE ALIENS!

AUDIENCE

Yay, they’re getting directly into the action! Maybe this will do that good-movie thing of jumping right in and cleverly filling us in on the backstory as we go along.

(pause)

Or it might do that bad-movie thing where...

TITLE CARD: “36 HOURS EARLIER”

AUDIENCE

Fuck.

Once the chuckles abated, I had to search hard to find out what kind of storytelling device this is: a how we got here trope.

I used to think this device/trope was a nicely grabby way of starting off stories until Battlestar: Galactica killed that enjoyment with overuse in its second season.

I inwardly groan whenever I see such a title card now. For me, it’s become an unnecessary obstacle a film or show has to overcome for me to continue watching. Grinning and baring it has been occasionally rewarding – Breaking Bad and Band of Brothers come to mind – but for the most part, deservedly or no, a time-travelling title card provides an excuse to stop watching and move on to the next show.

And how would yours truly do it?

In film, Memento and 21 Grams have shown the way in forcing your audience to work without title cards.

As for TV, I wouldn’t use it in a pilot*. I was going to say it’s been done to death but I’ve gone back three years in my viewing diary and haven’t even been able to make a list of five. I blame BSG for my sensitivity.

And as for Battle Los Angeles, I enjoyed it immensely despite health advisories from Mr Ebert and Mr Slevin. Maybe my low expectations carried me over that title card hurdle.

* And yet… a pilot script of mine starts just like this – though, in my defence, it doesn’t have a title card.

25 April 2011

Fast Five

Have just noticed that the latest Fast and Furious instalment has Dwayne Johnson in it.

Yes, Mr Johnson’s name is right up there with series (ir)regulars Paul Walker and Vin Diesel but I’ve never cared for the latter two in this series.

But Mr Johnson – well, I’ve been a fan since Welcome to the Jungle and Walking Tall. Here, finally, I thought to myself at the time, is the true heir to the Schwarzenegger throne.

The Boy has already seen the film. But I suspect he may not object to having to watch it again. For his old man’s sake.

5 January 2011

2010 in Film and Television

Television

Better Off Ted

Breaking Bad

Defying Gravity

Greys Anatomy

The Good Wife

Glee

Justified

Little Dorrit

The Big A

Modern Family

Nurse Jackie

The Unusuals

MC Ash

The Walking Dead

A toast to Better Off Ted, Defying Gravity and The Unusuals, all cancelled, and all sorely missed.

Breakout television for 2010? Zombies, natch.

Film

The American
Boy
District 9
Green Zone
I Love You Phillip Morris
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Kenny

Let the Right One In
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Road
Sherlock Holmes

A Single Man
Star Trek

Film of the year? Boy. God damn your eyes, Waititi.

20 June 2010

Susan Alexandra Weaver Interview

I changed my name when I was about twelve because I didn’t like being called Sue or Susie. I felt I needed a longer name because I was so tall.

There’s more in this cool Esquire interview with the 5′ 11″ Sigourney Weaver, including:

I was awfully good as the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland”. I think that was in third grade. I realize now that I played it as a screaming homosexual, but I certainly didn’t know it at the time.

(Fedora-tip: Dan Slevin.)

18 June 2010

The Blues Brothers

Has it been thirty years already? Gosh.

The Chicago Tribune has a few fond reminiscences about shooting The Blues Brothers in Chicago. Remember the car chase through the mall? The arrival of the Blusemobile, at least three hundred bodies, fifteen horses, three Sherman tanks, three helicopters and three fire engines at the Daley Centre? All in Chicago.

My favourite reminiscence: two Cook County commissioners* buttonholing then Mayor Jane Byrne at, I presume, the local premiere:

“These two Cook County commissioners approach Jane,” [director John] Landis said. “And they start shouting at her. They were really abusive, and you could see her getting mad. ‘How could you have let them do this?’ they screamed. ‘They ruined the floors! Troops on Daley Plaza!’ It was the most bizarre scene. She’s saying back, ‘They replaced the floors!’ A guy’s shouting, ‘No way we let this happen!’ She’s saying, ‘It happened months ago! And you didn’t even notice!'”

(Fedora-tip: the LA Times‘ Patrick Goldstein.)

* New Zild readers: those county commissioners are the equivalent of local body councillors.

6 June 2010

Potayto, Potahto

The Goddess likes Urbis and Beekeeper Journal while I like Empire and mourn the limited availability of Guns & Ammo. She listens to Greg Johnson and Jacqueline du Pre while I like to crank up some Wu or Nina Simone. She has a soft spot for Miss Marple while I’ll re-up with McNulty and friends any time.

There is some common ground. Queen, Maisey Rika and Phoenix Foundation. Better Off Ted, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, The Good Wife and Mad Men. (Yes, these last coupla years have been big box-watching years.)

She likes relationship stories while I like kill-my-dog-and-I-shall-lay-waste-upon-the-land-until-vengeance-is-mine stories. Her viewing threshold is a lot lower than mine – q.v. The Cult – but my excuse is that all viewing is a learning experience.

So we like different things. So what.

Were it not for Her, I would not have had the pleasure of Grand Designs, the River Cottage series, Pieces of April, and King of Kong. And were it not for me, She would not have had the pleasure of Mad Men, The Good Wife, Lars and the Real Girl, and In Bruges.

I suppose it evens out in the end. And because I do like to quote the good doctor,

It is important to always try new things.

11 May 2010

Why I Write 2010

I finished James Ellroy‘s The Big Nowhere a while back. I’ve read it a few times now. Don’t know if it’s my favourite of his “L.A. Quartet” but I do relish its quicksand plot, bastard cops, and Ellroy’s unremitting style. The end is so black that when I reach it, I immediately want to start over as maybe things will work out better for my favoured characters the next time around.

The same goes for whenever I rewatch films like The Constant Gardener or television shows like The Shield where the endings are not happy.

Why do I subject myself to this torture?

It’s the execution. It’s the characters. It’s being taken by the hand for a half-hour or hour or ninety-plus minutes or days and returning to the real world short of breath, my heart thundering in my chest and a lump in my throat.

This is not a new discovery. Romeo and Juliet will never grow old. Rick will always have Paris. Rachel and Deckard will never have certainty.

And I think to myself:

Someone wrote that shit.

I lapped that shit up and begged for more.

I want to write like that.

28 April 2010

Who Killed Bambi?

Roger Ebert posted recently about his experience of writing a script for the Sex Pistols – or was it for the late Malcolm McLaren? Or Russ Meyer? Gold, it is.

Last weekend, Mr Ebert very generously posted the script from that moment in time. Oh, what coulda bin.