Scriptwriter
Tickets are now on sale.
The premiere season of Goodbye My Feleni – expanded from the one-act play that debuted in 2012 – is 16-25 April 2013 at the Basement Theatre, Auckland.
(Translation of “i a” – pronounced eee-yah – Samoan; equivalent of “okay, then” as in “let’s get started”.)
I’m old enough to have fond memories of the 1987 series with Sarah Conner Linda Hamilton and the ever-reliable Ron Perlman looking longingly at each other every damned ep or two. So when I sat down to watch the 2012 version, it was partly curiousity but mostly because it has Go Girls‘ Jay Ryan in one of the lead roles – hey it’s the same reason I’m looking forward to trying similarly Kiwi-led shows Banshee and Falcón.
So I’m past the teaser, maybe ten minutes into the show, when the thought occurs to me: This must be what shows look like in the world of Logan’s Run.
Or maybe I’m just feeling my age.
The ever-reliable Editing Room have thrown up an abridged script for one of my 2012 faves, Dredd. Some of you may wonder how such almost literal cannon fodder can rub shoulders with the likes of Never Let Me Go and This Must Be The Place.
From Chris W‘s abridged script:
INT. HALL OF JUDGENESS
JUDGE KARL meets his plucky new sidekick OLIVIA THIRLBY.
JUDGE KARL
So you failed the Judge SAT test, but you’ve got Kuato powers so we’re giving you one more chance to prove yourself.
OLIVIA THIRLBY
(using mind powers)
I sense that you’re very... You’re kind of... You’re sort of...
JUDGE KARL
Yeah? Go on?
OLIVIA THIRLBY
(pause)
Uh, nevermind. Forget it.
JUDGE KARL
But you were about to reveal something interesting and profound about me that might give my character the slightest shred of depth.
OLIVIA THIRLBY
(looks at watch)
Wow, you haven’t shot anyone for a full two minutes.
JUDGE KARL
Damn, you’re right. Characterization can go fuck itself. Let’s go kill something.
Yeah.
I loved Dredd because it didn’t try to be anything more than it is, whether it’s a balls-out actioner, a more-faithful-than-hoped-for adaptation of the original comic character, a nicely self-contained dystopian sci-fi flick, or a combination of any/all of the above.
I saw the image above and flashed immediately on any number of Star Trek moments – y’know, when the captain says to transfer all available power to the aft defensive shields, or the forward photon cannon – and then realised that that’s how I sometimes write: reeling with anger at what gets made, and then trying to make the world a better place channelling that energy into my writing.
Sure it’s a variation on Harrison Ford’s I’m from the let’s pretend school of acting, but sometimes you just have to go with that moment of motivation whenever it rears up and spits in your face.
(Fedora tip to Eldest Nephew for the graphic.)
This Salon article on the blurring of realities/worlds between the TV show and Elmore Leonard‘s latest novel, Raylan, also mentions that the fourth season hits the small screen today stateside.
Yusss.
I realised with a bit of a shock that 2013 is the year in which two must-see TV shows end their runs: Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
Salon has a nice piece by Joe Winkler on the impending departure of 30 Rock and The Office. It’s about sitcoms but the sentiments are similar:
In the most recent episode of “30 Rock” — there are only two more remaining in the series — Kenneth Parcell and Tracy Jordan discuss the reason behind Kenneth’s childlike love of television. Tracy guesses: “Despite cellphones, iPads and computers, they are still the most effective portals for poltergeists?” No, Kenneth tells him, It’s “because nothing ever really changes, the people you care about never leave.”
Even though it hurts like hell, good things do come to an end – how else can we remember them with fondness?
I’ve seen more titles this year than in any other since official records began in 2003. I’d like to think the year’s expanded viewing-slash-research goes some way toward explaining why posts on this blog have tended towards commentary rather than craft.
Features
Drive
Tropa De Elite (Elite Squad) and Tropa De Elite – O Inimigo Agora E Outro (Elite Squad – The Enemy Within)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Avengers
Safe
Never Let Me Go
Armadillo
The Angel’s Share
Dredd
This Must Be the Place
La Jetee
End of Watch
Yes, that’s more than ten for the year but those 2011-and-earlier titles were just so damned good that I had to name-drop them.
Television
Panama-hat-tips to The Good Wife, Mad Men, Justified, Nurse Jackie and Breaking Bad for continuing to be must-see telly three or more seasons into their respective runs. It’s sad that Mad Men and Breaking Bad will finish in the coming year but all good things do come to an end.
Hung – Season 2
Justified – Season 3
The Good Wife – Seasons 3-4
Smith
Inside Men – Season 1
Dirk Gently – Season 1
Game of Thrones – Seasons 1-3
Mad Men – Season 5
Nurse Jackie – Season 4
Hounds
The Newsroom – Season 1
Hit & Miss
Longmire – Season 1
The Golden Hour
Breaking Bad – Season 5
The Bletchley Circle
Last Resort
Monroe – Season 2
Boardwalk Empire – Season 1
Vegas – Season 1
The Sopranos – Season 1
Late adopter excuse/s for ‘discovering’ Smith, Boardwalk Empire and Sopranos.
A great year for UK telly with The Bletchley Circle and Hit & Miss.
And sun-hat-tips to the excellent The Golden Hour that almost, almost, made me want to watch the Olympics, and the lamented Hounds.
Theatre
Leilani Unasa’s His Mother’s Son
P-Lab’s Hypothesis One
Louise Tu’u‘s Gaga: the unmentionable
Disclosure: All three pieces are by Banana Boat colleagues,
Yah, it’s the end of 2012 already so time for a quick blow-out.
Another average year in terms of quantity of reading. Texts, as you can see immediately below, were a bit on the thin side.
Books
Other People’s Wars – Nicky Hager
Road Dogs – Elmore Leonard
Comics
Ongoing titles Walking Dead, Powers and Scalped continue to rate with excellent storytelling. Castle Waiting, Dolltopia and RASL were very pleasant surprises.
RIP – Thomas Ott
Castle Waiting Volumes 1 and 2 – Linda Medley
Tamara Drewe – Posy Simmonds
Walking Dead Volume 15 – We Find Ourselves – Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
The Killer Volumes 1 and 3 – Matz and Luc Jacamon
Dolltopia – Abbi Densen
Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense: Being Human – Mike Mignola
Scalped Volume 7 – Rez Blues – Jason Aaron and R M Guera
RASL Volumes 1-3 – Jeff Smith
Powers Volume 14 – Gods – Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Scripts
This year’s overall slant towards television writing is represented below with the number of pilots listed.
3:10 to Yuma – Michael Brandt & Derek Haas
Analyze This – Peter Tolan and Harold Ramis and Kenneth Lonergan
Gilmore Girls – Pilot – Amy Sherman-Palladino
Arrested Development – Pilot – Mitchell Hurwitz
My Name is Gary Cooper – Victor Rodger
30 Rock – Pilot and S01E07 – Tina Fey
Groundhog Day – Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis
The West Wing S02E04 – Aaron Sorkin
Justified S01E08 – Benjamin Cavell
Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
I’m a little worried I might’ve spoiled things a bit by reading Django Unchained before its opening here in New Zild but I enjoyed the script heaps more than the script for Inglorious Basterds (the film of which I have yet to see in its entirety [and those bits I have chanced across have been intriguingly tasty]).
The market caters to all sorts of tastes across various arbitrary boundaries, and impulse (that is, blind) purchases can provide the most rewarding of viewing experiences. (I suspect a large part of any cinematic or television enjoyment I can get nowadays is the tension between anticipation/expectation and The Unexpected – I might expand on that once I’ve found my thesaurus.)
So it was with This Must Be The Place, a road-trip/revenge-tale/coming-of-age film that captivated me for all of its almost two-hour running time. What distinguishes this film from any other film that tries to deal with even just one of those genres is the Robert Smith-inspired middle-aged rock star protagonist (Sean Penn) whose backstory is not what we expect, whose journey is equal parts convention and surreality, and whose characterisation reminds me why I’ve been a Penn fan since Bad Boys.
The trailer plays up the revenge angle but the film is, like other personal favourites, so much more.
