21 Blog Street

1. I love Danish movies.

2. 'The Vow' is not very good. But I like Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams.

3. Tatum is good with comedy. '21 Jump Street' has some hilarious moments. It gets a bit daft towards the end, but what do you expect? It's a Hollywood movie.

4. That's why I love Danish movies. Story comes first. The characters are real. It's not about genre - it's about an experience.

5. I completed the 1st draft of a screenplay this week and the producer absolutely loves it. This confuses me.

6.  People sure are getting excited about 'The Hunger Games'. Any good? There's a great article in the New York Times about how it was hyped by the marketing people. I love this sentence: "Lionsgate has generated this high level of interest with a marketing staff of 21 people working with a relatively tiny budget of about $45 million". Makes you realize what an insane industry we're in. A company spends close to fifty million dollars on brainwashing a movie into our skulls, and that's deemed a 'relatively tiny budget'.

7. Bill Hicks on marketing: "By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence."

8. Sometimes I am really cynical about her, but that's mostly because I'm insanely jealous of her creativity, optimism and vision. Check out this wonderful little blog post by Color Me Katie. If more people were like her, the world would be wonderful and peaceful.

9. When '21 Jump Street' was nearing the end -- about 12 people behind us in the cinema decided to get into a mass brawl. My friend and I had no idea why it happened, we were just glad we had popcorn.

10. I enjoyed 'We Bought A Zoo'. Is it actually any good? I DON'T CARE! I just know I love it! Cameron Crowe movies are full of vitality and life. That's why I love 'Elizabethtown'. In many ways, it sucks, but some moments are golden. Most films, even the good ones, have no golden moments at all. What are these moments I talk of? They're moments of life - of fresh air - of feeling. Cameron Crowe is the master of that. 

11. In this day and age, do relationships ever truly end? Do you ever get closure? Even if you do the whole 'deleting' each other thing, there still comes the day when someone adds someone back again, or stalks them on another site. That never happened back in the day, right? How will it be when we're old? How do you ever truly get away from the exes? I think it's impossible. This topic reminds me of this little short story I wrote. It didn't get much attention but I think it's one of the best things I've written on the blog. It's called 'A Modern Break-Up'. Let me know what you think of it.

12. Reminds me of a thing I wrote last year, where I imitated the writing styles of Woody Allen, Roald Dahl and Jack Kerouac, and called it 'Facebook Stories'. It was fun!

13. 'The Four Tops' were a great band.

14. I'm really looking forward to 'American Reunion'. It'll be like hanging out with old friends.

15. I'm going on a trip soon and I plan to not tell anyone what I do for a living. I'm gonna lie and say I'm a plumber, or that I invented the iPod. I just wanna get away from it, from who I am, just for a little bit. Sometimes I think you can be too identified with who you are and what you do for a living. In fact, I saw a quote this morning that resonated. Let me find it...........

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

-Lao Tzu

Not that I really know what it means, but it sounds nice. That's the thing, we're all guilty of the bastardisation of great traditions and inspirational quotes. Ever read Eckhart Tolle? (a spiritual hack); he uses phrases like, "What Jesus meant to say was....", can you believe that? How would he know?

None of us know what any of the great wisdom means, we just like to pretend we do.

That being said, Lao Tzu quotes always inspire me.

16. Which reminds me of a story I wrote back in 2010, called "Lesser Known Inspirational Quotes". Here's a snippet:

"In 336 BCE, Quaqulus, a part-time swimming instructor, had big dreams - he wanted to inspire the world with his wisdom. Unfortunately, he was not as gifted as Epicurus - and his legacy is not quite as impressive. He is perhaps best known for, "The world is really big, and that's why it's difficult to go everywhere." He tried to better this a year later; when he penned "The value of friendship is quite high." He finally gave up inspirational quotes the year before his death, when the best he could come up with was "Sometimes things are really difficult. The key is to not always have times that are really difficult, if possible.""

17. Whenever I feel a little lost, a little off centre, I listen to music from 'The Apartment' and it brings me immediately home.

What song or piece of music does that for you?

18. Here is my in depth analysis of the screenplay 'The Apartment' by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.  

19. Three actresses I really like: Helen Hunt, Patricia Clarkson, Ellen Page. I'm a little bit in love with Ellen Page. And also Rachel McAdams. Which reminds me of a great Woody Allen joke from the film 'Anything Else':

"Last night, I was home by myself and I conjured up a threesome with me, Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. It was very erotic. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it was the first time those two great actresses ever appeared in anything together."

-Woody Allen

20. My Top Three Seasons of 'Friends': 2, 4, 8.My top three characters: Ross, Joey, Chandler (sorry, girls). Although, from season six onwards I'd change that to Ross, Joey, Rachel.

21. I feel I need to choose between Ellen Page and Rachel McAdams. I just worry the one who misses out will be heartbroken.