Should these types of cinemagoers be dealt with by:
a) Extermination.
b) A $5000 fine.
c) Extermination and a $5000 fine.
Let me know.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
That Woman.
That woman, you know the one, the one who arrives 14 minutes into a film, sits down -- and then begins to whisper to the person next to her. Although, it's not a whisper, it's drowning out the dialogue. And you hear that horrible creepy sound of her lips from the row behind you - it's like she's trying to slurp and juice up saliva and lick her lips as she talks drivel to the friend next to her. It's anything but quiet, and it's fu*cking annoying.
Should these types of cinemagoers be dealt with by:
a) Extermination.
b) A $5000 fine.
c) Extermination and a $5000 fine.
Let me know.
Should these types of cinemagoers be dealt with by:
a) Extermination.
b) A $5000 fine.
c) Extermination and a $5000 fine.
Let me know.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Theodore Roosevelt Quote.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Focusing On Writer/Directors.
I'm going to slow down posting here for the next couple of months. Rather than the usual smattering of film related articles - I am going to focus on the eight writer/director's who have influenced me the most, and write about each of them one by one.
My aim is to look closer -- why are they so great? Why does their work resonate with me so profoundly? My hope is that I'll learn a lot more about their works but also -- I'll learn a lot more about me. I'm setting a deadline - 5th June 2010, that's two months from today. Before those two months are out I will have gone back and re-discovered the back catalogues of those eight writer/director's, and have written about each of them.
The films I gravitate towards tend to be those directed by the person who wrote them. It's not an absolute rule; and originally it was always by coincidence -- but I remember many years ago looking at my favorite films and realizing they were, more often than not, by writer/director's. And then of course, it eventually began to dawn on me that it wasn't coincidence at all: I love films that have a singular voice shining through them; when one person has an idea, a vision, and is able to express it in a personal and meaningful way. Occasionally, you get a writer like Charlie Kaufmann who manages to have this influence by being a screenwriter alone - but, by and large, it's the writer/director's who are able to do something more personal, and more profound. So I want to look closer at that. Precisely, I want to look closer at the ones I love - and explore the reasons why.
My aim is to look closer -- why are they so great? Why does their work resonate with me so profoundly? My hope is that I'll learn a lot more about their works but also -- I'll learn a lot more about me. I'm setting a deadline - 5th June 2010, that's two months from today. Before those two months are out I will have gone back and re-discovered the back catalogues of those eight writer/director's, and have written about each of them.
The films I gravitate towards tend to be those directed by the person who wrote them. It's not an absolute rule; and originally it was always by coincidence -- but I remember many years ago looking at my favorite films and realizing they were, more often than not, by writer/director's. And then of course, it eventually began to dawn on me that it wasn't coincidence at all: I love films that have a singular voice shining through them; when one person has an idea, a vision, and is able to express it in a personal and meaningful way. Occasionally, you get a writer like Charlie Kaufmann who manages to have this influence by being a screenwriter alone - but, by and large, it's the writer/director's who are able to do something more personal, and more profound. So I want to look closer at that. Precisely, I want to look closer at the ones I love - and explore the reasons why.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
creativity & tiredness & pressure
and you invite them to a screening and they invite you to a play and she invited him to an audition and he begged the woman for a role and they offered some guy an unpaid thing and he handed out his showreel and i wrote a script and she reinvented herself and he got inspired and those other people found a great book and that dude set a goal and someone else kept demanding people become his 'fan' and the pretty girl kept learning her lines and the weird man wrote to everyone he could think of and the tall man plastered posters everywhere and some old broad kept singing and someone else was trying to make a short film and some little girl had talent and some teenagers put together a documentary and a group put together a project and the foreigner re-wrote something and a lady kepting calling them up and a guy continued printing, emailing, calling, creating, auditioning, writing;
and still, no-one quite got to where they were headed.
and everyone is tired. everyone is really tired. but nobody lets themselves rest.
and people are wondering when are they going to give it up. when are you giving up? what would make you give up? why haven't you succeeded? are you good enough? are you not good enough? are you making money? are you not making money? do you need more pressure? maybe you have no pressure? maybe you need the pressure of a real job? maybe you're not pressuring yourself? maybe you have it easy? maybe you want things easy? maybe you should just write a script? have you thought about writing an email? maybe you should do more auditions?
and you take those thoughts on board. and they're all valid, every one is valid. and they make you tired.
and still, no-one quite got to where they were headed.
and everyone is tired. everyone is really tired. but nobody lets themselves rest.
and people are wondering when are they going to give it up. when are you giving up? what would make you give up? why haven't you succeeded? are you good enough? are you not good enough? are you making money? are you not making money? do you need more pressure? maybe you have no pressure? maybe you need the pressure of a real job? maybe you're not pressuring yourself? maybe you have it easy? maybe you want things easy? maybe you should just write a script? have you thought about writing an email? maybe you should do more auditions?
and you take those thoughts on board. and they're all valid, every one is valid. and they make you tired.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Music And Me
I really love music. I love that my iPod broke and that I lost thousands of songs. Now I use my iPhone, with a much smaller capacity - and carry around only a couple of hundred tracks at a time. It takes me back to the early mp3 player days when I could only fit 30 songs on it. It's getting me closer to the Kid By The Speaker who used to stay up later than his parents realized - scanning through the radio waves for a song that sounded how I felt.
I used to make cassettes once a week, 90 minutes of pure greatness - I still have most of these tapes. I had no prejudice or snobbery when it came to my choices. It could be Nirvana or Led Zeppelin, or it could be Hanson or ABBA. I just loved good music.
My love for music had different stages. The listening to Mum and Dad's Rod Stewart and Tina Turner records was the first stage-- followed by a brief foray into really predictable chart music. This left me unsatisfied and soon led me to a local, and now defunct record store where I would ask 'do you have the first Beatles album? Is it any good?'
I loved Motown music. It seems that anything by anyone who was Black in the 1950's, 60's and 70's is my kind of music. I could relate more to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke than whoever was in the charts in the 90's.
By the age of 14 I was a working DJ. Specializing in 25th Wedding Anniversaries and 40th birthday parties. I just knew that kind of music. I went into partnership with a friend who had free access to equipment and we began working fairly regularly, although we ended up booking more school discos and 18th birthday parties than anything else.
Being a lover of great music and already, at that age, someone who enjoyed integrity more than money-- I quit. The youngsters were asking for 'garage' music (a style of music prominent in the UK in the late 90's) and it was something I just couldn't get into, it didn't excite me.
At this point my musical tastes changed. I remember very specifically searching for cover versions of Oasis songs, who were my favorite band at the time; they were, of course, a natural progression for a fifteen year old Beatles fan. My search for cover versions led me directly to a version of Counting Crows covering 'Live Forever.' Or rather, of lead singer Adam Duritz sitting at the piano playing it solo. I was really moved by the performance. He changed the tone and meaning of the song. I searched Napster for more Counting Crows music. The first song I found was an acoustic rendition of their song 'Round Here' (the version on the Storytellers disc). Less than six minutes later I had a new favorite song, which it has remained to this day.
From my mid to late teens my music tastes veered strongly towards the works of singer/songwriters. The usual suspects became my favorites; Springsteen, Dylan, Ryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, etc. Who can speak my dreams better than The Boss? Who can console for heartbreak better than Ryan Adams? Who can express what it is to feel lost or alone better than Adam Duritz? The answer to all of those, for me, was and is: no-one. Their words and voices have sung my life for over a decade and I don't know what I would do if I couldn't have Springsteen pick me up or the Crows to make me feel understood.
In the last year or so, I've felt my music needs changing slightly. I've developed a love for a community based Jazz radio station in New Orleans, WWOZ.
Hearing them play old and rare jazz records is really something special-- almost magical. It worries me -- the flood of teen sensations and game show winners who populate popular music today; they make it harder and harder for a youngster today to hear the genius of some guy on a saxophone from 1935, or the heart and soul of a live Aretha Franklin recording.
At the moment - I seem to be listening to a mixture of film soundtracks (okay, mainly just Ennio Morricone, who is simply incredible) and I'm also reconnecting with something I've always had a soft spot for: women and pianos. Joni Mitchell, Vonda Shepard, Sarah Mclachlan. I've always loved that stuff. Gives me some balance, I think.
What the future holds, I don't know. I listen to music differently now, not quite as obsessively (I have over a 100 versions of certain favourite songs...), and I feel the scattering of my collection on near extinct formats and numerous hard drives means I almost don't have as much choice and simplicity when finding music as I used to.. But I still love it all. Right now, as I sit on an airplane somewhere above Europe, 'Ooh La La' by The Faces just came on my iPhone player, and that alone has made my day. That's why I never understood why people argue about who the best band is, or what song is the greatest; for me, it's something much more personal. It's hearing a song at the right time, in the right place; and the result being a big smile and the feeling that maybe life is worthwhile after all. That is exactly why I love music.
I used to make cassettes once a week, 90 minutes of pure greatness - I still have most of these tapes. I had no prejudice or snobbery when it came to my choices. It could be Nirvana or Led Zeppelin, or it could be Hanson or ABBA. I just loved good music.
My love for music had different stages. The listening to Mum and Dad's Rod Stewart and Tina Turner records was the first stage-- followed by a brief foray into really predictable chart music. This left me unsatisfied and soon led me to a local, and now defunct record store where I would ask 'do you have the first Beatles album? Is it any good?'
I loved Motown music. It seems that anything by anyone who was Black in the 1950's, 60's and 70's is my kind of music. I could relate more to Otis Redding and Sam Cooke than whoever was in the charts in the 90's.
By the age of 14 I was a working DJ. Specializing in 25th Wedding Anniversaries and 40th birthday parties. I just knew that kind of music. I went into partnership with a friend who had free access to equipment and we began working fairly regularly, although we ended up booking more school discos and 18th birthday parties than anything else.
Being a lover of great music and already, at that age, someone who enjoyed integrity more than money-- I quit. The youngsters were asking for 'garage' music (a style of music prominent in the UK in the late 90's) and it was something I just couldn't get into, it didn't excite me.
At this point my musical tastes changed. I remember very specifically searching for cover versions of Oasis songs, who were my favorite band at the time; they were, of course, a natural progression for a fifteen year old Beatles fan. My search for cover versions led me directly to a version of Counting Crows covering 'Live Forever.' Or rather, of lead singer Adam Duritz sitting at the piano playing it solo. I was really moved by the performance. He changed the tone and meaning of the song. I searched Napster for more Counting Crows music. The first song I found was an acoustic rendition of their song 'Round Here' (the version on the Storytellers disc). Less than six minutes later I had a new favorite song, which it has remained to this day.
From my mid to late teens my music tastes veered strongly towards the works of singer/songwriters. The usual suspects became my favorites; Springsteen, Dylan, Ryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, etc. Who can speak my dreams better than The Boss? Who can console for heartbreak better than Ryan Adams? Who can express what it is to feel lost or alone better than Adam Duritz? The answer to all of those, for me, was and is: no-one. Their words and voices have sung my life for over a decade and I don't know what I would do if I couldn't have Springsteen pick me up or the Crows to make me feel understood.
In the last year or so, I've felt my music needs changing slightly. I've developed a love for a community based Jazz radio station in New Orleans, WWOZ.
Hearing them play old and rare jazz records is really something special-- almost magical. It worries me -- the flood of teen sensations and game show winners who populate popular music today; they make it harder and harder for a youngster today to hear the genius of some guy on a saxophone from 1935, or the heart and soul of a live Aretha Franklin recording.At the moment - I seem to be listening to a mixture of film soundtracks (okay, mainly just Ennio Morricone, who is simply incredible) and I'm also reconnecting with something I've always had a soft spot for: women and pianos. Joni Mitchell, Vonda Shepard, Sarah Mclachlan. I've always loved that stuff. Gives me some balance, I think.
What the future holds, I don't know. I listen to music differently now, not quite as obsessively (I have over a 100 versions of certain favourite songs...), and I feel the scattering of my collection on near extinct formats and numerous hard drives means I almost don't have as much choice and simplicity when finding music as I used to.. But I still love it all. Right now, as I sit on an airplane somewhere above Europe, 'Ooh La La' by The Faces just came on my iPhone player, and that alone has made my day. That's why I never understood why people argue about who the best band is, or what song is the greatest; for me, it's something much more personal. It's hearing a song at the right time, in the right place; and the result being a big smile and the feeling that maybe life is worthwhile after all. That is exactly why I love music.
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