Blogs

Allure is a blog dedicated to the unexplainable allure of the screen stars of the 1920's and 1930's. I love it when bloggers dedicate their entire site to some small niche thing that they're passionate about. But then you read someone like FlixChatter, who covers a wider range of things, and you like it because you see how much care and energy goes into the posts.

What I like about Babs & Midge is that they find things on YouTube that you've never seen, or that you forget you remembered. But there are too many review blogs. Millions of people reviewing everything they come across. Who cares? Not me. But occasionally someone does it good, like Inspired Ground.

I like Happy Frog and I: Tales From The Lilypad, because you see a writer blossoming. Some posts are wonderful, some you struggle through; but each one is different. And you recognise a singular voice, that's how you know you're in the presence of a real writer.

Adventures In Nerdliness is a blogger I always read, and enjoy, even though I never know the films he talks about. I have no interest in them. But he loves what he loves. I love people who love what they love, who dare enough to be passionate about things that aren't what's sitting at the top of the charts. And Mix Tape is just plain cool.

And Masala Moodswings just commented on my blog, and I'm fascinated: "a fat Indian girl's take on (the lack of) sex and life". Masala Moodswings makes uncool cool, and HipsterCrite makes the uncool-cool somehow cool again, she just writes so darn good.

Clint is an interesting guy. Phoenix is a fantastic actress. Obsessed and Bored is a young actress who's taking us on her journey, sharing her audition videos, her ups and downs, and giving us an insight into being an actor. I like what she does.

And I'll finish on Talking Movies, because this is a guy who asks interesting questions and posts thoughtful blogs, but it does it in such a simple, down to earth manner. He doesn't ramble forever; he gets the job done in three paragraphs. If only we could all be so succinct.

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Sexy Sax Man - Hilarious

I love viral videos. I'm also kind of jealous, because I've never created one and probably never will. It's not how my brain works. I don't have that talent. Not that it's always about talent; sometimes it's just about humiliating someone.

But the Sexy Sax Man is absolutely hilarious. Before we talk more about it; watch it:

Did you laugh? I hope so. 

I always find repetition funny. Often a bad joke gets amusing merely by the fact it gets repeated. A topless guy playing "Careless Whisper" to unsuspecting Walmart customers is hilarious to begin with -- and it just gets funnier and funnier. 

A good viral video teaches us a lot about ourselves. Watching this, you can't help but notice how insane and power hungry the security staff get, but why? It's just a very funny guy and his filmmaker friend doing something fun--- and I am certain that, for the people who witnessed it, it's something they'll remember forever. 

The Sexy Sax Man teaches us so much about our society. The security staff aren't just security staff in a shopping mall--- they're the government who have all your details, they're the managers at your work who flip out if your cigarette break lasts two minutes two long, they're the airport security staff who waste your time for fifty minutes looking for bombs in your underwear. 

That's why this video is so funny. Because it's a big fuck you to the man. The Sexy Sax Man is above the law. He's being creative and hilarious in a way we rarely are in our well-planned, carefully constructed lives. He shows a side of us we crave for. He's liberated. And for the five minutes we're watching, we're liberated too.

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The Kid In The Front Row Manifesto

"It's not a memo, it's a mission statement." -J.M.

You don't even know what you're going to create yet, you have no idea what you're capable of. Your first screenplay or your fifth might be great, but what about your nineteenth? We have no idea. When Woody Allen was writing stand up routines for comics, he didn't know he'd write 'Hannah And Her Sisters' or 'Crimes and Misdemeanours.' That was twenty five years later.

You don't even know who you'll meet this weekend. You don't know what problems you'll overcome in the next ten years. You don't know what your favourite film of the next five years will be. Who knows what will inspire us? Who knows who our future muses will be? We often worry about not getting the gig or not being good enough-- but we're worrying about projects and jobs that don't even exist yet.

The world is changing and the world is getting smaller. There are thousands of people out there who love the things you love. And there are writers and actors and directors and camera operators and make up artists scattered all around the world who you don't know yet. But you will. Who knows what the future will bring.

There are no rules. We live in the generation that invented Facebook, that developed YouTube, that made the studio execs a little less sure how big their pools are going to be in the coming years.

This is our time to get good. And if we suck, let's work at getting better. You used to need money and contacts to make a film. Now you need a video phone and a YouTube account.

We are the generation of Zuckerberg. Of Banksy. Of communicating in 140 characters. Anything is possible. Art has been getting its ass kicked for a long time. But things are different now. We can have voices again. It takes effort and its a choice we have to make. We need to decide on what we value.

On the one hand we have movie franchises where they remake Spiderman every four years because they know we're dumb enough to buy a ticket, we have short films made to promote chocolate bars, we have countless movies of girls running around in bikinis saying dumb bullshit in horror films that can only be called original because they have a different title to the ones that came before. We have the same thing we see every year because we've become numb to the notion of actually being challenged.

On the other hand, we have art. Personal expression. Standing up for what we believe, what we love. Nobody wanted to let Chaplin direct, nobody was comfortable with George Carlin's comedy, nobody loved that band you love when they started out; it was just their girlfriends and parents.

Art takes longer. And it's harder. And someone is more likely to fund a project about a cheerleader who went to blow-job school than your passion piece about an Israeli sandwich delivery driver who takes a road trip to Sweden to find his son. But if you follow through with it against all the odds, you get to be Bob Dylan, you get to be Godard. But more than all that you get to be yourself. You get to be a kid in the huge playground that is the unstoppable and ever surprising oasis of magic that is the human imagination.

Be art. Be yourself. Be a film that means more than the sum total of its opening weekend figures. Be Charlie Chaplin, be David Foster Wallace, be Joni Mitchell. If we don't do this, who will?

I meet, tweet, email and speak to SO MANY hugely talented writers, directors and actors every single day. But most of the time they're struggling, or pissed off, or going through a rut. It's because we're in an industry that doesn't care about us because the industry is about money, about making rich people richer. Good films don't cost $120million to make, and cinema tickets shouldn't be double or treble the minimum wage, and you shouldn't have to sell yourself out day after day in the hope that by the time you're 80 you'll get to do the projects you're really passionate about.

Lets take our ideas, our talents and our energy and let's find ways to work together, to create the projects that really matter. Its time.

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Juice

I am writing this without having anything to write. I thought it'd be best to warn you of that now, so that if you're bored already you don't have to keep reading. I always write when I have an urge to write, when I have something to say. Right now I don't.

But I'm curious to find out how I write when I really don't have anything to write about.

I find my creative juices are similar to playing sport. Practice helps. Warming up helps. And the best work comes when you're in good form, writing great line after great line. But if you play too often, you burn out, you use up too much energy.

The mistake that's easy to make is to come back too soon, or to force ideas when really you need to be resting. We all need rest. The problem that creative people have is that they feel guilty. We can't watch four minutes of a daytime tv show without screaming at ourselves to do something more meaningful.

But the resting is important. Seeing your friends is important. Sitting out in the sun is important. Its important to get through new experiences without cutting them short because you want to take the 'new experience' juice and turn it into a story idea.

You may live to write but you also have to live to live, too. A screenplay, or a story, even an acting performance; they need life and wisdom. What you get from writing, is a lot is experience, and craft; you learn the shortcuts and you figure out how to turn mediocre into good.

But to be great, you need life. And so often we forget that, because we're too busy fighting with ourselves, demanding that we create masterpieces. But when we demand it of ourselves, we often create hostile work environments within our own minds. Inner discipline is good, but inner chaos will stop you completing projects.

I used to cause myself a lot of distress by constantly having a voice in my head screaming "Write something! Make a film! Make some money! Make a masterpiece! Write a blog! Do something worthwhile with your life!" and it was constant, and aggressive.

But that voice, constantly in your head, is as powerful and energy sapping as if there was literally a person standing there screaming the words at you.

So now I take the pressure off. I am still extremely prolific as a screenwriter, film director and as a blogger, and I'm very demanding of myself; but when the creative well is dry, I don't use up my reserves; I just see it as a sign that I need to rest, or refuel on life, or on reading.

The voice in my head demands things instantly, as if I must write a masterpiece or create something magic before 11am. But not only is it impossible, it's unnecessary. And the pressure gets me nowhere.

I wrote this post without major pressure; just out of mild curiosity and wanting something to do before going to bed, and maybe it didn't turn out so badly.

Whether you're a successful professional or a hopeful amateur, I'm giving you permission to have the night off. Please take it. You undoubtedly deserve it.

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The Film I Always Go Back To: You've Got Mail

Today I'm running a blogathon called "The Film I Always Go Back To", - where bloggers write about the film they always find themselves re-visiting after stressful weeks, or messy break-ups, or maybe just because they love it so much. I will be sharing other blogs on this theme over the weekend through the Facebook Fan Page.

I love "You've Got Mail", I've seen it countless times. I've never really blogged about it, apart from the time I compared it to 'Sleepless In Seattle', but as I started to think about this blogathon I set up on the theme of 'The Film I Always Come Back To', it seemed to be the only choice that fit.

I think Nora Ephon is a wonderful director. There's no-one better at creating a warm and welcoming environment for two hours. I don't think any other director could make me enjoy a film about women cooking for two hours, but that's exactly what she did with 'Julie & Julia'.

'You've Got Mail' is about love in the modern age. It was made before Facebook and Twitter, but it's still in the same world. A world where we tweet and update statuses incessantly, and we like to believe it means something, or someone's listening. 'You've Got Mail' is the fantasy; that words over a computer can mean something. They can make people fall in love.

'You've Got Mail' paints a beautiful New York City; autumn leaves and beautiful cafes on the Upper West Side. It's a New York I believe in. It'd be 'cooler' for me to see NYC the way Scorcese does, or even Woody Allen; but the New York I love is the Nora Ephron version.

And I never thought about it until writing this article; but YGM is essentially about a corporate company fighting with an independent local store, which is basically what I blog about every day, maintaining a bit of 'The Shop Around The Corner' in a world dominated by the 'FOX Books' equivalent.

I like that films can be fun and have a sense of joy and romance. This film nails it. Too often films get self-conscious about being romantic, or they make the joy too big, like some daft Will Ferrell flick. 'You've Got Mail' just tells a good story, with engaging characters and memorable dialogue. The conflict between Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox is played perfectly by Hanks and Meg Ryan; two actors who have done their best since this film to steer clear of their natural talent for romantic comedies. Tom Hanks is masterful in this. He gets the recognition (deservedly) for films like 'Forrest Gump' and 'Saving Private Ryan', but here he has an ease and playfulness that is a pure delight to watch. Nobody can do this the way Hanks does. I just hope he does more of it-- because the smug-I'm-a-good-actor version of Hanks we've got since Da Vinci has been extremely disappointing.

I like rom-coms. And it's great when they're done right. Truth is, the indie films generally do it better (Before Sunrise, In Search Of A Midnight Kiss) but I think when it comes to big budget fare, Nora Ephron is the best there is. There's a lightness and sweetness to her work which we rarely see in film, or the world. And lightness ain't always so bad.

'You've Got Mail' is a delightful, humorous breeze; one of my favourite movies-- every time I watch it I sink into its version of New York. I love it.

If you write a blog and like the idea of this blogathon, please get involved! Write your version of "The Film I Always Go Back To" this weekend! Meanwhile, I also recommend watching "The Shop Around The Corner", the fantastic Ernst Lubitsch film that "You've Got Mail" was based on.

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