Bootlegs, Mistakes & Accidents

I've always loved the mistakes. So many of my favorite moments in movies tend to be the accidents they left in. They're the most real, and I usually spot them a mile off, as happened this week with 'Going The Distance'.

I guess it started with the radio. I was so in love with music that I'd sit there with cassettes and tape everything I liked. It's just that the sound quality was so bad, there was always interference. Months later I'd buy the clean record and I'd miss the interference.

Most of my favorite bands, I don't listen to their records. With Counting Crows, people remember 'Mr Jones' from the radio, but I remember the version from Woodinville 2001, or the Viper Room 1995.

At one time I was collecting bootlegs obsessively. Some guy would be muddled in with the crowd recording everything, and then weeks later you'd be laying on your bed listening to Springsteen or The Who, hearing all the mistakes, the cheers, the rare tracks.

The best artists have great albums, but it's the live stuff which really grabs you. And I never knew how bad the sound quality was. I'd make a friend listen to a track and they couldn't even hear it.

But that's what I love.

It carried over into film. I like imperfection, spontaneity, roughness. People try to do it as a 'style' but it's so false.

You can't plan it.

But sometimes you capture the weather, the moment, the insecurities of the actors -- little bits of realness that bleed out onto screen.

It's so hard to get, but occasionally you do.

It's like with blogging. I have no censor. No stop button. I let the words fall like rain, you get my off days and my on days. But when someone loves something from an off day, it's amazing, because you're more vulnerable when you give people access to the bad stuff. When they find value in it, you feel they really get you personally.

Ever heard Bob Dylan's 'Blood On The Tracks'? Or the outtakes sessions? It's his best stuff, and he just did it and disregarded it. Same for Springsteen when recording 'Darkness Of The Edge Of Town'. The discarded tracks were all genius.

'A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints' is one of my favorite movies. Listen to the director's commentary, Dito Montiel and the editor, Jake Pushinsky, continuously talk about doing things cause they 'felt right'. They kept in continuity errors and mistakes because they felt right. That's why I connected so strongly to it.

My favorite moments in 'Garden State' and 'Almost Famous' are mistakes. They're the moments that really let you in, where you make the human connection.

As I wrap this up I'm listening to 'I Will Be There When You Die' by My Morning Jacket. This version is so raw, you can hear the life around it, all the sounds you weren't meant to hear, but you do. And it's everything.

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Poem

Life is short
Life is short
Life is short
I like you.
Life is short
Life is short
I really do.
Life is short
Life is short
Life is short

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Together

You never really realise, when you start out. The years tumble by and people fall to the side, but some stay.

You're in it together.

You have those people at the top and the people at the bottom, and you find yourself somewhere in the mix struggling to get by.

And the geniuses pass straight to the top, as do the ones related to the big shots. Everyone else shuffles through the fields trying projects and finding themselves and losing themselves.

Sometimes it's like everyone is succeeding, other times it's just rejections and failures and let downs.

One by one people go down one lane or the other. Someone lands a big role and another lands a pregnancy and life takes people on their unique journeys.

It's not a race, you realise. The most talented ones often struggle the most. If you have something new or interesting, no-one is going to get it. People on reality TV rise because they're exactly what we already know, no surprises. They soon fall away.

You find yourself surrounded by the most talented people in the world, yet only seven people know their work and collectively you barely earn enough money for lunch.

But it's not a race. It's a journey and one by one you take a step forward. The audience gets bigger.

You surround yourself with talent and passion and you wait to see the day the world gets clued in, and eventually they do. It's not just talent, it's luck, it's life, it's serendipity. You gotta work at it and hang around long enough.

You never know when or why it will click. 'Jaws' wasn't even going to be a good movie; but the shark broke, and Shaw hated Dreyfuss, and A-listers turned down the Brody role, and Spielberg nearly got sacked 50 times. Dreyfuss came out on TV and distanced himself from the film, said he was embarrassed by it.

But "Jaws" came along at the right time, and cinema changed. Thank God they stuck by it. You see it on a smaller scale every year. Someone breaks, they fall into sudden relevancy. It's not about big breaks, it's about destiny. Its about staying in the game.

Your friends start to succeed, and it's the sweetest feeling in the world. All those people who told them to keep it real, to stick to the day job.

You surround yourself with artists who resonate with you. A mixed bag of writers, actors, musicians and directors. You whittle it down to the people who really have an impact on you. Because if they can reach you, they can reach the world. It's all about the personal connection. Eventually, they succeed, they land the deal and find the audience. But as the world sits there, surprised at their success, you are comforted by the knowledge that you knew it would happen all along.

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Being Discovered

The emphasis should be on the work you do. The value you give to others.

If you haven't done the work, why should anyone care?

Opportunity will arise when you show you can continually work to a quality higher than others.

The people who will hire you, cast you, sign you, are the people who know you and your work. They're people who know you.

Sometimes you need to reach out, send a letter, make a phone call, but the priority is the work. The art.

Because you're in this to make art, right? To give someone the feelings films gave you when you were a kid.

Social networking is a great tool, but harass people too soon and they'll hate you forever. Exhaust the Hollywood contact too soon and you'll be seen as an amateur.

Do the work. Be better at it than the others. There are no excuses anymore, no barriers; the technology is in our hands. Stay away from Starbucks for a week and use the money to rent a good camera. Stay off Facebook for a week and use the time to write your dream project.

You'll be discovered when you're amazing. People don't care for talent. Nearly everyone has talent, they just never nurture it, never drive the car far enough. Be so good at what you do that nobody can deny you.

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Key Acting Performances In "50/50"

SETH ROGEN

This is possibly the best work I've seen him do. He always annoys me, but in this, he's perfect -- extremely relatable and exactly like the friend you'd expect to be around in this situation. The 'break-up' scene is his masterpiece -- a brilliant moment of righteous, comedic, brilliance. He totally got this character right -- perfect casting, perfectly performed. 

ANNA KENDRICK

I never liked her before. Couldn't see the fuss when I saw 'Up In The Air'. But here, she nailed it. It didn't feel like she was playing a character -- she just was the character. A nervous newbie therapist, struggling with herself and her unexpected feelings for a patient. Wow, she was so subtle and funny. It was a hard film for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, because he's the one with cancer, and his role was pretty bland and passive -- but it worked, it was what the story needed -- and it made Kendrick shine. 

PHILLIP BAKER-HALL

He's 80 already. Wow. But then again, he has been around forever. You can't train someone to be like him -- he just has it. That thing. The presence. It's partly experience, but mostly; it's just who and what he is. You wanna talk to him, wanna hear his advice, wanna be on his good side. He lights up the scenes in "50/50". How often are there interesting roles for 80 year olds? Nearly never. He makes this small role both funny and profound. A complete joy to watch. A quiet master.

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT & ANJELICA HUSTON

Both of these actors have done better work elsewhere. It was hard for Joseph because he was in a pretty helpless position, getting pulled around, put in machines, stuck in beds; that's cancer. That's what it does. 

But there's one scene between them, the Mother and Son, which is really touching. He's asking her how she's doing. It's the most simple of things -- but something he'd been neglecting to do because he was so caught up in his own thing and tired of his Mother trying to take care of him every single second. And she reveals that she's been going to a support group for parents whose kids have cancer. She struggles to get those words out of her mouth, and her vulnerability is so touching. For the entire film he's been pushing her away because she's too controlling, and at the end - we see, she's just like everyone else, struggling and in need of support. 

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