A Mix Tape Of Goodbyes

Mark's mix-tape had a place in Sarah's heart forever, but did it have a place in her room? She liked the idea of keeping it, but how often did she listen to it? The truth is, she hadn't owned a cassette player since 2001. 

The cassette tape knew it, too. His time was up. How could something so personal and loved not be needed anymore? No-one was safe. Even the CD's were getting packed up and shoved under the bed. 

Rachel was the music guru. She was one of the first to get Napster. She said, "mp3's will kill the CD", and they did. Rachel was so crazy about the songs that she filled up ten hard-drives with music. 

But Luke doesn't even have the mp3's. He streams it on Spotify and he watches the live versions on YouTube. It's like that everywhere. There are books in libraries and CD's in the garage and DVD's in the back room and they're all wondering what the hell their future is. 

Wayne watched 'Jurassic Park' a hundred times on VHS. He didn't think he'd watch it again but he planned to keep the tape. And for years he did. He argued about it so often with Nina that they came close to divorce. But then it hit. It was a Sunday, and he realised; it's not needed any more. It's just an old giant video cassette taking up space. 

Jake, James and Marcy were the purists. They shopped for Vinyl and they roamed the streets for second hand books. But then the economy stayed nowhere and they had to move somewhere smaller. They looked at each other and they looked at the books and they looked back at each other. It was time. They loved them, they used to literally scream for joy when they found crazy-random DVD's and ancient-smelling books. But that chapter was closing, the disc was being ejected. 

Now it's a single copy of 'Catch 22' between them, the mix tape that Mary made before she died, and the Billy Wilder box set. Everything else waited by the door. Jake was okay about it. Somewhere across the world, I guess Wayne was fine too. Even Rachel and Mark had made peace with it. Everything goes away and changes into something new. They learned to accept it. 

But the books didn't. The beat-up and broken copy of 'The Great Gatsby' had been with Marcy since the beginning of time, and now it wasn't even being put into circulation, but in the trash. The videos are gone and the cassettes are gone and now the DVD's and CD's are praying for one final spin.

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10 Things You Need To Make An Average-Yet-Likable Romantic Comedy

November 19th-December 19th 2011 is Rom-Com Season at Kid In The Front Row.

• White people.
• Who are aged 30-35.
  
• And live in New York City. 

•  At least one of them must be a writer/journalist.
• The female character should have a friend who is full of quirky advice.
• Towards the end there must be a work engagement that clashes with the precise moment when their romantic destiny can be fulfilled. 
• Please re-read the previous point. It must be precisely at the same time. You either choose to run to the airport to tell the person you love them, or you choose your work and therefore live a life of unfulfillment. 
• There must be an airport.
• And there must be a moment when a character can't get past security and onto the plane.
• Or a moment where they can't get past security to get off the plane. 

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Rom-Com Season @ Kid In The Front Row

Starting today, for a month, I will be blogging primarily (but not exclusively) about romantic comedies.

Why? Because I enjoy them! Especially in the lead up to the holidays when you need them a little bit more. The rom-com is unique in that it is one of the most loved and watched genres, yet it is also the most dismissed. Women who love a good romantic comedy are seen as sappy losers who just watch 'chick-flicks', and men are seen as less-than-men if they admit to enjoying a Meg Ryan movie. 

What will I be writing about? I'm not entirely sure. Of course, there will be times when I write about movies I love, like I did previously with 'Serendipity'. But I will also be looking at the rom-com in different ways. For pretty much everyone, love and romance is a big part of life -- and also, most people have seen You've Got Mail and Sleepless In Seattle, yet people tend to disregard these films as meaningless or pointless. Indeed, I often find that I am wanting to watch one of these films myself, yet a part of me demands I watch something more useful and profound. It's often been the case that I want to watch Notting Hill, but instead make myself watch a political thriller or something. Can anyone relate to that? We cut off a part of ourselves and attempt to watch something else because we deem it more 'useful'. 

I will definitely be looking at the role of gender in the rom-com. Not necessarily in the films themselves, but in audiences. I was on a film set recently and mentioned that 'You've Got Mail' is one of my favorite films, and everyone looked at me like I had severe mental issues. Why does that happen? Why do people feel marginalized and like an 'outsider' when they admit to liking a romantic movie?

I am also interested in how rom-com's influence us -- how they make us see life and love in a more positive  way, when in reality life is usually the opposite. Films like 'When Harry Met Sally' and 'One Fine Day' make relationships seem more meaningful, and driven by fate -- and in society we often see our relationships in the same way -- but the drop out between reality and fiction can often make navigating through real world love painful. I call this Dawson's Creek Syndrome. 

Over the next month I will be focusing on rom-com's. No doubt I will be labelled as female, gay, not a real film fan, pointless, etc -- but I will tackle rom-com prejudice and judgement head on, and see if we can come out the other side with a new perspective on the genre. 

One final thing that fascinates me -- is how people need the romantic element and in fact enjoy it when watching movies, but they often find it easier when it's shoved into a movie that isn't specifically about the relationship. For example, us men have no trouble saying we love 'Forrest Gump', even though the key relationship is the love of Forrest and Jenny, but we'd have a much harder time saying our favorite film is 'The Notebook'. 

November 19th-December 19th 2011 - A month on Kid In The Front Row dedicated to those middle of the road, 6-out-of-10-rated-on-IMDB rom-coms that some but not all of us really love. 

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Join The Kid In The Front Row Facebook Fan Page!

Did you know there's a Facebook fan page for Kid In The Front Row? Would be great if you could join! I not only share the latest articles, but also occasionally share some of the older ones. I also often ramble little thoughts and ideas that aren't quite enough for a full blog post.

And if that doesn't convince you, I also share quotes from great movies. Actually, it's usually just from Forrest Gump just because it's so quotable!

Join the page HERE

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shooting running raining

Everyone is running around all crazy trying to get all the shots and there isn't time to get the shot with the guy in the thing so you wonder if you need it and you change the dialogue in the last scene to make it not matter so much about the thing but then it rains and you all go running and hiding under the place and your feet get drenched all crazy and the make up girl is crying because her boyfriend or something and the rain stops but the electrics are mashed up and nothing is working so you dry off in the place where there's coffee and you drink a coffee your thirteenth coffee and it makes you feel tired when it's meant to do the opposite and the camera has rain in it and you're like let's shoot and the camera guy is like are you sure and you're not sure but you're sure you're sure so you round up the actors and they're pissed because when they ran for cover they tripped over some stuff and the continuity person is freaking and the producer visits and wears a suit and everyone is running around all soaked and confused and the script pages are all smudged and drowned and the daylight is signing out and won't return calls and you have exactly four minutes to get it and the actor says why would I react in this way and you ramble an answer for two of the hour minutes that makes no sense and you yell action and the actor is crap and you wonder why you're a failure in life and everyone looks at you like you know what you're doing and you mumble something about energy and you point at something and reference an old movie and the actors look at you like you've told them their pets died but you say action again and they nail it all good and you realize it's pitch black now and you're soaking wet and the power is out and you need to get the things you can't see into the van you can't see and you have exactly four hours of sleep before you're shooting again and someone moans about the union or something and you eat a cheese roll that you've seen lying around for days and then you fall asleep. 

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GEORGE CARLIN on being an ARTIST

I'm an entertainer first and foremost, but there's art involved here. And an artist has an obligation to be en-route. To be going somewhere. There's a journey involved here. And you don't know where it is and that's the fun. So you're always going to be seeking and looking and going and trying to challenge yourself. So, without sitting around thinking of that a lot it drives you and it keeps you trying to be fresh, trying to be new, trying to call on yourself-- call on yourself a little more.

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That's A Wrap

People smile and laugh, and they think "We've done it!"

But you never get it back again. You assembled a family and you shared a purpose and you ate chocolate bars at 3am and you had in-jokes about the producer and now it's done, finished up, gone.

Because this family never comes together the same way again. The actors move on and the make-up girl dumps the director and everyone goes back to their homes where they eat lots of fruit and you help pack the lighting kit into the van just as the sun rises through the ice cold fog; and you realize it's truly over.

You make the film and it acts like an old photograph, providing a memory of a time when you were happy and had a purpose. But you never get it back again.

You can do a sequel or a reunion show or invite everyone to a party but not all of them will show, not all of them really care. Some actors think they're bigger than it and some crew members get sick and retire. That moment in time that you felt so strongly at 2am in some gone September when you waited outside the studio with the broken camera and crazy crew survives only as some warm spark in some barely reachable part of your brain.

Most of life we're in coffeehouses talking about it, and it's meaningless. When we're finally out there, shooting a film and working with mad passionate souls, it's everything. Delve into it and feel everything because before you know it, it's gone and distant and that snapshot of life reveals itself to be temporary and as fictional as the story you're creating.

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