Untitled, Like The White Album

Looking Back
My last few blog entries appear to have been a bit too rambly for their own good. Probably pays to at least read over what I've written before publishing.

Holiday Viewing
Aiming to watch the director's cut of Abyss (probably the only James Cameron film I haven't seen aside from his underwater documentaries and Piranha II) and the first proper Spielberg feature Duel this week. Oh and MOVIE NIGHT. Possibly Saturday. Leave it free or die. Godfather: Part II and Blue Velvet likely. Maybe The Conversation thrown in for good measure if people's eyeballs are still in tact. Intact? In-tact? Will investigate.

Holiday Movie-ing
On the production front, began properly editing our 48-hours film yesterday after a bit of looking through what files we have and identifying weaknesses in the film. Basically did a rough cut of the deleted dog-sequence, explaining the missing briefcase which nobody watching questioned anyway, and deleted one scene no longer necessary without the requirements of the 48-hours competition and one scene that made absolutely no sense. Still not sure exactly how to tie it all together yet though. We don't quite have a shot showing the protagonist getting up after getting flung from the car to my knowledge. Hmm. After that I need to go back and fix the very end, which killed the film, and the beach sequence to restore a few shots that didn't make the cut and of course Janko's "epic" speech that was cut down for time. And then comes the SOUND editing.

This week I'll be pressing forward with planning for Lemontree. I now have people firmly in mind for the three roles, but only having spoken to Dennis briefly at Sam's 21st I should probably get on with discussing it with these people and seeing if they would be willing to participate before I end up with a shoot and no actors. The film basically centers around a young man, let's call him Tony so I can play Tony's Theme in the end credits, who is stalked by something under his bed sheets, has his lunch escape from his lunchbox while distracted by balloons and meets a girl who shares his interest in Led Zeppelin. Only really need a house (mine), a bus stop (as does every student film apparently, but I will avoid any of the cliched sequences here so don't ye be rolling your eyes) and a park with trees to seem forrest-y (bottom of Macleans or something) as far as locations go. On and a garden with a lemon tree, probably mine again maybe. Still think it might be rather hard to pull off though, but without a challenge I don't see the point in making it.

And I SWEAR I'll finish My Eyes Were Clearer On Sunday of whatever the fuck it's called (that 'waiting' movie with Sonny & Rikky & Dennis & Michael from around 2002) when I get my firewire back from Simon. Promise.

Also made a start on the second draft of my long-in-development script about a man in a bear costume. I think I'll end up actually filming someone walking around the city in a bear costume (ala the Creative Writing mask exercise) acting in character at some point just to gauge people's actual responses on the streets, in shops etc. to help with that.

Sweet
Got all my marks back from Uni now, handily beating my expectations. Especially Management. I only finished one of the three essays in the exam and got an A-. What the hell? I don't just mean I "mostly" finished the other two essays and maybe missed the conclusions. I mean I did half of essay two and between a quarter and a third of essay three. Seriously. So yeah, with an A- in Maths that's 3 A- 1 A and 1 A+, a good haul for someone only expecting one A-range grade (Creative Writing) and maybe a C+ for Management. Given the fact I had next to no time to study for 3 of my 4 exams due to a compact and early exam schedule (shortly after my writing portfolio was due in) and I hated 2 of those subjects with a vengeance (and also Maths, the 4th exam) I'm quite stunned to be honest.

Last Night/This Morning

So
U2 was great. It's just awesome *being there* for the whole experience of it all versus just watching it on TV. Well duh, or else people wouldn't go. But I thought I'd reiterate it because I couldn't just stop at "U2 was great" could I? Maybe I didn't need to, because now more elaborate details are coming to mind as I gaze back upon days past.

Kanye West opened and succeeded in creating a long food/toilet queue of old people who felt their ears had been poisioned judging by the way they all flooded off during his set or (being old and unable to move) sat complaining. Regardless of his big-headed reputation I admit he can comfortably claim the crown of the most credible and talented hip-hop aritst out there today (given Outkast's Idlewild, but they'll bounce back) because his music was certianly a cut above, consistent with my impressions of him before, and having heard some of his stuff only for the first time (only knew the radio/video singles) I'm interested in checking out his albums. Really good beats, lyrics with meaning (not "Smack That" or "Right Thurrrrrrrghgjghjlll") and his apparent obsession for mini-orchestral-accompaniment made for some interesting (in a good way) music.

U2 just kicked ass. Awesome set from across their career, excluding their "techno-influenced" era (Pop etc.) which wasn't really missed. Bono's great, voice maybe a little tired at the end but only because he gave it his all the whole time. Plugged a lot of his Africa-concern stuff and the band made an effort to throw in Kiwi-isms on the big screen (like a poker machine featuring Helen Clarke or something... I was confused too) and lyrically throughout the set (including a random Crowded House interlude, and Bono changing a verse of Beautiful Day to be NZ-relevant, which he did awesomely :D ). Plus they played One Tree Hill. Of course.

Almost forgot: there was this old guy in front of his who, to every song he stood up for, he JIGGLED. When I say jiggle, I mean forget moving to the rhythm. Imagine the hand of a guy with Parkinson's. Now imagine that hand was a chubby old guy. Alternatively, you know that avatar lots of people have on random forums...

And Then
Dennys. But more interestingly, we discovered upon Michael's shelf The Well Cat Book, about caring for your cat, featuring a chapter on "Prolapsed Third Eyelid" and a passage beginning "don't get excited if your cat has something stuck in its mouth." At 2 o'clock this morning, these things were hilarious of course.

And Then
We made up a game that actually worked... until the end. Michael had some tiny bricks so the aim of the game was to stack bricks. You win bricks by either (a) rolling a 1 or a 6 (if you roll a 1, you get a brick but you have to stack it using your teeth) or (b) challenging someone (whoever gets the higher number on the dice wins - the challenger wins the opponent's brick or the defender win's the challenger's "challenge thingee" - ie. a plastic nought or cross, each possessed allowing the player 1 challenge of an opponent). In the end we actually managed to eliminate people, but in the end when there was just me and Michael we realised that the odds of the game being won were extremely slim (I was losing, but would still have to lose 4 straight challenges to lose) so we called it a draw. Does the game sound dumb? Did at the time too it just didn't matter because between us we were either too drunk (on a hard mix of cordial and vanilla essencel) or too tired to care. Janko was already asleep, face down in a weird angle looking slightly dead. Possibly bleeding from the mouth and convulsing, but I might have just made that up. Either way he slept it off.

U2 Today

Yet I'm Still Awaiting...
Confirmation as to where/when/what/why/who/how/chicken. Phone remains still and silent, like some creepy evil stalker thing, or Robert Altman. R.I.P. Robert Altman. I've never seen your movies.

But I Have Seen
An alien in my fridge. Oh and This Is Spinal Tap again. Like my recent re-watching of Brazil, it's a movie that's lost something over multiple viewings, proving it isn't completely mind-blowingly awesome. Unlike Apocalypse Now which has grown better on each of my seven viewings so far. On a remotely related note, 12 Angry Men remains at the top of my list to see and/or buy (as it has for 6 months or so) yet continues to elude the grasp of my rather graspy eyeballs. I saw it once for sale at Whitcoulls last year, but haven't seen it anywhere since, and incredibly:
It ISN'T IN THE AV LIBRARY???!!!1oneone

Bye Bye Rikky
We will miss you for two months and then forget about you so hurry back.

Uni Grades
Are slowly trickling in. I've picked up my mandatory one-A+-per-semester in Stats 208, joining the consecutive string of Philosophy 101, Film 101 and Stats 108 A+s in the three previous semesters. Only Stats 108 was expected out of the four, and I thought I'd get maybe a B+ or A- in 208 so that's a nice surprise. Also, I stopped taking notes for the entire second half of Accounting 211 this semester to instead listen to my iPod and doodle script ideas and my exam study consisted of a day's cramming and I got an A-. Haha. This is fucked up. I love how I can basically put no effort into commerce subjects and still kick ass. Easiest degree ever. Needs to be seeing as the Arts side of my conjoint actually does require effort to achieve understanding/learning/good grades/chicken.

Also got my Creative Writing mark back. I have to say that of all the subjects I've done, I've grown the most and learned the most in that course. I basically made my portfolio a retrospective character study across the ten or so submitted poems and stories etc., which ultimately meant better, more focussed writing when I knew what I was aiming to say which each story/poem in terms of the portfolio as a whole. Until I decided to make the combined portfolio a single piece (like a concept album, or some lego) I was writing airy fairy drivelly poems and meaningless pretentious bullshit stories and... well actually the script was always okay. I can handle that side of things.

A couple of weaker pieces just to direct the wider "narrative" of the character study were thrown in so it made more sense, but overall I'm pretty proud of the end result and I think I can definitely apply my growth in creative writing to screenwriting in the future because of what the course taught me across the board in terms of character development, freshness and originality (spontaneous writing exercises led to some interesting results I wouldn't have come up with otherwise, like a three-act short script written in 25 minutes that actually kind-of half worked), different approaches to exploring a narrative/character/chicken, and of course, through feedback, a sense of audience response. Because early on I was writing stuff that sounded good in my head but was, in fact, in hindsight and in the sight of my tutor, bollocks. Now I can spot that better myself, especially with my cool 3D glasses.

The Departed
Another movie I rave on about for months before anyone else is remotely interested in it and that I'm the last to see apparently. Cheers :(

Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix

Teaser Trailer Online-ish
They probably won't bother removing this because it's due out officially (and in better quality obviously) in around 36 hours time or so, but for now YouTube has the very teasing teaser trailer for the next Potter flick, clocking in at 56 seconds including the MPAA warning. As any good teaser trailer should, it leaves you wanting more. And by you I mean me, because you might hate it.

Sam's 21st
Was last night. Included 20 minutes of people watching people play chess.

As for the cake, it tasted like this:


















But it looked like this thing:

Applause

Or At The Very Least: Thumbs Up, Mr. Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh's made some great movies (like Traffic and The Limey), some shit movies (Ocean's Twelve) and some I'm-not-sure movies (Solaris). But no matter what the outcome I can appreciate the guy's willingness to try new things (like his failed simultaneous theatre/DVD release experiement with Bubble, at least executing a theory that's been talked and talked about for yonks but never before acted upon until Soderbergh hauled his big pair of balls up to the stage and telled all 'em yappers he'd have a crack).

Well now he's gone and done what I've been hoping somebody'd do: make an old-fashioned movie the old-fashioned way. I can cross that off my wishlist, assuming its good.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/movies/12kehr.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

And like that The Good German joins Borat, Casino Royale (holy shit, have you seen the reviews?!), The Departed, The Children Of Men, The Prestige and Pan's Labyrinth on a list of must see movies these next few months. This is an exciting time for movie fans everywhere: a whole host of certified genuine quality mainstream movies out in theatres, and James Cameron isn't even behind it. Doesn't happen very often, especially these days. Awwwwwwwwesome. Now if only the music industry could go through a good spell too :s (outside of metal which, thanks to bands like Opeth and a resurgent Iron Maiden, is (as a broad genre) still going strong across the board if you ignore the pathetic mess that's become of Metallica).

Reasons To Check My E-Mail More Frequently

And Turn My Phone Off 'Vibrate'
A whole bunch of film stuff seems to have whizzed by that I missed (well, very little of it was of interest anyway, but that get-together thing on Monday or yesterday or whenever might have been good just to wind down a bit) and Chris's party's on... right now. Which I'd be at:
(a) If I'd bothered checking my e-mail since (apparently) November 4th.
(b) If my phone wasn't on vibrate. I do that so it doesn't go off during lectures. Still can't remember how to turn the sound back on to be honest. Been meaning to look into that. Anyways, with my phone upstairs and my me downstairs I got Chris's message about four hours after it was sent, ie. 5:15ish today so no luck there. Plus I've already put off doing the company accounts by a day and a bit so it didn't really matter by that stage. Shit needs to get done. Blogging is just a distraction between receipt entries because its mind-numblingly monotonous (contract by contract for everyone who hired a book...). Which brings me to:
(c) If I wasn't such a procrastinator.

Brings Me To Another Point
I've found that G-Mail takes forever to load on my (56k) connection, so I load it in HTML mode. Problem is I no longer seem able to scroll down when I do that.

This Post Was Uninteresting
Now multiply that by 127 and that's how uninteresting these accounts are. Yay. Much better than hanging out with friends for the night at the end of yet another boring day of nothingness. w00tageness.

Question
Who doesn't want to see Romania tackle Namibia at Carlaw Park as is come 2011? Fuck development. All you need's a ball, a ref and a couple of high-power rifles.

Spider-Man 3

Verdict
Overall, exams went okay-ish. Kind of. Bleh. Expected this given the subjects I was taking and the crap exam timetable I was dumped with.

Chinese Democracy... Revisited
According to some guy in Chicago: November 28. Which could mean December 2nd here. I'm still not convinced.

Endless Wire
So The Who released their first album in 24 years. Still isn't out here in NZ yet for some reason but fortunately if you change your computer clock to a US time zone (any of the four will do) you can fool AOL into letting you hear new releases without having to download them (else it gives a convenient "error" message). w00t. Overall? Haven't listened enough to give the record a fair respose. Like it. It's different. Some awesome stuff there, also some squandared potential due to most of the best songs being chopped up as minute-long parts of a mini-opera and some serious under-production to the detriment of stuff like their best new song Mike Post Theme which kicks ass live.

Bat Out Of Hell III
There is no substitute for Jim Steinman. Long story short, Steinman and the Loaf sued each other for the millionth time and the end result was Bat Out Of Hell III. Comparing it to Bat I is pointless; it's like comparing Kid A to Pablo Honey. But taking Bat III and looking at it for what it is, I guess it has some great highlights in amongst a sea of mediocrity and generic bullshit (like Cry Over Me... by Diane "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" Warren). If It Ain't Broke Break It is bad and its title also fittingly describes Bat III's entry into the Bat series (its an unnecessary album, especially without Steinman's direct involvement, and tarnishes the Bat reputation a little), and the short lullabye Cry To Heaven is "nice" but a terrible way to close the trilogy when you compare it to Bat I's classic closer For Cryin' Out Loud or even the song from which Cry To Heaven was derived, the powerful Angels Arise from Steinman's Batman musical (please somebody greenlight this project, or at least give the songs for Nolan to throw into the movies as score :D ) which would have worked well in its full form as the end of the Bat series. Jimmy dropped the ball on that one.

That said, Bad For Good is on par with past Bat classics and features Brian May doing some terrific soloing (the song sounds very Queen-esque in parts even without him) on a track dripping with Steinmanisms and brilliant moments of lameness/cheesiness (a nearly-sixty rocker singing lyrics like "you think that I'll be bad for just a little while, but I know that I'll be bad for good" is about as much genuine fun as you can have listening to a quality rock song. Blind As A Bat should have been the first single, its the closest thing to a classic Anything For Love type epic rock ballad and is possibly the only other song to be found here truly worth of belonging on a Bat album (and Steinman didn't even write it). There are other good songs, sure, but they don't sound like Bat songs. Hmm. But like I said, judging for what it is and not what it isn't, even if calling this Bat Out Of Hell III readily invites comparisons to past glories, this isn't a bad album at all. At its best it's awesome, and at its worst it's only awful on maybe one or two occasions during an 80-minute running time. Overall? "Decent" I guess. You'd have to like the other two Bats and not have extremely high expectations to bother buying it though. I haven't bothered yet, downloaded the whole thing about six weeks before release though. Gotta love how that works.

Recommended Downloads:
Bad For Good, Blind As A Bat, Land Of The Pigs, Monstro/Alive (basically one song in two parts), Seize The Night, The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

Why so many, and not a glowing recommendation? Because there's a big gulf between the best tracks and the worst tracks. Oh and with an album like this, Mp3s can't really do the production justice I suppose so keep that in mind if there's anything "lacking".

Think You've Seen The New Spider-Man 3 Trailer?
No you haven't. Even with shitloads of incomplete CG this bootlegged trailer makes the movie look a helluva lot better than the crappy teaser and, to a lesser extent, new "official" trailer did. If the link doesn't work its because the studio doesn't exactly want this out yet and will pull it from YouTube eventually when word reaches them. Which will be soon.

Script, $50, Goats
First script done yesterday, just doing some typing up now to get it all together as a whole, but most importantly got it done before the semester ended thus proving that having to otherwise pay people vast sums of money is a good incentive to get work done. Maybe. The script currently sucks, but is complete from a start to a finish with a middle thrown in for good measure. I was watching Brazil for the gazillionth time yesterday and got a few ideas as far as tone and atmosphere goes as to where I can take it when I tackle a second draft. For now, I'll let it simmer in the pan for a while and get working on I Am The Lemontree once I've finished doing the company accounts this week.

Three Exams Down

Four Days To Go
Surviving maths study on a diet of Pixies, Queen and Entourage. Thank you, Entourage, for not sucking like so many shows that are pissing me off right now.

Filming Prep For The Holidays
Eleven days left to complete a draft of my short noir-satire script I've been at on and off since March last year - one thread of the story's looking great, exactly as I imagined when I got hooked on the idea... the other not so much, probably because it doesn't interest me as much even if *at the moment* I see it as a necessity to get the story from the start I love to the finish I love. As long as I have "an arc" on paper by November 13th I'll be happy. And won't have to pay Sonny $50. But in the long run I want the sub-arc to be as good as the one following the main protagonist or I won't shoot it.

The first thing I'll probably shoot, maybe at the start of December and tentatively titled I Am The Lemontree, is on track scriptwise, doesn't really need immediate revision beyond taking the segments I've scribbled in different notebooks and compiling them into a single screenplay. After that, time to go through some test shots and storyboarding and then looking for my cast of two (thankfully our-age people, thus I can realistically shoot this unlike most of my discarded ideas).

I've pretty much put another idea on hiatus for now, which was a very-short surreal piece depicting a young soldier coming home from a modern warzone and struggling to adjust to fitting back into "normal life" after everything he's been through. I really like the angle that interested me in the first place and I might still tackle the script in the next month or so maybe and see if I can work something out, but right now if I do it it'll probably be practice at creating atmosphere more than an attempt at making a decent short. Might also shoot an exercise based on the first Master's Exercise from earlier in the year (10 shots, silent, in camera editing etc.) about a man with arachnophobia (I can relate to that) afraid to look inside his bag, convinced there's a spider in it, while his girlfriend waits for him to retrieve her bottle of water. May or may not be funny, but I'll try - seemed funny at the time I came up with it, whatever that counts for.

And for further exercise work if I can take the first half of my screenplay written for Engish 252 and give it closure (as opposed to requiring scene two which itself requires the context of a short story earlier in my portfolio to contain its full deeper meaning) I might shoot that because I love the idea: something to do with a long elevator ride ;) Alternatively, I could go for gold and shoot both scenes and try to simply remove the reference to the short story, but I need there to be some equivelant significant moment in it. Maybe it stands alone, implying its meaning. Will have to run it by other people I guess, see what they understand from it.

Began writing notes on changes to make to Slade's American Grill, should be able to have that done (in theory) within a week or so of my maths exam finishing, probably just need to find a day or two to squeeze that editing in. Also finally looking to lay the sound over My Eyes Were Clearer On Sunday (yeah, that old piece of shit) just to have it complete and done and over with once and for all now that I actually have the computer space to make it possible.

Fonzie's Legacy

Plenty Of Shows Lining Up To Jump The Shark
In the past few days I've been witness to such a highly concentrated cluster of shark jumping shows I'm half expecting House to quit the hospital and become a lawyer. Oh wait.

The Office
A minor offender; the smart dry humour's still there, I guess it's just that some of the over-the-top stuff's getting too ridiculous (I'm no longer willing to believe Michael wouldn't have been fired especially after the Oscar incident) and the documentary-approach has firmly planted its feet now as a gimmick rather than a premise in following Jim around at another office entirely. Ah well, big whoop. The show's still hilarious. I'll add that Dwight's attempt at taking over the branch, whether it was his idea or not, seemed like a case of shark-jumping in itself. I dunno, just didn't sit right with his character I guess.
SHARK JUMP RATING: Still fuelling the bike.

24
The best season yet of one of the best shows on television produced possibly its best-ever episode when a nerve gas attack onCTU succeeded, leading to the death (among other faceless extras) of Edgar Stiles in one of those lump-in-throat sequence only 24 can produce where you know what's coming but you still can't believe they're doing it. That was about a month ago. It's been all down hill from there. First, the nerve gas we've been told has an acidic lacing and will penetrate the safety doors unless (of course) Jack Bauer can go outside and save the day (some ventilation/computer plan) does him no damage so long as he... holds his breath. Uh-huh. Then the show gets worse, later in the same episode. Tony Almeida, one of the key characters of the show from the start and who had barely featured all season (presumably building up to some kickass involvement later on) was killed off in patheic circumstances just for the sake of being shocking (which it wasn't). The show used to be fresh, never having to TRY to shock, but rather being that way by nature. It had this "anyone (but Jack) can die" sense of danger to it. Nowadays its "everyone (but Jack) WILL die." Snore. Oh and get this. Now the incompetent President Logan is behind the terrorist attack which, to anyone watching his character for the past two years, is absurd. Is this supposed to be some Keyser Soze type deal? Think he's stupid, then he's behind it all? The only thing stupid is this "twists" execution. It's set-up since the character's been around was not only non-existant, but COUNTERS the twist itself. Like they wrote in the twist on a whim for the hell of it, pulling out of their collective creative arse. And it stinks.
SHARK JUMP RATING: Motoring toward the ramp.

ER
Last night. A "very special episode" they labelled it, I can only assume they meant it was written by people with Downs Syndrome. Noah Wyle returned. Why? Good question. At the start of the episode I was excited to see how they'd tie it in which the main plot in the US, or develop his wider arc from before he left and to be continued in future guest spots, or at the very least give the character closure. Nope, his appearence simply filled up 20 minutes of screentime here and there pointing out to the audience that people are suffering in Africa. Maybe he demanded they do that or he wouldn't guest, I dunno. What a pointless exercise in sensationalism at the expense of solid drama. Pfft.
SHARK JUMP RATING: Racing up in case 24 backs out of the jump.

Extras
How better to jump the shark than to go from being a brilliant slice of comedy to a pathetic waste of space. Season two of Extras has been dreadful. Granted it still has its moments of genius (Bowie at the piano, Orlando Bloom's self-parodying guest spot) but this show has veered so far from what made it brilliant I don't know if I'll bother watching the last two episodes. Urgh. Is it intentional? Gervais, whose character has gone from being an everyday extra to a TV star, says near the start of episode 1: "I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing, this is not the comedy I set out to do. I wanted to write something real that people could relate to and it's all changed because people have stuck their nose in." If there's a hidden layer of genius underneath this season that requires repeat viewings to truly appreciate then fine, but the fact is the basic supercial-level comedy - the situations, the lines etc. - is miles behind where this show was at last year, and similarly behind the UK Office. I'm cringing as much as laughing.
SHARK JUMP RATING: Safely landed on the other side, waving to the crowd.