Been There, Done That

Here's three blurbs from IMDB; see if you can name the movie:

• In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline rich, community escape a band of bandits.
• Post-apocalyptic America. What begins as a con game becomes one man's quest to rebuild civilization by resuming postal service.
• A post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.

Stories of the loner sacrificing the comfort he knows, even his life, to save humanity go back at least as far as the New Testament. Or, in other cultures, from when Prometheus stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man.

No, this isn't a rant at Hollywood's lack of originality--let's face it; it's show BUSINESS, and we consumers crave the familiar. If we didn't go see them, they wouldn't keep making them. Plus, I've heard that children ask for the same story at bedtime every night for weeks at a time, and that this helps build synaptic connections as they grow.

And major stars like Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner and Denzel Washington want to play the guy who makes that ultimate sacrifice. Hell, Kevin Costner did it twice (WATERWORLD), three times if you count DANCES WITH WOLVES. Will Smith did it with I AM LEGION.

But the coolest example is when Pixar turned the tables and used a cute lil' robot as our hero yearning to make a connection (WALL*E).

I just wish the future didn't always looks so damn bleak.

p.s. The blurbs above: the first is for MAD MAX: ROAD WARRIOR (1981). The second is for THE POSTMAN (1997). The third: THE BOOK OF ELI (2010).

3 months? Are you kidding?

It's been 3 months since I last posted. No, I haven't been in rehab. I've been making jokes about family members that should be!

Since my last post, I completed my comedy writing class, got promoted to Account Director at work, resigned that job to take an Account Director job with another agency and did a bunch of things that are only interesting to me and a few others. However, I did perform at the equivalent of a couple of open mike nights and have posted two of my videos to YouTube. Watch, laugh (hopefully), rate and comment on YouTube. I can take it.




I'll be performing Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at the Village Lantern (167 Bleecker St) at open mike night. There's no cover; 2-drink minimum.

Life=Stories

This week I'm on vacation in Las Vegas.  It's a weird place, but a lot of fun.  

Every cab ride offers a different perspective on life. One driver back in December put on a little show, starting with a poll of who I was voting for for president (choices included the woman, the old man, the haircut or the redneck bible-thumper).  When I said I was planning to vote for Obama, he laughed and shook his head, stating that while *he* was OK with it, the rest of the country would never go black.  Last night, we got a driver who relayed stories of two fares he'd picked up that attempted to commit suicide by cop.  Today we got one who knew every meteorological detail (hottest days/coldest days) from the last decade in excruciating detail.

When one driver took us an alternate route to the Bellagio for dinner the other night, I asked the veiled question "is this way faster?".  He saw through me, though, and said, "When a pretty girl comes up to you and comes on to you, you don't ask if she's old enough.  You just play the hand out and see what you can get."  I spent the rest of the ride assuring him I wasn't questioning his honesty, though I kind of was.  BTW--his way was half the time of the scenic route we'd taken the night before.

Anyway, if you're going to write, you need to live life.  Not saying you should take the hobo route that Kerouac took to get to DHARMA BUMS or ON THE ROAD, but you can't just stay cooped up in whatever space you write in and try to tell something real.  People see through it and it just comes out like a retread of better stories already told.

In writing advice, I always see the same trope: write what you know.  

The more life you live, the more you know and can write about.

storyteller... or prophet?

I saw this story the other day and had to post. I wrote a short story last year about a few murderous 10-year olds who tried to kill their teacher for "being mean". They failed in the execution as they made some critical errors in judgement.

Shouldn't be a huge surprise. Kids are kind of dumb. Or, at least, they don't do a great job of taking the long view beyond what's right in front of them.

And they're lazy. At least I was.

Like the time I dreamed up a motorized skateboard. I drew elaborate plans, researched possible motors (a really big deal since this was pre-interweb) and talked about it. A lot. For a whole week.

Then I was trying to figure out how to turn the back yard into a mini-golf course like putt putt. I dug a hole. Period.

That was quickly forgotten when the new comics came in and I was absorbed with how SGT ROCK and EASY COMPANY were going to get back to the present after fighting Nazis training dinosaurs in a prehistoric era. (p.s. they found their way back through a time portal after throwing a potato masher grenade into a Tyrannosaurus Rex's open jaws). Whew. War *is* hell.

Anyway, someone (OK, a few people) commented in my writing class that in my story, it seemed unrealistic for 10-year-old kids to think the way they did and speak the way I'd portrayed them n my story (coincidentally, also set in Georgia).

Truth *is* stranger than fiction, though, and this news story today trumps mine. The kids are younger, their plot more elaborate and their planning more meticulous. Maybe I'll go back to my original story and add some dinosaurs and nazis.

The Dwindling DVR

So the last few weeks have been busy, what with wrapping up work before the holiday break and a 5-day marathon of family events.

But then, after the chaos of cousins, aunts and my kickass 88-year old grandmother (who was captured on film, yet again, without showing her crotch--take note, Brit and Paris!), Lynn and I were able to enjoy a few minutes of silence. That is, until Lynn started her ascendancy to Golden Goddess in the Guitar Hero III pantheon. Now, she's non-stop with "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", "Barracuda", and Social Distortion. I've unlocked other songs, but she lurvs the oldies.

Over the New Year break, we also got caught up on many of the big end-of-year movies. Easier to do, as the TV writers wait for the AMPTP to return to negotiations (seriously, is it that hard to imagine paying the writers residuals as the producers earn hundreds of millions in revenue from digital viewings with paid commercial placements?).

CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR: The cast did an outstanding job, but Philip Seymour Hoffman proved, yet again, why he's worth seeing in anything he does, elevating it just that much higher. It was hard to see this as an Aaron Sorkin script, since people didn't repeat each other's sentences with a question mark at the end. Also, since Sorkin had to stick relatively close to source material, it was much more straightforward, and didn't carry much dramatic tension for me about whether Charlie would succeed in his mission. Hmm, historically, we know the soviets left Afghanistan once the U.S.-supplied mujahadeen put up too lengthy and bloody a resistance. We know Tom Hanks is a BIG movie star, Julia Roberts is a BIG movie star and the film came out at Christmas for chrissakes. But, again, it was enjoyable, just to see these people at work and see what a tamed Sorkin writes like (still better than you or me).


SWEENEY TODD: I saw this on Broadway when I was a kid. Len Cariou did the serial killer barber thing while Angela Lansbury created London's tastiest meat pies. Honestly, I didn't care much for it then. I was more a sucker for the Rodgers & Hammerstein stuff or ANNIE. I was 10, Andrea McCardle was 10, I was sure we were meant to be together and my 10-year old fantasies were rich then and embarrassing now. The thing I remember most about Sweeney Todd was that the music was more operatic in style and the set design was really cool. Plus, all the blood, which seemed to have no place in the highbrow world of "theater". I think the most violent thing I'd seen in a musical before that was when Curly got socked in the jaw in OKLAHOMA. But the movie was great, gory good fun, keeping the darkness of the original work, while Tim Burton's crazy sensibilities amped up the visuals. John Logan did the script. It was pretty close to the play I saw, so I'd need to see a side-by-side to get a sense of what & how he changed it for the screen. The best scene that I don't remember from the play is one where Mrs. Lovett imagines a world in which she and Sweeney go to the beach, get married and live happily ever after.

ENCHANTED: Bill Kelly did a bang-up job on the script and Amy Adams WAS Giselle, the fairtale maiden come to life. The music was by Menken and Schwartz, which explains why it was so good and felt authentic to a Disney animated film. The script got kind of mushy in the final act, but I was so on board, I gave it a pass and didn't nitpick it to death. Should be on DVD soon, so if you haven't seen it, check it out.

I AM LEGEND: Wow. You forget Will Smith can act. I was a huge fan of OMEGA MAN with Charlton Heston, another version of this story done back in the 70s, so wasn't expecting to like this as much as I did. Without going all spoilery, this was a good popcorn flick, written by two guys whose work I've generally hated in the past. Akiva Goldman is the hack who ruined Batman after Tim Burton moved on, and Mark Protosevich did the POS version of Poseidon that sank last year. Of course, after the fact, I started dissecting and it fell apart some. A virus that turns people into vampires/zombies I can get on board with. But after they've eaten all the people, they should be starving to death (they got this right in 28 Days Later); not endowed with superhuman strength and flitting up walls like spiders. Even with its flaws, this gives me some hope for the upcoming THOR movie, so fingers crossed. Oh yeah--did I mention Will Smith can act?

JUNO: Hmm. At the risk of my beatnik cred, I liked it; didn't love it.

I went in expecting "this year's LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE", which is how it was billed. Instead, I was treated to a mashup of FREAKS & GEEKS and NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. The story was original, simple and mostly well-told. But the hipster music was intrusive and off-putting. And Juno's too-cool-for-the-room dialogue was initially grating, though I warmed up to the character some by the end. I found myself cringing twice, though--once when Juno rattles off her favorite bands with Jason Bateman's character; then, again, when they compare their favorite obscure horror directors. Both struck me as pretentious moves by the writer, Diablo Cody. As though she wants us to know that SHE knows who they are and likes them, so SHE's deep and multi-faceted. Like when I was younger and tried to drop similar obscure references so people (girls) would see my inner soul. blech. Cody did a much better job with the supporting characters, including Juno's dad and stepmom, her friend who got her pregnant and Jason Bateman's character. She's also got a great scene, where Vanessa, the adoptive mother played by Jennifer Garner runs into Juno at the mall. Of course, Cody's previously painted Vanessa as a stereotypical yuppie control freak, so the eventual character arc didn't convince me she'd be this great mom. Again, overall, good; not great.

Next week I'll get back to posting about what I'm learning for my own writing, since that's the real purpose of the blog.