The Road Not Taken

Some of you who read this blog (who am I kidding; no one reads this blog) might be aware that I try to write screenplays on the side. I hold down a 9-to-5 job (ok, it's more like 7am to 8pm) that pays the bills. I play boardgames and watch movies. When inspiration strikes me, I write. Of course, since I'm writing in these weblogs of mine, I'm not writing for my screenplays, which is delinquent of me but screenwriting takes more effort than I can channel after a day of wrangling with Sarbanes-Oxley and financial projections. Here, I can just vent or muse.

whl over at The Screenwriting Life talks about how people he used to work with charge/earn astronomical sums for their time, likely working similar hours to myself or more. He gave it up, along with all the security, to have more time to write.

Sometimes I wonder about the choices I've made. I know that I can write, and do it well. I know I have stories in my head and in my heart that want to be placed on the page or screen. But as fate has it, it's not my only love. Unlike whl, I actually enjoy much of what I do for my day job. I also enjoy writing, and it's my dream to be able to write and direct feature films as a career. But I guess I'm lucky. Even if that's not in the cards (and I haven't completely written it off, given that I'm still clutching to the fragments of work that I'm still adding to laboriously), I still have something I enjoy doing to fall back on.

That's not a small thing. I'm thankful for that.

Serenity

Why is this seemingly the hottest movie that every geek is anticipating?



I guess I'm going to have to get this to find out huh?



Perhaps, after we polish off the last of Lost S1.

Small screen in, big screen out

Singapore Airlines has run out of movies for me to see. The last film I saw on the plane was Fever Pitch, and I'm not going to bother panning that bit of crap. Jimmy Fallon may get the big bucks, but he's not fit to carry the muddy boots of Tom Hanks, John Cusack,or even Hugh Grant. When you don't even like the lead in a romantic comedy, that's trouble.

Anyway, home viewing of films has ground to a halt. Let me introduce the culprit:



This show had a lot of hype, which was what prompted me to pick up the season 1 DVDs. It's amazingly lived up to the hype for the most part. I enjoy the writing and editing, which violates almost every rule in the book. There are too many characters, too many storylines, too many plot mechanisms, a huge number of flashbacks and generally too much going on. When this is the heart of your show, you risk diffusing interest over too many characters and issues and run into the danger of no one caring about any of them. LOST is able to avoid this pitfall with nicely-textured characters, a speedy pace and brilliant editing.

The danger remains that as the relationships of the characters develop, and as the main storyline unravels, that the whole thing will devolve into an overly-complicated mess. In fact, I'd bet on that eventually happening. After all, they're all stuck on an island. As soon as we all know who they are and how they got there, much of the story might be expected to center on the island and its mysteries.

Despite that risk, I'm happy with the journey and am in no hurry for the show to get to the point. At least not for the moment.

Sin City (2.5/4 stars) and Kingdom of Heaven (1.5/4 stars)

I finally got to see Rob Rodriguez's Sin City, one of the most-hyped films of the year. It was more or less what I expected, a comic book committed to film. Like his best buddy, Quentin Tarantino (who somehow appears as a "guest director" in the credits), Rodriguez concentrates on style. The guy who did the comic books, Frank Miller, apparently was along with Rodriguez for the whole ride. There's even a site on the net that compares frames of the film with panels from the comic, and they're pretty much faithful.



Too bad the screenplay wasn't as strong. The film interlocks three stories - those of Mickey Rourke's Marv (the best of the bunch), Bruce Willis's Hartigan (ok) and Clive Owen's Dwight (pretty weak). But you're not watching Sin City for the story - you're watching it for the style. Think of Kill Bill, only better. Devon Aoki's Miho will chop up Uma Thurman's Beatrix any day of the week. Jessica Alba serves as the film's primary eye candy. She IS yummy, but too bad they weren't faithful when adapting her Nancy from the comic. She's wearing too much. (Yes, that's lame.)

Anyway, Sin City is worth watching for the cinematography. The interlocking stories has been done before, and better, notably by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu in both Amores Perros and 21 Grams. The acting isn't noteworthy, and neither is the dialogue.

As for Kingdom of Heaven, I got to see it on the plane on the way over here (I'm in Singapore). I knew that the little Singapore Airlines screen wouldn't do the battle scenes justice, but I figured that it was better than most of the other offerings. (I'm saving Hitchhiker's Guide for the return trip.)



Ridley Scott, for once, bored me to tears. The story development is glacial, and very little happens over the first hour of the film. It was enough to almost put me to sleep. Orlando Bloom simply cannot act, Jeremy Irons mails it in, and Liam Neeson continues a disturbing trend and gets killed off early in the film. The big battles only start to pick up past the halfway mark, and even then, we've seen this kind of thing in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, particularly in the Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith battles.

Still, if you've somehow managed to avoid seeing LOTR, the battle scenes are well done as you might expect from Scott. Beyond that, there's not much more to recommend the film. If you're intrigued by Eva Green, go find Bertolucci's The Dreamers - you get to see all of her there, both her acting chops and her body.

Final verdict - you can pass on Kingdom of Heaven. Unless you're stuck on a plane and the next best option is Madagascar.

Inflight viewing: SWAT (1/4)

Just finished the inflight meal so I thought I'd start a post even if I can't send it until we land.

I picked another Samuel L film, SWAT. Yes, I knew it would be forgettable. SQ unfortunately has a rather lackluster lineup of new films for July. I'll get to that in a bit. SWAT has Colin Farrell playing Sam's sidekick, in a film that's essentially a training/big event formula movie. Even the climactic mission is boring. Yet another lackluster 80s TV to big screen failure.

These are the films for July - Sahara, Fever Pitch, Kung Fu Hustle, Miss Congeniality 2, Guess Who, Beauty Shop, Man of the House, Millions, In My Country, Million Dollar Baby, Hitch, Be Cool, Robots, The Pacifier, The Wedding Date, Melinda and Melinda, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Dear Frankie, Miss Congeniality, Two Weeks Notice, Speed, The Last Samurai, Vertical Limit, The Tailor of Panama, Secret Window, I,Robot, The Missing, SWAT, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., The Prince and the Showgirl, Rebel Without a Cause, The Maltese Falcon, Caddyshack, Dirty Harry, and a bunch of non-English films. Of those the notables are Maria Full of Grace, Mar Ardento, and Mumbai Express. Phew.

Inflight viewing: Hitch (2/4) and Coach Carter (1.5/4)

One of the cool things when flying Singapore Air is its inflight
entertainment system. It's got everything on demand - film, audio,
television and shorts, videogames. Last trip (two weeks ago) I chose Hitch
on the way to Sing. I actually was eyeing Mar Ardento (The Sea Inside) or A
Very Long Engagement, but I knew from the running times that I couldn't
complete the films before landing. So I had to step down in quality. Way
down.

At least I had fun with Hitch. My wife Chris and I enjoy The King of Queens,
if only because Carrie and Doug remind us of ourselves. Kevin James is still
entertaining on the big screen. Too bad that Will Smith mailed this one in.
Formula romantic comedy, inoffensive but unremarkable except for James.

My flight back found me choosing Coach Carter. It turner out to be no more
than expected - a formula sports-themed inspirational "based on a true
story" film that let's Samuel L. Jackson hit his tough guy riffs. Completely
forgettable.

Now that it's July, SQ will have a whole new set of films. I hope my choices
on this trip are a bit better.

Willy Wonka One-Pagers

Ain't It Cool News just posted a bunch of Wonka posters. I like these things! Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Sin City were some of the recent films that had them. I hope they do them for SW Ep 3.

Dark Knights

I gotta say that the graphic design on the new Bats posters really hit the spot. Gone are the cartoony ones of the previous series.







Let's just hope that the screenplay holds up. I'm not really concerned about the acting or directing.

Shall we go to Sin City?

Currently #1 on my "I definitely want to see this on the big screen" list. Directed by Robert Rodriguez of "El Mariachi" fame (and "Spy Kids" notreity), and written by Frank Miller of Batman fame.

Review – M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (1 out of 4 stars)

M. Night Shyalaman’s claim to fame (or mediocrity, depending on how you see it) is the “big twist movie”. He tries to string you along for most of the film, then drops a twist in, trying to alter your view of what you saw for the last hour or so. It might work once, but since most of us have seen The Sixth Sense, isn’t it time to move on?



I honestly thought that Night was trying something new with Signs. That film didn’t have the huge twist, and was a decent atmospheric creeping doom kind of deal. It sure was an improvement over the weak Unbreakable. The Village is a huge step back, as it’s arguably the worst of Night’s four big films.

Joaquin Phoenix, Adrian Brody, Sigourney Weaver (with around ten minutes of screen time) and William Hurt headline a big name do-nothing cast that inhabits “the Village”. This village seems to be a quaint, rustic town in the middle of a valley surrounded by deep foreboding woods. The town has a legend of “The Ones We Do Not Speak Of”, which is a fancy name for some feral lupine-ish porcupine monsters that like the color red, aka “The Bad Color”. Is that silly enough yet?

Phoenix is Lucius Hunt, a quiet, inquisitive young man (honestly, Joaquin is too old for these young man roles) to dares to enter the woods out of curiosity. He also keeps asking the village elders for permission to visit “the towns”, which seems to stand for any civilization outside of the village. Unfortunately, a tragedy befalls Lucius, and his ends up at death’s door, driving his fiancé, the blind girl Ivy (Judy Greer, I think) to take up his quest to brave the woods to get some life-saving drug for Lucius.

This whole thing munches up 75 to 80% of the film. Then, Night drops his big twist in, and brings the whole thing to a close before you lynch him for such a stupid conclusion.

If you figure out the whole thing (as I did halfway through because the villagers drop hints here and there) or even have a vague sense of what’s going on, the whole film ends up being a tepid anticlimax. Even if you don’t have an inkling, what is to be gained by the exercise? It’s like the director and writer trying for a “ha ha we fooled you” moment at the expense of 90+ minutes of your life.

It might be tolerable if Night did a better job with the front end of the film. Unfortunately, he didn’t. The cast looks like they’re going through the paces. Brody is a huge waste, playing a simpleton part that could be excised with no great loss to the film. The shots throughout the film are either wide angle shots of two characters in conversation (we don’t get to see their expressions) or really dark night shots. The dialogue tries to prove a point (this is a rustic town) but ends up stilted and unconvincing. It’s around Michael Bay quality.

This all ends up as a pretty crappy waste of 90 minutes of your life. Sorry, Night, time to give up the twists and try to be a real filmmaker.

Bottom line: Pass on it. If you’ve never seen an M. Night film, see The Sixth Sense, then Signs. Don’t bother with this or Unbreakable, or any more Night films that you hear end with a “twist”.

Review – David Ellis's Cellular (2 out of 4 stars)

Action movies succeed or fail on one key thing – pace. Never mind the premise, never mind the acting (cf. Keanu Reeves and Sandy Bullock in Speed), never mind the story. The action movie will survive without all of this as long as the pace is kept up and the adrenalin flows through the audience.



Cellular has the flimsiest of stories. Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) is held hostage by a bunch of ruffians who are trying to capture her whole family. She’s able to get a smashed telephone to dial out randomly, and she gets the irresponsible Ryan (Chris Evans) on his mobile. Ryan ends up believing her and running around trying to prevent her son and husband from being captured. Ryan ends up figuring out the whole plot and spends most of the film running from place to place with a cellphone at his ear.

You’ll get every possible cell cliché here, from the drained battery to the weak signal to dropping your phone from a great height to forgetting it in the seat of your car. Cellular comes across as a tongue-in-cheek piece. It tries to be menacing (Jason Statham, wasted in this film) so that you fear for Jessica and her family, but defeats that tense atmosphere by injecting a silly lawyer and other attempts at levity. The pace is rather uneven at points, as William H. Macy (collecting a paycheck) plays the usual good cop who’s never fired a gun but helps the young hero out investigates and tries to catch up with Ryan.

Chris Evans is generic Keanu Clone #231. He can look good driving a car or running around, but please don’t ask him to emote. New young actor, let’s see another couple films out of him. After all Chris Bale seems to be taking a huge leap after Equilibrium. Director David Ellis doesn't deviate from formula, and crafts a rather forgettable action flick. As for the writing... it's a generic action flick. The screenplay is forgettable.

Bottom line: Cellular is a decent popcorn movie, but it’s nothing that you absolutely need to see. Rent it when you don’t want to think.

Titanic Definitive Edition

The Digital Bits is reporting that a new four-disc Titanic DVD is on the horizon, with the film split over two discs for maximum video quality, and the remaining two carrying the features. This is a must-have DVD, along the lines of the LOTR Extendeds and the Star Wars package!

The Digital Bits also handed out their awards, The Bitsys, for the outstanding DVDs of 2004.

Keep writers around

I found this great anecdote on John August's blog. Screenplay writers are largely underappreciated in the grand scheme of moviemaking, since their input tends to disappear into the shadows of the power of the director. This is a good reason to keep the writer around even after the film enters principal.

Oscars aftermath and viewing list

So I did ok in the Oscar guessing game. Most of the big ticket guesses were on target, except for the doomed Nat Portman pick.

Lining up the following for viewing:

The Aviator
Million Dollar Baby
A Very Long Engagement

Maybe the wife and I will see Hitch too. Hey, I like Kevin James. When I watch The King of Queens, he reminds me of me. :-)

Review – Taylor Hackford’s Ray (2.5 out of 3 stars)

I like the music of Ray Charles when I hear it, but I’ve never actually gone out and acquired a CD. This film has convinced me that I need a Ray Charles Robinson compilation in my music collection. It’s also a pretty good film with one annoying flaw. And Jamie Foxx will win an Academy Award for his performance in this film. (Update: He did; it wasn’t a hard call.)



Ray covers the life of Robinson from his childhood, when he lost his sight, all the way to the end of his successful music career. (Ray died in 2004.) It’s not an unusual path. From his beginnings as a bit player in a band, to being signed by Atlantic Records and finding his sound, to becoming an international icon with ABC Paramount Records. Ray has the almost obligatory bout with drugs expected of musicians and actors. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Ray was blind since the age of seven.

His blindness produces the fatal flaw that weakens the film considerably. There was a choice to tell the story of Ray’s childhood and relationship with his mother in flashback. These flashbacks are triggered by Ray’s psychosis, which was caused by his heroin addiction. This little device ruins the flow of the film. There’s this scene towards the end of the film in particular that really should have been left on the edition room floor.

Jamie Foxx is excellent in Ray, which at this point should be no surprise. Everyone has him winning the Oscar. He becomes Ray Charles – anyone who’s seen the real McCoy perform can see the mannerisms he’s become identified with.

Finally, the music is fantastic. I need the soundtrack. Or better yet, I should hunt down a double-disc greatest hits compilation or something.

Bottom line: Good show with a fatal flaw. See it anyway, but you can wait to rent it on DVD. Hope your DVD is hooked up to a nice sound system.

The 77th Annual Academy Awards

It's Oscar night. I haven't seen all the the relevant films, but I've seen a few and I guess I can make a stab at predicting the winners. I'll post a scorecard once the dust settles.

Best Picture: I'm not betting against Clint Eastwood, who's a favorite among the Oscar jury. Make mine Million Dollar Baby.

Best Director: Eastwood.

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx. I saw Ray, and yeah that was good enough.

Best Actress: Hilary Swank rides Dirty Harry's coattails to another Oscar.

Supporting Actor: I want to say Clive Owen, as he was pretty good in Closer, but that's rather remote. Morgan Freeman via the Eastwood steamroller.

Supporting Actress: This is a dead vote. It won't happen, but I'm going with Nat Portman. Just because.

Animated Feature: The Incredibles cannot lose. Too bad though, because Shrek 2 was fun.

Adapted Screenplay: Million Dollar Baby

Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Review - Alexander Payne's Sideways (3 out of 4 stars)

I must be on some find of buddy film trip. At least this one isn’t as twisted as the last two. Sideways, winner of the several awards and nominated for the Oscar, is a buddy road trip film. Miles is a schoolteacher who has aspirations to be a published writer. He’s also two years into a depression stemming from his divorce. Miles has a manuscript submitted for the consideration of a publisher. Jack is Miles’s best friend, and he’s to be married in a week. Jack used to be an actor in television series, but now he’s just doing commercial work. He’s chosen Miles, his roommate from college days, to be his best man. Miles takes Jack on a “bachelor road trip” through California’s Wine Valley for the week before the wedding.



Miles is a wine geek. He’s not a connoisseur, he’s a geek. He talks about wine like tech geeks talk about gadgets, sports stat geeks talk about their fantasy leagues and comic book geeks talk about super heroes. He adores pinot noir, despises merlot, and has been getting drunk on wine since his divorce. Jack appears to be an average Joe looking for a good time before he gives up his bachelor freedom.

Sideways, like my recent subjects Training Day and Collateral, has a lot of interaction going on in the car as Jack and Miles talk on the long drives. They feel very real. Thomas Hayden Church plays the level headed, everyday man Jack well. It’s easy to find something in Jack that’s in all of us. However, the star of the show is Paul Giamatti, who’s received rave reviews for his portrayal of Miles. In a life that’s going nowhere fast, Miles drowns himself in his love of wine, and everything can be traced back to the grape on the vine. Geeks will find a sense of kinship with Miles, as he struggles to get his life on track while trying to rationalize why his life is so shitty.

Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh are the love interests of Miles and Jack, Maya and Stephanie. Maya is another divorced wine geek, which you’d think is the perfect setup for Miles. However, Miles is a geek in a two-year long depression, so that predictably affects his approach towards the whole thing. Steph is the girl that makes Jack, like so many men, question whether he’s ready to tie himself down to one woman.

Truth to tell, I expected a lot from Sideways due to the accolades that the film was receiving. I was mildly disappointed. Alexander Payne does a good if safe directing job, and there aren’t any surprises. The film comes across as sincere and intimate and real. The shots range from pretty to gorgeous. The script leans a lot on wine jargon, and it’s easy to get immersed in the Miles’s passion for the stuff. (Reports have a 16% increase in the sales of pinot noir in the aftermath of Sideways. Merlot grew by a modest 3%.) Still, Sideways didn’t appeal to me as much as Lost in Translation and Before Sunrise/Sunset. I liked the interaction of Miles and Maya, but it didn’t have the spontaneity or spark of the aforementioned films. Still, Sideways is a very good film, and well worth the viewing. However, I don’t think that it’s Best Picture material.

Bottom line: Fine film, take time to catch it

Review - Mike Nichols's Closer (3.5 out of 4 stars)

Closer is a damn tough film to watch. It’s a talky relationship-driven film, but the emotions and actions of the characters toss you under a speeding truck, pick you up, then dump you on the rails in front of a freight train. I guess it’s even tougher because we know that we’re capable of the same things. Heck, some of us may have done these things in the past or are doing them in the present or are thinking of doing them in the future. God forbid.



Jude Law and Natalie Portman (finally done with Amidala) are Dan and Alice, a couple who have a chance meeting, hit it off and become a couple. However, Dan keeps a torch burning for Anna, played by Julia Roberts. Finally, Clive Owen is Larry, who meets Anna as a result of a practical joke set up by Dan. Larry and Anna become a couple. The real problems begin when Dan and Anna commit an indiscretion.

This is a Mike Nichols film, so one shouldn’t expect anything ordinary or easy to digest. Nichols makes films on difficult subject matters, and in this one, he showcases just how much people who supposedly love and care deeply for each other can hurt each other. You open your heart to someone, you give them license to take a meat cleaver and chop your heart and soul into itsy-bitsy pieces in the most painful ways possible. Of course, many of us do just as the characters in Closer and utilize the meat cleaver appallingly well and often.

Natalie Portman and Clive Owen won Golden Globes for their work here. I only remember Clive from his horrid turn as King Arthur, and I still don’t really care for his gravelly voice, but he’s definitely and appropriately vicious here. I think he cut far deeper with words than he ever did with Excalibur. Now, as a card-carrying Natalie fan I’m happy to see her finally get to sink her teeth into something substantial. Her Alice is a complex character, needy and clingy but capable of being steely cold. She’s also a fantastic cocktease. Fans of Padme Amidala won’t recognize the stripper who gets one a table, strips naked, turns around and bends over for Clive Owen’s pleasure. Lucky bum. If they indeed excised a strip sequence from this segment, there are a lot of guys out there praying they add it back into the Closer Director’s Cut. That’ll sell like hotcakes.

I’m still not a Jude Law fan, and his work in Closer doesn’t do much to impress me more. Of the four characters, Dan was the blandest despite getting the most screen time. Very little texture to the character; very little development. Now, it’s always jarring to see Julia Roberts in anything but a romantic comedy. At the beginning I was half-expecting Hugh Grant to walk through the door. However, Julia does a credible performance as Anna, so I give her props for that. That’s how you do it, Meg Ryan. Show us your boobs and bush doesn’t make you a serious actress.

Bottom line: Closer is on my “need to see again” list, but it’ll have to get in line. It’s an excellent film, one that I can recommend to anyone who wants to see something thought-provoking.

Review - Michael Mann's Collateral (3 out of 4 stars)

My second of two “twisted buddy flicks” involves a cabbie driving an assassin around town to do five hits. This was Jamie Foxx’s attention-getting role, which he followed up later with a show-stopping performance in Ray (which I still have to see). It’s not always easy to share equal billing with Tom Cruise, but Foxx does admirably here. He’s Max, an LA cab driver who aspires to save enough money for his own limousine service in Vegas. He’s been driving cabs “temporarily” for 12 years, trying to iron out all the risks before taking the plunge. Cruise looks great as Vincent, a phenomenal hitman hired to take out five witnesses for a local crime boss. I love Tom’s look in Collateral – salt-and-pepper hair, dark suit, silenced pistol, unflappable.



You’d think this was an action film, and it is in many spots, but I like it as a buddy film. Sort of like Training Day, the best parts of the film are when Max and Vincent are driving around town getting from hit to hit. Vincent talks about his outlook on life, and Max reluctantly divulges his. Max changes a lot in one night. Didn’t really care for the ending, and I’d have written it differently.

Director Michael Mann keeps the film moving along at a good clip. Again, I feel that the film could have been tightened up a bit and excised a few minutes from the scenes that didn’t involve Max and Vincent. The audience isn’t stupid – with the trail of bodies the cops were bound to pick up on Vincent’s trail of death. It didn’t need to be spelled out by wasting time on the relationship between the feds, the street-smart cop and his pussy of a boss.

Cruise has had better performances (Jerry Maguire, for one), but this one is memorable just because he makes a kick ass hitman. Much more believable than freaking Tom Hanks (Road to Perdition). Foxx did well in his role, though the changes that Max goes through were so drastic that it wasn’t easy to show the evolution in such as short time. I’m definitely seeing Ray.

Bottom line: Fine film. See it if you can.

Review - Antoine Fuqua's Training Day (2.5 out of 4 stars)

Ethan Hawke, an actor I usually enjoy watching, teams up with Denzel Washington in the first of the two “twisted buddy flicks” I got to see. Denzel’s narc Alonzo Harris, a decorated 13-year veteran with a long list of collars and with a reputation of getting the men on his team promoted quickly. Ethan is Hoyt, an ambitious, idealistic young gun who want to make detective in the worst way. Hoyt figures that becoming a narc on Alonzo’s team is the fastest way to get promoted, so he signs up. Harris meets Hoyt at the beginning of the day and tells him that it’s training day – Hoyt has just that day to convince Alonzo that he’s got what it takes to be a narc.

Alonzo’s a loose cannon, the “end justifies the means” kind of cop. Over half the film is used to establish Alonzo’s methods and his morality. Hoyt and Harris spend a lot of time in Harris’s car going from place to place. They get to talk about Harris’s methods being the only thing that works in the real world, versus Hoyt’s idealistic sense of how things should be done. Training Day is a struggle for Hoyt’s mind and soul.

Hawke and Washington provide their usual excellent performances. Denzel gets to play a character that’s a bit over the top at points, and he looks like he’s having some fun. Antoine Fuqua does a decent job with the look and feel of the film. He’s really in his element with city films, with close-in shots, street chases and guns. I feel the film could have been tightened up a bit more – it suffers from some pacing hiccups. The audience is probably two or three steps ahead of Hoyt in figuring things out, and many of the scenes used to spell out the situation were arguably unnecessary.

Bottom line: Good film, but nothing extraordinary.