Ramblings from the Depths of Santa Monica

I've Moved!!!

2008-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

I 've readjusted both where I'm blogging and what I blog about.

I'm now writing about media -- film, television, and techology, what Ken Rutkowski called the MET space (Media, Entertainment, Technology).

You can see me at http://normanhollyn.wordpress.com, called HOLLYN-WOOD.

Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

2007-04-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday (read his obit here), reminding me mightily of my college years.  The obit says that he was "a literary
idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and 1970s" and it's hard to disagree with that.  His short, punchy style, with his wry observations, and strong sense of cynicism, was totally appealing to me and my roommates.  He definitely seemed to have the best sense of what was wrong with the way the country was going, a cynical sense that has proven to be completely correct.  His book, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, was made into one of the best filmed adaptations of any book.  And his other books, a combination of journalism and science fiction (a term he always abhorred being used to describe his works -- even though it fit them), mixed with a healthy and rare dose of comedy, propelled him into my pantheon.

I'll miss him, even those his best work was years behind him.

Justin TV

2007-04-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

There's a certain kind of ballsy self-assurance to justin.tv.

This is a guy who has strapped a camera to his and wears it 24/7.  Everywhere.  As he puts it:

Justin wears the camera 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even in the bathroom. Even on a date.

You follow him everywhere. (He just finished a long date, for instance, as I type this, and is walking home.)

It's oddly fascinating -- it makes you hunger for an editor, on one hand, but also appreciate the reality of it all. Give it a shot.

Doing My Part to Save The World

2007-04-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Today in my spam email account (translation - "Yahoo Mail") sent me a Viagra ad. Its subject line alone was worth the look:

Help for every person all over the whole world

Not bad, eh?

Maybe I'll pass.

Twitter Captures Me

2007-04-07T21:36:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to explain, even to myself. But I've been captured by this insane little program on my Treo called Twitter, one of the few Web 2.0 sites that don't leave out the "e" at the end of their name.

Let's see if I can explain it. Basically, after signing up, you can post 140 character text messages from your phone or the web. Anyone who is "following" you can see them, either on their phones or the web. What this means, is that you're IM'ing across a growing social network.

People are starting to do all kinds of interesting things, and it's a way that I've met some interesting people. Well, not met exactly. More like "stalked." But I suspect that, unless everyone gets tired by the whole concept, this can explode into a giant social network.

At SxSW people used it to find each other. Other people document their day. I haven't found the best uses for it yet, but I am somewhat captivated.

Filmmaking Is The Same

2006-07-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

Spent 13 hours on the set of one of our Jordan Digital Filmmaking Workshop short films yesterday. The ironic thing is that, here in the middle of the Middle East, at the junture of several continents, the process (craziness and all) seems very familiar to what I've experienced on USC Student film sets as well.

Here are a few pictures from the shoot.

Samer (in the yellow shirt) is the director.

The View From The Middle East

2006-07-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a long time because of how crazy busy I've been. Right now I am in Amman, Jordan teaching with several other teachers, at a workshop for beginning digital filmmakers.

It's very interesting being here as Israeli airstrikes hit Lebanon and Amman receives tons of refugees. I had a conversation yesterday with a Lebanese television producer who has come here because neither she nor her family feel they can stay in Beirut. Normal middle class people, like you and I, are watching their neighborhoods destroyed. Either the bombing isn't accurate or there is a plan to target civilian areas. It's puzzling.

I know that when I was back in LA last week, the news coverage was fairly slanted towards the Israeli side. Luckily, the blogosphere is helpful in showing both sides. If can stomach it, check out this blog entry at itoot.net, which is a blog that culls entries from ten or so other blogs. [ADDED NOTE: This post now seems to have taken down. Perhaps the pictures were too graphic. I've changed the URL to point to the general crisis page at iToot.] Some of the pictures are pretty graphic, but that is precisely the point here. It's easy to turn the pages of the newspaper, or fast forward on our Tivo's when everything is soft-pedaled.

There's also a very personal story from an actress/writer named Najla Said, who writes on Electronic Lebanon about her ordeal in fleeing Lebanon. She contracts it, in a beautiful way, with her father's recent death, and their attraction to their homeland.

The point for me is this -- I have no idea whether this can ever be settled. I'm often convinced by the stories of the people on both sides -- many of whom have no desire or need for war. Most are not political people.

But politcal decisions made at the highest levels of many governments don't care about these people. And, in my discussions here and reading lots of blogs, this is creating anger in Arabs that was not there before. One woman told me that she was a person who demonstrated against Hezbollah for years. Now she is on their side. When you look at pictures like the above, or

Stephen Colbert Talks About Cynicism

2006-06-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have hidden away for the last year, Stephen Colbert has an occasionally amusing, often very pointed, fake news show right after Jon Stewart on Comedy Central (from whence he sprang -- sprung?? springed??).

But he also gives speeches (for which I assume he makes boatloads of money). Several weeks ago, he gave a speech at the White House Correspondents Association where he ribbed a shocked and horrified George Bush. Reviews were not kind.

Still, he went back it, and gave a graduation speech at Knox College which was reported in Editor and Publisher magazine. Much of it was the same type of humor as on his show. But he closed with a heartfelt discussion of cynicism which I reproduce below.

He closed his speech on an apparently semi-serious note, urging the grads to learn how to say "yes." He noted that saying yes will sometimes get them in trouble or make them look like a fool. But he added: "Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.

"Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.

It makes me choke up to read this.

Tom Cruise's Impossible Mission

2006-05-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I seem to be stuck on posting videos recently (and I haven't even been on YouTube recently) but this one is too funny.

Note: Because of slow loading times on some of your browsers, I am just putting this in as a link. Click right here.

VD Is For Everybody

2006-04-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

This is a PSA (Public Service Announcement) from 1969 that's meant to let you know that, well..., VD is for everybody.

Seriously, the stuff you can find on YouTube is staggering. The studios don't have a fucking chance!

Las Vegas Stories

2006-04-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived in Los Angeles in the Seventies, it was very typical to hear New Yorkers like myself comment on the unreality of it all. I remember saying myself that I spent hours looking behind every building, looking to see if they were propped-up false fronts.

Okay, so I wasn't very original.

But all of this palls completely when faced with the complete unreality that is Las Vegas.

Okay, so I'm aware that this also isn't an original statement. Every tourist in the world seems to be taking pictures of the fake Statue of Liberty outside of one casino/hotel, or the fake Sphinx outside of another one. The really impressive thing about all of this is that they seem to be taking picture of it to preserve the touching memories, not because they are totally cynical about it.

It boggles the mind.

Yesterday I checked their Yellow Pages. There are almost twelve pages of check cashing (called "Payday") and Pawnbrokers. It's a place where it seems that if you aren't giving your money away to someone else, you are being positively Unamerican. Is it simply lack of access that prevents Al Queda from blowing the place to smithereens? Or do they secretly harbor the desire to get that big casino payoff, or ride on the Monorail past the Paris Hotel and stare at the fake Eiffel Tower?

The town completely creeps me out.

On the other hand, since I'm here in Lost Wages (sorry sorry, old joke there) to attend the NAB convention, I don't really see much of the town. I'm too busy in the middle of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Much interesting here at NAB. I'll report on that some other time.

Tell Me this Isn't Cool!!

2006-04-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

www.humanclock.com

Every minute of every day. Someone has taken a picture with the time in it -- 3:39, 4:26, etc. Some of them are really clever. Some are very straightforward. Doesn't matter. It's a pretty cool clock.

Easy Shot

2006-02-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

In regards to Dick Cheney shooting his hunting partner, the easy joke is that "If this is how he treats his friends, just don't get on his bad side."

The real comment, though, is that when you're the second most powerful man in the USA (some might claim that he's the first) then you can pretty much do whatever the heck you want and then deal with the consequences later.

I remember this really trashy movie years ago, called THE BETSY. As I remember, it was about a Detroit auto family (back when that meant something) and how they could get away with anything because they controlled the town -- sorta like the Ewings in Dallas, right? [A diversion -- I saw the film in Times Square, and there's one scene where a husband comes back unexpectedly and starts walking up this huge sprial staircase to his bedroom where his wife is screwing around with her brother or some such thing. With each step, the audience became more and more restless, calling out to the screen: "Oh, no. Don't go up there. DON'T GO UP THERE!!!"]

In any case, the point was that those who were in power operated with a different set of rules than the rest of us. That will, of course, be of no surprise to anyone who has lived in a monarchy or a dictatorship. The big deal, however, about a democracy is that ain't supposed to happen.

Sure. Sure.

In any case, Cheney continues to demonstrate that he believes that the rules are for other people, and that hunters who run countries can do anything they want (he paid his missing hunting stamp after the fact, by the way). Just like a monarchy. Or a dictatorship. Or reality.

Embarrassing Admission #365,012

2006-02-04T23:54:00.000-08:00

It's not a television show that I ever thought I'd watch, but I just love PROJECT RUNWAY. It's like someone sneaks in and removes my brain for the 40 minutes or so that I Tivo through the thing. It's this great combination of bitch-fest and television producer manipulation that (somehow, don't ask me how) appeals to me.

For those of you who haven't lost your sanity, let me briefly explain.

Every week, Heidi Klum -- past super model and now washed up reality show producer and host -- visits a group of wannabe fashion designers for about one hour, after the producers and real host Tim Gunn (who allegedly has something to do with teaching fashion, though all he seems to do is cattily snark at the wannabes) have given them a challenge, The challenges are something like: design a dress for Barbie, or, design a garden party outfit made totally out of leaves and flowers, or, design something hideous and then defend it later on when Heidi rips it to shreds.

Actually, when the wannabes finish their rush designing and dress creation, they put it on a low-rent model and then there's a runway mini-fashion show in front of Klum, Michael Kors (who must be famous for something besides this show -- I hope), Nina Garcia (who writes for Elle Magazine, which means that she doesn't design clothes but can rip the shit out of the hearts of the wannabes -- who do design clothes), and someone else who happens to be passing through the studio that day.

The show construction is very predictable and pretty damned exciting. The editors/producers manage to wring as much excitement out of the wannabes cutting fabric and using their sewing machines as they can (thank god that television audiences accept rapid cutting nowadays). They manufacture one or two rivalries per episode, whether they really happened or not, and then drag out the revelation of who lost the week's challenge and is voted off the island.

Oops, I mean, who is asked to leave the show.

Every week someone gets kicked off or, as Klum says endlessly, "someone is in, and someone is out."

It's all a giant morality play, with gnashing teeth and endless unspoken gay jokes thrown in for good measure.

As wretched and awful and predicatable and dumb as this all sounds -- it's actually a guilty pleasure beyond belief. And I find myself thanking the stars that Mr. Tivo woke up one morning and said "Let there be DVRs. And let them be able to record crap."

Another exciting thing about show is that there are fan sites that have grown up around it. Oh boy, there are fan sites! Remember when you were in junior high school, there were a group of guys who were total STAR TREK or STAR WARS or WHATEVER fans, and they'd gather together and discuss the previous evening's show and talk about all of the plot points and build fake laser guns and all that. And you thought that they were creepiest people imaginable.

Well, they're back, except now they watch reality television and chat about it later on the net. And they are still the creepiest people imaginable.

But they sometimes can be loads of fun. Witness Dan, who is the bitchiest, creepiest, funniest fan around. Read this post as he dissects a recent episode of PROJECT RUNWAY. And someone with the nom de net of Auntiemame, unloads on the show here. Let's face it, the show may be funny, but this blow-by-blow description totally explains why it's funny -- in a catty, I'm-not-explaining-it sorta way.

Oscars. Oscars. Oscars

2006-01-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

The most absolutest funnest thing about the Oscar nominations (save for the fact that, in a rare sense of retribution for forcing East Coasters to stay up past midnight to watch the actual ceremony, they announce the nominations at the ungodly hour of something like 5am LA time -- to fit the New York time zone news cycles) is that it leads to so much useless pontificating about Trends In The Industry. Then, about two days after the awards, the American Public goes back to watching what it damn well cares about -- which generally means that Deuce Bigelow will still trump Capote when all is said and done.

In any case, we're about to have another year of "It's The Independents Who Know What's Up" type of commentary. Of course, they're right in one way. But, after having been to a Sundance Festival just last weekend, where every major independent film was completely dependent on star casting to get a release, it's hard to work up much enthusiasm. Does anyone really think that the people who work on $60 million films care less about their product, than the maker of a $60 thousand dollar film? I've worked on cheap films and expensive films and I've never met anyone who didn't give a shit about their work. When I was on The Cotton Club, Coppola once threw a fit on stage because (as he put it) "I've got sixty million bucks and it still seems like a fuckin' low budget film." Which I took to mean that he still wasn't able to craft the film to his liking because of budget constraints.

Sure, he was whining, but can anyone tell me that Chumscrubbers was a better film than Godfater 1?

==================

Oh, any in case you cared, I'm actually pretty stoked that Paradise Now got nominated, and that Brokeback got eight nominations. I doubt it will win half of them, but it's still great to see a film with that much going for it, actually getting a nomination. When I fill out my ballot, I usually assume that most of my picks won't end up on the nomination list. So, for those who were wondering, here was my list of the top films of the year (of the ones I saw -- admittedly a limited list) in alphabetical order.

Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Constant Gardener
Crash (sorta)
Good Night and Good Luck (sorta)
The History of Violence
Howl's Moving Castle
Last Days
Look At Me (sorta)
Matador
Paradise Now
The Squid and the Whale
Transamerica
Weather Man

I'm actually kinda stoked that so many of them ended up getting nominated.

Sundance Memories (if I've got them)

2006-01-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

Sundance, to those of us on the other side of 40 (well, maybe I should admit to 45... well, maybe I... ++ Never Mind ++) seems like our idea of what 25 year old Melrose Avenue habitues do when set loose on the Strip with too much money.

It's more crowded than Soho in New York on a weekend, when the Bridge and Tunnel crowd bus in from New Jersey and Long Island in a desperate search for *** fun ***. The most boring parties are the ones you stay at for more than an hour. The most exciting restaurants are the ones that you can't get into for two hours.

And, actually, aside from an unfortunate stomach virus that knocked me out for a few days, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Now, I was there to do work -- sorta. I was teaching in the Film Center (which was called the Digital Center last year, but still was in the basement of the Main Street Mall), giving a series of talks on Storytelling through Editing. One of them was about picture editing (if you've taken my Intermediate Editing class, you've gotten the longer version of it -- 16 weeks of it, as opposed to 60 minutes). Another was about using sound and music to do the same thing. The classes were jammed packed, and enthusiastic. I'll tell you, it's enough to give a guy a severe case of the "feeling gratified."

As for the films I saw... well... there's a story there. But the long and the short of it is that I saw... well... none. I didn't do my due diligence and I was counting on getting in with some other USC people. But the tickets were in even worse supply than last year (which was my first Sundance, and the reports then that getting tickets was worse than ever). Most of the big films will be coming out in the next few months anyway -- in fact when we went to see the incredibly disappointing Walk The Line a few days ago, they were running a trailer for Thank You For Smoking, which played at the festival. The really interesting films were running in the World Competition and the Dox and, for all I know, down the street at Slamdance.

USC students and alumnae were all over the place. The USC party was actually a complete and total gas. Then the Jennifer Aniston party after that was incredible. Well, not really. Well, actually, I wouldn't have the foggiest notion. I don't get invited to any of those parties.

Next year, would someone please invite me to a party where there's going to be a photographer?? I don't want to be photographed, I just want to be at a party that rates a photographer.

Anyway, I'm back to work now. It looks like I'm going to be co-editing a genre film in the next few months. More on this in future posts, but I figure I can rest after I'm dead.

You Know You're Busy When...

2006-01-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

There's nothing I like more than wasting my time doing blog entries. It's such a wonderfully wasteful use of my time. It's not like there are more than ten or fifteen of you who actually read these entries, but I love doing them.

It's so much more interesting than finishing reports or grading papers (not that I actually assign papers, but never mind details; this is a world where fiction can pass for fact in the halls of publishing, so don't worry).

So, you know you're busy when you can't find time to do a blog entry in two weeks during winter break!!

Nothing gets done in Los Angeles from Xmas until New Year. In fact, very little gets done in all of December!

I did see a few movies and I did fly back and forth to New York to bury my Dad and help my Mom. I did try and juggle some reports and hire some teachers. But I spent over a solid day of flying time and didn't find the time to read one book??? Whazzup with that?

An interesting thing happened to my Mom as she was cleaning up my Dad's drawers -- cleaning out old socks and the like. She found an envelope with some cash in it -- not much, just about fifty bucks. But she didn't know that my Dad had stashed it there.

Then she found another one.

And another one.

Then she found one behind the bed end table.

And some more in the sock drawer.

By the time she was done, she had found $1900 in a ton of envelopes.

I'm told that one of the things that is not uncommon in Alzheimer's patients is that they will squirrel things away -- money, change, keys, etc. I don't know if this is true, but he must have been doing this for years.

In any case, the good thing is that my Mom's got some money to help her through these times when the paperwork for pensions and life insurance etc. take forever to go through.

$1900. Out here, you could easily go for... oh... two weeks on that.

To New York and Back... and back again

2005-12-30T17:00:00.000-08:00

I haven't been posting recently. Not because I don't have anything to say. It's just that I don't have anything of value to say.

Actually, I've been in New York, where my father's been very sick, after a stroke. I finally flew back today and, somewhat ironically, as I was somewhere over St. Louis, he passed away.

So, I'm heading back to New York on Sunday. Don't count on any postings from me anytime soon. My Mom is still on 48K dialup with Mac OS 9, and for those who aren't techies, let me translate that for you.

It sucks!!

Talk to you after the funeral and all.

Where The Hell Am I Anyway?

2005-12-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting recently.

Then again, maybe you haven't noticed.

In any case, this situation is liable to continue for a few more weeks. It's been relatively crazy with what finishing the semester, my father suffering a stroke, my wife falling and smashing up her knee, and my daughter getting back from college just in time to have four widsom teeth pulled.

It don't get any more fun than that.

In any case, I've continued my record of seeing movies that I dislike that other people then tend to say "Hey, what was wrong with that film anyway?" My usual answer is to scream "What is wrong with YOU??!!"

But then you stumble on a different movie and you feel like it is safe to go back into the theatres. I DID love BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but we saw MATADOR last night and we were really happy that we did. It's no one's idea of a heavy film, but the story of a nebbishy Greg Kinnear meeting up with master but grungy hitman Pierce Brosnan on a business trip in Mexico starts out with promise and then delivers on it. It's funny and honest, well-directed (firm hand with the actors and with style) and it rarely takes the easy way out. There were several times when I said to myself "I HOPE that he doesn't do [fill in the blank]." And then, lo and behold, he DIDN'T [fill in the blank].

Go see it and skip FAMILY STONE.

Please.

Change O'Pace

2005-11-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

This year we decided to leave the Tyranny Of The Turkey behind and we went to the Steak option for Thanksgiving dinner.

Now there's something to be thankful for.

[And how was your Thanksgiving feast? And for those of you outside the States, I apologize. And for those of you who would consider a banana a feast, I apologize.]

Low Rent

2005-11-23T14:23:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in seeing everything that could possibly go wrong with a filmed musical you must run out right away to see RENT (since it might not be around by next week). This is the film based on the hit Off-Broadway and then Broadway musical about a group of twenty-somethings who live amidst poverty, AIDS, squalor, and depression in New York City's Lower East Side in the 80s.

Instead, what we've got is a musical about a group of thirty-near-forty-somethings who live amidst very well designed lofts, AIDS, strategically placed trash, and upbeat rhyming couplets in the a set that resembles something that someone who never lived in New York City's Lower East Side in the 80s would dream of.

In short, it's taken a very Broadway-ish musical and made it even more sanitized and completely Hollywood. Every edgy idea has had its edges sanded down by MRS. DOUBTFIRE director Chris Columbus.

Now, I was a fan of the original play even though its lyrics tended to veer way too close to the "moon/June" style for my taste. It's always tough when people sing out their emotions; in the play you had to buy into the operatic theatricality of it all. Once you did, the energy came through.

Columbus, on the other hand, asks us only to buy into the fact that this was once a popular musical. His idea of choeography is, in most cases, to have people jump onto and off of tables, stages, chairs or fire escapes, while the camera swoops over and around them. There is no there there, and the characters (most of whom are way too old to be playing the starving artists they are intended to be) never rise above the artificial.

When I worked on HAIR, Milos Forman was incredibly concerned with how, in modern films, you can get the audience to accept the transition from dialogue into song -- how you get the audience to believe that a character will burst into song. THough he wasn't always completely successful, he worked very hard on those transitions to help the audience through it. Columbus not only doesn't do that, but it seems like he's not concerned with it in the least. How will people, in 2005, buy characters bursting into song in the middle of support group, or a nicely turned out loft kitchen? Well, according to him, all you need to do is start the music vamping.

Sorry Chris, it just doesn't hold up. We aren't living in 1950, and Gene Kelly didn't do the choreography for this complete mess of a film.

=================================================
UPDATE
The movie opened on 11/23 and it got lots of good reviews from what I can see. Go figure!!
=================================================

Bleary Eyed

2005-11-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

Friday night we drove out to Palm Springs (well, "drove" is really too strong a word; what we really did is get in the car and sit on the 10 Freeway, watching "drivers" in other cars sit and watch us sit in our car watching them) to pick up our new puppy. Why Palm Springs?

Well, it goes back about 12 years ago, when we got our first dog -- a Wheaten Terrier. Wheatens, in addition to being terminally cute and very good with kids (our daughter was six at the time and terrifed of dogs), are hypo allergenic. This means that they don't shed and don't have dander. This means that my wife could actually be in the same house as them.

And, did I mention that they're also terminally cute?

In any case, we got Jasper and fell in love. Ten years later, when he died, we weren't ready for another dog. But this year we felt that we might be and started badgering the breeder to reserve us another one whenever she had litter. [To be precise, she doesn't have the litter, her main dog does. But I assume you can figure out what I mean.] It took a while but, on September 3, her dog Lily had a litter and, guess what, they were terminally cute.

In any case, the breeder has (in the ensuing 12 years) moved to Palm Springs so, there we were, staring at the car in the "fast" lane this past Friday night. We eventually got out there at about 9:30pm (we had started at 3:45 but stopped off for some great Chinese food at a mall devoted only to Chinese food and stuff) and collapsed into our motel room bed.

Saturday morning, Renton was ours.

There will be no prizes for people who recognize where we got the name "Renton" from but let's just say that we have the only dog that I am aware of who is named for a drug addict. It makes for interesting conversation when the puppy isn't being terminally cute.

But Renton is, as I'm sure I mentioned, terminally cute all of the time. So we don't have to explain the name very much.

Since then, he's gotten up at 5:30 Sunday morning and 3:30 and 5:30 today. So, I'm really really looking forward to teaching until 10:30 this evening. This is me -- bleary eyed.

And, hence, the title of this post.

Audio Books and Cars

2005-11-15T20:58:00.000-08:00

Audio Books are the complete shit. Luckily, I never have to drive more than an hour at a time (I know, I know; those of you who live outside of Los Angeles are now thinking that I've officially lost my mind), but even at 30 minute distances, the only thing that beats a good mystery on an audiobook is listening to Randi Rhodes rant on Air America (I LOVE her! She's Rush on Liberal Drugs!!).

Right now, I'm listening to LINCOLN LAWYER (by Michael Connelly). Before this I did something odd for me and went non-fiction -- Joan Didion's YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING [I totally recommend this book for anyone who has lost someone close to them, or intends to.].

My tastes generally run to easy-to-put-down mysteries. Janet (my wife) likes to listen to serious books as well but I actually like to use my driving time for non-strenous stuff -- other than screaming at moronic drivers in the lanes next to me.

Speaking of driving, what is the weirdest thing you've ever seen someone do in a car? I once saw a guy chomping down on a huge meal, complete with a napkin tucked underneath his chin. Another time I saw a woman get nearly completely dressed in the car next to me. The amazing thing is, is that she went from bra and panties to completely dressed in the space of one red light (okay, it was the light at San Vicente and Wilshire which is famously long, but still...) I've heard the expression that people here in LA, live in their cars. I had no idea just how true that wasuntil I moved out here.

Random Thoughts

2005-11-15T20:45:00.000-08:00

Why is it that job offers only come the day before you're heading out of town for a short vacation?

Whose job is it to enforce the handicapped parking space laws and where the hell are they ever?

[The same goes for the people allegedly enforcing the 'NO SUV' rules in the USC parking lots.]

How come the traffic always suddenly picks up speed after I move out the lane, looking for some relief.

What do foreigners mean when they say "your president" when they all know damn well that I didn't vote for him?

More News On The March

2005-11-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

David Lynch spoke here at USC the other night about a foundation that he's involved with that helps people find TM. I missed it (I had to go home an watch... uh... what's on TV on Thursdays??) Defamer had a review of it that, frankly, didn't exactly sell it to me. Was anyone there who can tell me what really went on?

I Can't Believe I've Sunk So Low

2005-11-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is hopefully the lowest I will ever EVER sink, but I've often remarked that Paris Hilton seems to have only one look, no matter how many photos I've seen of her (and I don't even look at People magazine).

Someone got the brilliant idea to prove it. Give it a try. One warning, though. With this much concentrated Hilton face, all in one place, you might need to take a breath afterwards. Remember, put your head down in between your knees.

Ghosts of Halloween Past

2005-11-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

One sucky thing about teaching on Halloween night is that you miss all of the cute little five year olds who aren't quite sure why they're trekking around in Annakin Skywalker outfits except that a whole bunch of normally unseen neighbors keep giving them pieces of wrapped candy.

And they NEVER get that during the rest of the year.

All they have to do is yell "TRICKORTREAT!!" at the top of their lungs and shove a bag out in front of them.

The number of trick or treaters coming by our house has been declining in recent years. There is a small wave at about five o'clock -- small kids with parents who hang back on the front sidewalk while their kids stagger up to our front door, plastic pumpkins dangling from their arms. They do the ceremonial TRICKORTREAT (does anyone ever say "I'll take the trick"?), and then wait while we drop some candy or razor blades (oops, wait, I did NOT say that!!) into their receptacles. They then proceed to run back to their parents who are yelling "Say 'thank you!!'"

They sometimes do.

About two hours later, a few older kids slouch through the neighborhood and a few of them even have some good costumes.

About 10:00pm, a new wave comes through the neighborhood -- the kids of a lot of the Latina nannies in the neighborhood who, I assume, have just finished watching their charges while the parents are out drinking cider, bobbing for apples, and shooting heroin. Their treat bags and costumes have the homemade look to them, rather than the patina of something bought the week before at the local Santa Monica costume shop. The kids aren't much different than the white kids -- they still yell TRICKORTREAT and then have to be reminded to say thanks.

And then it's all over.

This year, I taught on Halloween evening. One student wore a costume and she admitted that the wings that she had wanted to bring were too big to schlep from the car.

it's just not the same.

Jobs Jobs Jobs

2005-10-31T08:51:00.000-08:00

I occasionally get requests for recommendations for editorial job positions. Two just crossed my desk for people with well defined skills.

One is for an assistant editor in LA for a Brazilian arts documentary. They say "assistant" but want a person with a laptop with Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD.

The other job is for a Portuguese Subtitle Editor with DVD Studio Pro or similar.

Anyone interested? It works for me if I know you so I could recommend without fear.

Flying By The Seat of...

2005-10-30T13:56:00.000-08:00

Years ago I suppose it meant something when they called them airliners, since the service they gave you reminded you of the service you got on ocean liners. They fed you, they entertained you, they let you walk around and bother other passengers.

In general, a good deal.

Nowadays, I'd use another word in there - airbusses. Because they remind me of busses, in particular the M5 bus that I used to take from Lincoln Center to Soho -- that is, packed, uncomfortable, and without any of the amenities that those foolish overpaying people in limousines would have.

Having just spent two successive weekends on two airbus flights -- one to New York and this past few days to Salt Lake City -- I can tell you that anyone who says they enjoy flying is either on drugs or, more likely, on drugs and in first class. There is no food, no entertainment without tons of commercials, and there is no moving around the cabin, unless you want to fight the little food carts that fill up the teeny-tiny aisles and which seem to have no use whatsoever -- since they don't dispense food, only tiny packets with a few ounces of baked carbohydrates with salt inside them.

The only trick that I've discovered to help me out is to do your e-ticket check in at the airport and, when offered the opportunity to change seats, to press YES. This will usually give you a little map of the airbus with its empty seats all conveniently marked. I can then choose the aisle seat that is surrounded by as many empty seats as there are.

Of course, this only works if there are empty seats.

Oh, by the way, that picture at the top there is a shot of a little stream at the Sundance Resort where the conference I was attending was held (it's taken by my very low resolution Treo phone, so I apologize for that). There is something very weird about getting off a crowded airplane, hopping a shuttle van and then ending up in a place like this. Weird, but definitely good.

An Interesting Day (though not an interesting posting title)

2005-10-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's an interesting day today, and that has nothing to do with me leaving for Utah for the HD conference.

Nope. The White Sox won the World Series last night by one run, but still in nine innings. And this morning, Harriet Miers withdrew her name for the nomination as Associate Justice for the Supreme Court.

[The two pictures I've chosen to illustrate this posting also raise interesting questions. Does Miers always have that happy deer-in-the-headlights look? And, if so, is that the reason she wrote those puppy-postcards to Bush years ago? And, secondly, if professional sports like Major League Baseball are supposed to be manly-man endeavors, why is there so much butt-slapping and bear-hugging in it? We should maybe think of that, the next time we hear any gay-bashing from, oh let's say, pro football players.]

In both cases I await what happens next -- will Chicago do it again or was it a fluke? And, even more puzzling, just what sort of horror nomination will we get next?

Maybe on Friday we'll get some juicy indictments to keep this amazing Movie of Life interesting.

High Def, USC and Me

2005-10-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

I've been out of commission for a week or so and will probably continue to be so for a bit because I've been back East for a long weekend to see my daughter at college (Parents' Day is a pretty cool invention) and am going up to the Sundance Institute this Thursday to take part in a small symposium on HD in Education. Should we do it? What are the problems with doing it? What are the options?

At USC, we are slowly dipping our toes into the HD world. It's an expensive proposition, even with two cameras that were dropped on us by Sony. The rest of world is still figuring out how best to deal with HD and even which flavor of HD they like. We're no different, except with a hell of a lot less money.

For a bit, it looked like HDV would be one way to deal with it. Cheaper cameras, Final Cut and Avid both handle it sort of natively. But Sony's 24p -- frames per second -- looks terrible, so it would be difficult to use HDV to teach a real HD workflow (for those of you who don't know -- "workflow" is the buzzword of 2005; last year it was "collaboration", this year it's "workflow"). We'd still have to invest in decks and upgrading most of the Avids we've got.

So, we're back to looking at HD. The F900 type (for those of you who know what I'm talking about, congratulations, since I don't). Maybe I'll pick up some real knowledge this weekend.

In the meantime, don't expect me to be very contributive. Just click on some of the good people's links over there to your left.

I'm No Sports Fan But...

2005-10-15T19:09:00.000-07:00

As anyone who knows me can attest, I was born without the male sports gene. I like baseball (I even like going to games) but sports, in general, fails to grab me in the way that cause me anxiety if I can't watch NFL games on Sunday (to wit, I'm driving to Palm Springs tomorrow to choose our new puppy!!!). (Yep, there's that silly missing chromosome thing again).

So, I was at school today, participating in a rather great class in my television course (a working AD -- from the late SIX FEET UNDER -- came and walked the class through the actual blocking and set-up and shooting of a scene) and, as I was leaving, I walked through the lobby with the Big Ole Television Set, which was set to the USC/Notre Dame game. Notre Dame had just scored with two minutes left in the game and the crowd was going insane.

So, I hop in the car to listen to the unbelievable ending to the game and had to pull over to the side to listen as USC won with a touchdown in the last seven seconds, after the Notre Dame fans had been misled by a non-stopped game clock to think that they had won.

I'm still going to Palm Springs tomorrow, but I did feel a bit of either that missing gene or USC Trojan spirit in there.

Movie Cliches

2005-10-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

Do you want to read something funny? Do you want to read something sad? Do you want to read something true?

The Movie Cliches List presents almost every movie cliche that you've ever commented on while you staggered around inebriated after a debauched video party.

Some examples:

Evil geniuses who devise bombs to destroy things/people always have them detonate after at least an hour, giving the hero ample time to defuse it.
When you are alone in the back seat of the car, make sure you sit in the middle.
Asteroids are discovered by astronomers peering directly through their telescopes in brightly lit observatories. Whatever they see will appear on computer monitors, however.
A cup of black coffee/splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second
Movie passengers either don't pay cabs at all, or have the exact change. Same is true in restaurants. Checks are always designed to be 15 percent under the bills the male costumer has in his hands first.

There's more, but it would be unfair to give them all away. Click on the link to the left in my section cleverly labelled "Links" to see the whole list.

And How Do You Like Show Biz Now?

2005-10-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Peggy Archer writes a blog that, despite her protestations, is an interesting look behind the scenes at the way that film and television is actually made. She is a crew member (electrician) who floats through shows like BONES and GREY'S ANATOMY and features.

In today's entry she reminds people that filmmaking isn't really as glamorous as everyone thinks it is. She talks about the endless waiting that is involved in filmmaking. A quote -

I blog about stuff that happens to me - but there's a lot of time in between that stuff, and most of it's spent waiting.

Waiting for talent.
Waiting on camera.
Waiting on lunch.
Waiting to see if they're going to move on.
Waiting for the AD's to call 'cut' so I can turn the page of the newspaper.
Waiting on the sun to go down so we can light the night exterior.
Waiting for no fucking reason at all.

Even rigging (setting up for the shooting crew) involves waiting:

Waiting to be let into the location.
Waiting for equipment to be delivered.
Waiting on the truck to show up so we can load it.
Waiting for the rigging gaffer to tell us what to do.
Waiting for the guys 'up high' to send the rope back down so we can tie on another load of cable.
Waiting on paperwork from the rental house.

I'd say that, on average, about 70% of my day is spent waiting.

This difference between perception and reality comes up even in the editing room. There is, in fact, usually one moment during the course of the post production process when we're sitting in an editing room or outside a lab at 2am, waiting for something to happen... or hauling a print of a film out of a preview theatre in Bumfuck, Ohio at midnight after we've sat around listening to the brilliant filmgoers tell the focus group leader just what was wrong in Act 3... or whatever...

But there's usually one moment where I turn to the director or producer or studio person or my assistant and say "So, how do you like show biz now?"

Zone Out Time

2005-10-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

There's this great reverse fountain that sits right outside of the Norris Theatre here at USC where the water doesn't shoot up in the air, but gets sucked down into a vast cavernous somewhere. I know that there's also one like this at UCLA, but I've never hung out around that one. I do hang out at the USC anti-fountain at times when I'm looking for a great introspective moment.

At times I wonder if this isn't some giant metaphor for the film business or for the education business (you take your pick). You know, things start out visible and within reach. But then, as things progress, they inevitably recede further and further from view, down and down into some unknowable anus-like pit.

Hmmm, maybe I should be introspective a bit less.

In any case, it makes me wonder just what the point of the fountain is. I've always considered water a rather magical element. I've spent an absurd amount of time staring at waterfalls and watching the patterns of the cascading water. I often drive over to the Pacific Ocean, a few blocks from my house, just to look out at the water from the Santa Monica Bluffs. I love the sound and the visuals of moving water (and it pretty much always moves -- even when it's sitting in the bath). If I sit at the painfully uncomfotable concrete top of the anti-fountain I can hear the rustling of the water. But if I sit a short distance away, I can neither hear it nor see it.

Now, maybe, THAT'S the metaphor.

File This Under "Say What?"

2005-10-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Walking onto campus this morning I saw a student stroll by, cell phone in hand, wearing a down jacket (a very nice, clean white one to be sure). Now, this strikes me as a little puzzling in 60 degree weather. However, maybe she was just cold. That's possible.

If so, though, why was she wearing flip-flops? Am I missing something here? Do toes stay warmer longer than our torsos?

Panoramio -- Cool Photo/Mapping Site

2005-10-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Panoramio is a site that uses the extremely cool Google Maps function (you can actually see maps and satellite photos of the Earth using Google Maps) to create a link between people's uploaded pictures and the location that they were taken at.

I haven't yet found a way to make the site very accurate (I haven't been able to put separate IDs for pictures taken in Amman, Jordan versus Petra, Jordan for instance) and I'm not sure how it's going to work when there are thousands of pictures. But I'm still experimenting.

The possibilities for location scouting are huge.

Go... uh... Trojans!

2005-10-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

I've been serving this year on the Executive Board of the Academic Senate, which is basically the group that serves as representatives for all of the faculty at USC. We meet every week and deal with all sorts of issues which, while they take two hours to go through, would generally bore you to absolute tears.

So I'll skip that description.

It's not all work though. As an Executive Board member, I keep on getting invited to USC events, which explains why I am up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, getting ready to go to the USC/Arizona football game.

Now, I should probably explain that after the World Series is over, I pretty much retire from caring about sports in general. Hockey? What the hell is that? Basketball? Yeah, that's the one with tall people, right? Football? Oddly shaped ball being tossed about by genetic mutants.

College football? See ya.

The joke is that at the USC Cinema school the only time we know when there's a USC football game is when we find it impossible to park on campus.

Now, I'm not a complete ignoramus about the unfortunately named Trojans football team. It would be hard to stay that way since they have the most unbelievable record since Moses. But I've never been to a Trojans game. In fact, I've never been to a football game of any kind in my entire life.

Until today.

I'll keep you posted. I'm told the seats are good (I am, after all, on the Executive Board). I'm hoping that it will be fun, and one of the Provosts has told me that she'll give me explanations about the strategy. So I'll learn as well.

I just hope that they win. It would totally suck if my first game jinxed them. And this is the USC 125th Anniversary game weekend!!

Peter, Can You Hear Me?

2005-10-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

Pete Townsend has a blog.

That's right. Pete-fucking-Townsend (of The Who -- you know -- TOMMY, "Magic Bus", WHO'S NEXT?) has a blog. Right now he's serializing a book of his called THE BOY WHO HEARD MUSIC which I have yet to read, but I am incredibly intrigued with a blog whose bio reads something like this:

What is well known is that I'm a rock star. You are not worthy etc. In fact you are worthy. And so am I. We deserve each other.

How about that for a sensahumor?

How Cool Is This?

2005-10-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

The web site Literature-Map will take an author that you enter and map him/her to similar writers (similar in that it looks for writers that are read by the same people who read your selected writer). You can then click on the other writers' names and get taken to their related writers.

Check out Chuck Pahlaniuk, for instance.

And How Was YOUR Weekend?

2005-10-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

Friday night -- a moron in his Hummer decided to stop in the middle of the street so that his Trophy Wife could unload (or unload, it was immaterial to me) her important Montana Avenue shopping purchases. The fact that a line of cars quickly developed behind said Hummer was of absolutely no concern to either of them. The fact that I was in the line was of a lot of concern to me.

Saturday -- An all day conference at school was made particularly wonderful by the fact that there was fifteen minute line of cars simply to get in the front gate at USC. At first I thought that there must be a USC home game happening, but when I saw that the parking was only seven bucks I realized that even I wasn't that far out of the loop.

Saturday night -- going to a friend's house in Hollywood (it is actually really cool living right north of Hollywood Blvd.) I made the mistake of driving up Sunset Blvd. At 7pm. Everyone on the street had either just arrived from that morning's park-in at USC, or had taken one-on-one instructions from Friday night's Hummer driver. Sunset was ridiculous.

Sunday -- What is with the Bally's in West LA anyway? Do they purposely schedule every one else to come right as I pull up outside. It's not like I don't need the exercise, so why do they make it so easy to say "Man, there are way too many people lined up for that stationery bicycle so maybe I'll just leave and go to the Baskin-Robbins down the street.

(I know that there isn't really a Baskin-Robbins down the street, I'm being rhetorical here).

And then tonight's CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM episode totally sucked wind. Like last week's. (Has it jumped the shark already??).

And how was your weekend, folks?

CAPOTE -- Sure to be a contenda

2005-10-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

CAPOTE is one of those types of movies that I'm supposed to like a lot more than I do. It's got one of those "You're so going to give me an Oscar nomination" performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote (one of the most influential writers of the 1960s in America), it's about a troubled part of this troubled artist's life as he struggles with his own internal demons (Internal Demons are a great ticket to the Oscar ceremonies, by the way), and it has images of the American Heartland and Chris Cooper in it.

So how come I didn't like it as much as everyone else says I should have?

Well, for one thing, the script does this annoying thing that always drives me insane when I see it in movies. It moves relatively straighforwardly from scene to scene, with each scene making one obvious plot point before moving on. There's remarkably little depth to the writing.

Then, it's got the other thing that drives me up the maddening tree -- a shape with very little shape at all. Every scene screams out how important it is and, as anyone who has ever listened to me rant about The Rule of Threes can testify, I think that if Everything Is Important, than Nothing Is Important (could I possibly put more Words In Capitals??).

In fact, if there was another name on the credits I'd swear that an actor directed this movie because actors who direct tend to think that Acting Moments have to come at you fast and furiously so the audience gets it.

Catherine Keener, by the way, does really well in a terribly underutilized way.

Hello Visitor From Jordan!!

2005-10-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

According to my Site Meter, I've gotten at least one visitor from Jordan, which warms my already overburned heart appreciably.

You can't rest yet!! I'm hoping to come back in the Spring!!

First Look starts tonight

2005-09-27T18:11:00.000-07:00

Every semester, USC runs a number of their alumnae's films at a festival called First Look, to which they invite agents, studio people, etc. Occasionally, some show up.

The first night is tonight. The program is here. If you can come, give it a shot. I'll try and talk about it in a future post.

Photos and History

2005-09-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

The Steven Shore exhibit of photographs at the Hammer Museum is truly extraordinary and you should get there before October 16 when it ends. It has some amazing photos of landscapes of desolation, and a sense of a biography of history which is, at times, truly compelling.

An interesting sidenote -- there's a 1975 photo taken at the corner of LaBrea and Berverly Blvd, a "not very easy to see" copy of which is at the left (click it to see the original).. here in Los Angeles. A gas station there advertises gas at 58 cents a gallon. A McDonald's sign across the street appears to advertise a burger for 85 cents. Hmmm, I guess only ceertain types of chemicals go up in price, eh?

Whose Up?

2005-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

According to my site stats, a large number of you (well... "number" is the wrong word; I really should say "large percentage") are signing on at 3am to read my blog.

What the hell is wrong with you? My feeling is that if you are actually awake at 3am, you'd better be doing some alot more interesting than reading my blog!

Really!

Movie Review (of a sort)

2005-09-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

PROOF does not suck. In fact, it's got two really great performances -- Gwyneth Paltrow and Hope Davis, who both inhabit their roles in completely believable ways. The film suffers from its theatre roots, but that's just carping. It's worth seeing for Paltrow's mannerisms alone.

The Good Times Keeps A-Rollin'

2005-09-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

So the good news, according to Bush, is that we're not going to have to face increased taxes to pay for the Katrina Kleanup. He said that "he would look elsewhere in the budget to make offsetting cuts" (according to Reuters).

Like programs for the poor and needy, no doubt?

The Bush giveth and the Bush taketh away.

Stuck In Between Two Cultures

2005-09-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Without Either Dictionary

I spent an interesting evening last night at the motion picture Academy, where they were running a Preferred Director's Cut of the 1975 Michalangelo Antonioni film THE PASSENGER, which has been restored by Sony Classics for a relase in October. The evening was hosted by USC's own Marhsa Kinder, and featured a panel discussion of sorts with Antonioni (who, because of stroke ten or so years ago, could not talk), his wife and the movie's star, Jack Nicholson.

And that, my friends, is where the "fun" happened.

As anyone who has talked with Marsha can testify, she is one of the brightest, more comprehensive and holistic thinkers around. If I leave a conversation with her understanding 25% of what she's said, I consider myself elevated. She's also turned me on to an absolutely incredible Spanish film, TRAIN OF SHADOWS, a rumination on what is real in film and how editing can manipulate that sense.

Jack Nicholson, on the other hand, comes from a different land, a world in which you feel your responses to things so you can perform them. If you talk about them later (and I get the feeling that he's really good at that -- as good as Marsha is about discussions about the intellectual impact of films), you do so over a scotch or something more illegal.

The two approaches were bound to conflict and they did with results both horrifying and humorous. By the end, the audience wasn't sure whether to laugh, boo, or cry.

The evening started off well enough with Marsha's speech about Antonioni and his career. It then followed with a thunderous standing ovation as the panelists came out and the crowd showed Antonioni their appreciation for his films and his presence at the Academy. Marsha then asked Antonioni's wife a few questions which were answered with feeling and brio.

Then Marsha asked Nicholson a question. He answered with an entertaining but completely rambling (I want some of whatever he's smoking) set of memories of his fun times with the director. Marsha looked petrified at points, unsure whether to stop this stream of consciousness. It was horrific on one hand (it certainly could have used some control) but the audience was laughing.

Eventually he asked whether he was going on too long and Antonioni and his wife basically told him "Yeah, shut the fuck up already."

Then Marsh did the unthinkable. She asked him another question "Why has this film not been widely shown in the previous 30 years?" (that's not an exact quote, but you get the idea). I suspect that she knew something about Nicholson's participation in holding back release and he seemed to acknowledge as much as he haltingly started to answer the question.

And then he decided "Hell with this" and proceeded to rambling again, this time with a tone which seemed to condemn the question and questioner. It was embarrassing and the audience was less entertained than before.

Eventually, after trying to cut off the questioning several times, Marsha finally announced that we had to start the movie and the audience applauded -- as much to show their relief that the torture was over, as well as to reiterate their admiration for the director.

It was an interesting evening, made all the more bizarre by the fact that President Bush's speech from the Gulf War, uh -- Disaster, Zone.

I was everywhere without a dictionary last night.

New Orleans Photo Album

2005-09-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

My friend, Matt Kiernan, sent along this link from a Kodak Picture Gallery site (you may need to register in order to see them). The owner is a New Orleans resident who took a ton of photos around the New Orleans hotel where he worked and the city in general over the five days before and after the hurricane.

The pictures show a contrast between the day when they thought they had escaped the worst of the hurricane and the next day, when they began to realize that they were being flooded.

Great LA Bumper Stickers - Part 3

2005-09-07T11:48:00.000-07:00

Here's another unreadable bumper sticker (thanks Treo Cam!!). For the 100% of you who can't read it, it says "Somewhere in Texas there's a village missing an idiot."

Great LA Bumper Stickers - Part 2

2005-09-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

Don't know if you can see it or not, but there's a bumper sticker on the back of that car in front of me which reads "Republicans for Voldemort"

Is there anything more to say?

I Am Reviewed In Russian

2005-09-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Came across a review of a film that I edited, MAD DOG TIME (starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jeff Goldblum and directed by Larry Bishop), in a Russian blog. Curious, I pasted the text into the Alta Vista translation engine and it gave me this.

Dreyfus in the role of Vicat, who left psikhlechebnitsy of the owner of the luxurious restaurant, which serves as cover for the organized criminality. All people of its environment, which consists of different coat and different-calibre mafiozi, awaited this moment in order to begin war for the authority. From entire this composition it is allotted To miki Of khollidey (Goldblyum). The action is developed around two sisters, to which experience the tender feelings of vetches and Mik. they thunder the shots, fall the bodies, riddled by bullets, but to receive this picture in earnest as gangster fighter or drama it does not stand. These are the stylized irony, almost theatrical production on the face of farce, in which the most reckless proves to be most sober-minded. Of lerri Bishop made the original cinema, entertaining and simultaneously which gives occasion to think over.

Hmmm, sounds like a good review to me.

These Poles Just Jumped RIGHT Out At Me!!

2005-09-04T15:05:00.000-07:00

Somehow, in the weeks before I left for Jordan in June, I must have temporarily lost either my mind or my sense of spatial relationships. One day I was pulling out of a rather tight parking space at the underground parking lot at my haircutters and one of those huge cement poles that hold up the ceiling just jumped right out and smashed into the right side of my car.

Four or five days later, I was backing out of a spot in a little mini-mall and one of those small painted poles that are put there to... well... to do... damned if I know why they're there. Well, one of those poles jumped out and smashed into the left side of my car.

I've never had this happen before and it hasn't happened since. Was it something in the air? Did the stars align badly? Have they been shrinking the width of parking spaces (I KNOW they're doing that at USC!!)?

In any case, I'm thinking of checking out the prices for getting the various parts of my car repaired. I've got insurance that will cover some of it, but how do I explain it to the insurance guy: "Well, you see, these poles just jumped RIGHT out at me."

"Twice"

"In the same week."

"Do you want to put the straightjacket on now or later?"

Redefinition

2005-09-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

I submit that, in the future, instead of referring to certain city areas as "poor neighborhoods" that we now say "neighborhoods that we'll get to when we're damn ready after a disaster".

Just a thought.

Katrina Help Sites

2005-09-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

Here, borrowed from the CNN web site (there are more organizations listed there), are a list of sites that you can click through or call to donate money to support the victims of Katrina. I don't know which ones pass through more of your money than others. Let me know if you know. Some sites may respond slowly due to hopefully increased traffic.

• Network for Good

• American Red Cross -- (800) HELP-NOW

• Feed the Children -- (800) 525-7575

• Salvation Army -- (800) SAL-ARMY

• America's Second Harvest -- (877) 817-2307

• Catholic Charities USA -- (800) 919-9338

• B'nai B'rith International -- (888) 388-4224

• MercyCorps -- (800) 852-2100

• Habitat for Humanity -- (866) 720-2800

• The United Way -- (800) 272-4630

• The Baton Rouge Area Foundation -- (877) 387-6126

• Society of St. Vincent de Paul

• Samaritan’s Purse -- (800) 665-2843

• Save the Children -- (800) 728-3843

• International Medical Corps -- (800) 481-4462

• American Friends Service Committee -- (888) 588-2378

• AmeriCares -- (800) 486-4357

• International Aid -- (800) 251-2502

• International Medical Corps -- (800) 481-4462

• Moveon.org: Hurricane housing

Katrina In The Blog World

2005-09-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

The hurricane in Louisiana, Mississippi and other areas of the South is so unblievable that it takes me back all the way to... oh... this past December, when I was watching the tsunami coverage. Or, perhaps, to any given day on television while watching the devastation in the Middle East. We sure are living in upsetting times.

Amanda, at the blog VERY ZEN, writes today about what it was like in Hattiesburg and what it's like now. Here is one measly quote:

Things are very post apocolyptic in Hattiesburg right now. It is so hot I can’t even describe it. There is no running water anywhere, no bottled water anywhere, no power, no gasoline, etc. People are starting to get a little nuts.

Go read it, and go contribute to the Red Cross or some other charity that will get the money to the area RIGHT AWAY.

Here, at USC, we've received word that Tulane University has asked other AAU universities to help out with their students, who won't be able to go to classes for months. Some options are to accept a few of their students into our classes for this semester, or to open up some of our distance learning classes to them. I'll keep you posted on this, but it's good to be able to pitch in and help.

Okay, No More Politics

2005-08-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

For a while.

There aren't many sure things in life. You know that all of us will die at some point. You know that reality television is going to continue to suck and get better ratings than documentaries. And you also know that my comment log will drop to zero whenever I do a post about politics.

So... the people have spoken (or at least the four of you who read the blog). No more political postings.

For now.

Conspicuous Consumption

2005-08-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the oil companies.

In this era of rising gasoline prices (we topped three bucks a gallon in some places here -- if this keeps up we'll soon be up to Europe in our prices) and an acknowledged stretching of oil resources, it's so comforting to know that we can rely on our Fantastic Oil Companies to look our for our conservation needs.

I pulled into a local off-brand gas station on Thursday to pump my weekly forty buck allotment of gas and found this sign sitting on top of the pump. It's so wonderful to see the idea of conservation taking root in our culture, isn't it? Hey, why stop at one gas guzzler when you could get a dozen? There are so many families who have absolute, strong, obvious needs for twelve cars that this promotion makes a of sense.

To move out of satiric mode, just what the hell were they thinking? Other than satisfying the American need for bigger, more obnoxious excess, I can't figure out why anyone would be captivated by this. Twelve cars? Gifts for the relatives (who won't have to pay the gift tax?)?

While you're mulling this over, take a look at this article from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It talks about how we've probably passed the point of no return in regards to our dependence on oil. Peter Maas says the following:

Yet the problem is far greater than the brief havoc that could be wrought by a speeding zealot with 50 pounds of TNT in the trunk of his car. Concerns are being voiced by some oil experts that Saudi Arabia and other producers may, in the near future, be unable to meet rising world demand. The producers are not running out of oil, not yet, but their decades-old reservoirs are not as full and geologically spry as they used to be, and they may be incapable of producing, on a daily basis, the increasing volumes of oil that the world requires. ''One thing is clear,'' warns Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, in a series of new advertisements, ''the era of easy oil is over.''

Think about that while waiting for your dozen cars to come in.

Let's Coin A New Word and Spread It Over The Net, Okay?

2005-08-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

You know how there's the expression vaporware for software that's promised but not available yet. Well, yesterday I'm out at lunch with a few people from my Internet gig at Universal Music and we're talking about the company's software that can watch your keystrokes, and what files you're saving on your computer and when you sign-on etc. etc. etc. Robert gave it a name that I think is so appropriate that we should make sure that everyone on the Net uses this expression within a month.

Godware.

You heard it here first. Godware. Spread it around.

For All Of You Who Have NEVER Been In A Relationship -- You Can Skip To The Next Blog

2005-08-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

Heather Armstrong, over in her blog DOOCE, today describes a Married Person Fight that is so traditional, so typical, that it should be republished in every single book on marriage and relationships that is sold in bookstores or online. She should donate it to the curriculum of every class on human relationships in every school in the world. She should force every person who sits across the table, dreamy-eyed on a first date, to read the things before offering to drive the other one back to their place for drinks.

Have I made myself clear? Clink on the link people. Click it now before you impale yourself on a sharp object after your next fight with your "I'm Not Sure Why You're Called 'Significant Other'."

Yes, even you Tamara.

Let's Make A Deal, Okay?

2005-08-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I promise that if you stop asking me "Was it safe in Jordan?" that I'll stop forcing you to look at my pictures of Jordan on my Flickr site. Okay?

I never for one single millisecond felt in danger in Jordan. Not in the big capital city of Amman, not in the tourist towns of Petra and Wadi Rum, and not in the Bedouin camp where we watched the Bedouin Arts Festival.

Not one single second. Okay?

Classes Start Today

2005-08-22T16:22:00.000-07:00

Every year, about this time, since I've been teaching at USC (only about three years full-time) I get this tickle in my stomach. It's part excitement (like going on your first ferris wheel) and part fear (like going on your first ferris wheel) (hmmmm) and it always coincides with the first week of classes.

I know that I'm supposed to be real grown-up about this, and move forward calmly and with great aplomb (I have horrific visions of what an "aplomb" actually is, but I won't torture you with them now -- you'll have to beg). But I find teaching here so exciting, and the students so damned bright, that I always have to think twice before stepping out into class on the first day.

Tonight I am back to teaching one of my favorite classes -- the graduate class which is laughingly called "Intermediate Editing." Actually, it's more like Basic Editing. Now that everyone has got their Final Cut, iMovie or Avid Xpress Pro systems at home or in high school, everybody thinks they know everything they need to know about editing when they walk in the door. Au contraire!! What they know about editing falls more under the category of "putting shots together." The actual "how to think like an editor" doesn't happen until this class. It's actually powerfully fun, and if the students weren't so smart, I'd probably hate it. But, as it is, I get to know 12 really interesting people who all are incredibly passionate about making films.

I LOVE my work.

Speaking of passion in filmmaking I would run, not walk, to the theatres when THE CONSTANT GARDENER opens in a week or two. I was fortunate enough to be able to see a screening of this on Saturday, and it is a very powerful, very well-made film by the director of CITY OF GOD. It concerns a staid British diplomat in Kenya who is married to a very passionate woman who finds a "cause" there. He knows he loves her, but he doesn't know what that means and he certainly doesn't know why. After her death (and I am not giving anything away by mentioning that; it's in the first minutes of the film) he begins to find out the answers to both of those things and the film evolves into an extremely plausible thriller that comes from the John Le Carre novel from which the film was born.

Told very much though his point of view (not literally, but emotionally, the film puts us squarely in the middle of his personality and his personality changes. The filmmaking is consistently interesting, Claire Simpson's editing is poetic and demanding all at the same time (those of you who recall the twists and turns in time of CITY OF GOD will find this film simpler but just as interesting to follow), and the performances are all excellent, down to the day players.

Wonderful work. Let's all make movies like this.

Michael Bay Protests MARCH OF THE PENGUINS

2005-08-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

This article from THE ONION about says it all. For those of you who don't know THE ONION (where have you been, by the way?) you should take the authorship here with a major rock of salt. However, it does have some fantastic lines.

For Christ's sake, there was not a single crane shot in the whole movie!

This film is an insult to the great men and women who spend countless hours in front of computers creating incredibly realistic CGI icebergs.

What kind of a world do we live in when a futuristic techno-thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as escaped clones on levitating jet bikes doesn't outgross the shit out of a glorified Discovery Channel rerun? Don't people realize how much money I spent? How many people it took to bring that vision to the screen? Do people realize how many rewrites and punch-ups we went through? I paid my writers millions of dollars, and they were some of the best in the biz. You know who wrote their script? A bunch of birds.

Dig in campers, it's worth the read.

Warning! Political Rant Dead Ahead

2005-08-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

So here's a question for you? What left-wing nutjobbers created the scene to the left? What pinko fruitcake/s ran over crosses adorned with American flags with a truck?

Who? Who? Who? Inquiring minds want to know.

The answer may or may not surprise you, depending on how closely you've been following the level of political discourse that's been going on in our country the last decade or so. The answer is that it was a disgruntled Texas native who, upset at Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside the Texas vacation home of George W. Bush (she has been camping out there, asking for Bush to come out and tell her what the "noble cause" was that her recently killed son was fighting for in Iraq).

That's right. Not to paint the perpetrator into a corner but... don't these eight-wing nutjobs believe in the cross and the American flag. Or is it only their crosses and flags that they care about?

Hmm, is that a rhetorical question?

Jordan Post #6

2005-08-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

Amman Vegetable Market
Originally uploaded by Schnittman.

Unfortunately for me, all of my Jordan posts will now have to be done from here in the USofA. I got back on Friday night and have spent the last few days, alternately sleeping and trying to see people before I head off to Chicago this morning (Monday) for a conference.

The last week in Amman was completely hectic, with the students completing their films (some of which were quite wonderful, and all of which were impressive considering how much they learned in less than three weeks). Then there was the screening, the wrap party and the after party. At my age, going clubbing is not usually an option, but somehow I found myself in the middle of Nai, on my last night, pogo-ing around. Since my cab to the airport was at 5am, the idea was to keep me up until I had to leave.

It worked. I barely had time for a shower (there was NO WAY I was going to get on the plane drenched in sweat) after an evening of dancing and hubbly-bubbling, that included a party at the top of Amman, in the 200 year old Citadel.

Some pictures may follow, though I didn't really take many worth saving.

In any case, I'm off to Chicago in 60 minutes, so I'll talk to you from there.

Jordan Post #5

2005-07-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

No pictures of my own (the one on the right is borrowed from Mansour Mouasher's web site), but I went (with Vachon and Ed) to a country fair right outside of Amman the other night. Well, they don't call it a country fair (it's called "Global Village"), but that's what it is, if you combine it with a small World's Fair as well.

There were large tents for each of the many countries that were participating and many things went on inside. Kuwait had a tent which showed how they were developing and using their resources wisely. Syria had a tent (remember, these were really large tents -- think a circus Big Top or CARNIVALE) in which they sold you tons of stuff -- mostly cheap tourist things, but also candies and funny dolls. India also had mostly hucksters -- Old Navy leather jackets for 60JD (about 100 bucks) since I assume they actually manufacture most of that stuff. There was a hilarious area where the guy was selling slicing and dicing machines like you see on late night television. And there was a kiddie tent. Jordan's tent sold, like every other place in Jordan, bottles of sand art. Interesting, but it creeps me out whenever I realize I'm thinking of buying one. One step above "My Daddy Went To Jordan and All He Got Me Was This Lousy Tee Shirt" shirts.

The program is winding down from a chronological point of view, but it's really heating up from the editing side. The students came in yesterday depressed as hell about what they were unable to get on the set -- one or two of them had actors that left in the middle of the shoot, another one had her actor goldfish die before shooting, a third was stopped by the police, and on and on. By the end of the day most of them were feeling better about their work, as they began to piece their films together. We have first cut screenings tomorrow (Tuesday) and our final screening at 8pm on Thursday night. After that we head out to the Citadel (the picture on the left gives you a little idea about it), an attraction I have not yet been to see, though it is visible from our classroom windows.

Four more days and then I'm gone. Hopefully, I can come back and continue the work we've started here.

Jordan - Post #4

2005-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

Amman is a never-ending source of surprises. Today I got in the cab to come to class and ended up discussing politics with him. He is a Palestinian who isn't angry at American policies but is horribly sad that his father's house and livelihood disappeared when Israel was created in 1948, pushing them off their land. He talked about how, back then, there was no separate Palestine and Jordan, everybody considered everyone else a countryman, and people easily moved back and forth.

That is, of course, all gone.

We've had some interesting discussions with the students about politics. All of them feel that Bush's policies are making things work, but they're not as angry at him as we are in the States. One of them, Ahmad (see the picture on the right), feels that if the US had never come in, the Iraqis would be killing each other. If they pull out now, the Iraqis will be killing each other. And if we stay, they'll still be killing each other. He still feels that the oil politics are terrible and that innocent people die because of them, but that there are some things that are intractable.

As for the rest of my stay, it is sad to realize that it will all come to an end here at the end of the week -- in a mere four days. The students started editing today and we watched clips from a number of movies that were all about how re-editing works. They all began the day upset about what they didn't do in their films. By the end of the day, they were feeling more encouraged.

It's exciting and sad all at the same time, to be coming to an end of this. I'd love to come back again. I hope I can.

Jordan Post #3

2005-07-21T06:32:00.000-07:00

Down a Staircase in Amman
Originally uploaded by Schnittman.

I am ending the second week here in Jordan, busier than ever but disappointed that the time has gone so quickly. The students are out shooting their film today (they have today, tomorrow and Saturday to get their two half-days of shooting done).

It hardly seems possible that we only got here two weeks ago and that we leave in another week. The students have learned so much and I have mixed feelings about the experience. First, I feel that I haven't done very much learning on my own. I've been to Petra and have seen some places that I've never seen before in my life, but I wonder if I'm any closer to learning as much about this city and its people, as the students have learned about filmmaking. On the other hand, I've absolutely fallen in love with the class and the students. We have our big screening a week from today -- Thursday night at some Top Secret Location that I'll probably have to be blindfolded and driven up to. Seven days. Seven days to shoot and edit what have turned into some very personal filmed statements.

To the left, if your margins look something like mine, is a picture specifically designed for Joe. Whenever we're over at his house, THE GODFATHER seems to be playing on the cable. Well... the other day (one of my first in Jordan) I popped on the television and what do I see? The image to the left (I hope), complete with Arabic subtitles.

Finally, I've got one more photo lying around here that I have to upload -- the view of Amman from close to the classroom. The building that the classes are in is an old house, which is famed for once having belonged to a high government official who hanged himself. The students pointed out which ceiling hooks he used for the act, but they all pointed out different ones in different rooms, so I'm taking that with a boulder or two of salt.

In any case, the picture is of rooftops near the downtown area of Amman and it's one of the things that keeps us sane when we've been teaching or learning for eight straight hours. A sky as clear as... well... whatever's supposed to be clear. You don't even see the 95 degree heat rippling in the air. It's quite a wonderful site and one I am sure I will miss when I'm back in Lost Angeles.

I'll keep you posted.

Jordan Post #2

2005-07-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

Doing The Tourist Thing At Petra
Originally uploaded by Schnittman.

We celebrated the end of our first week here by taking our only day off (Friday) and taking a three-hour trip down to Petra, one of the most magnificent cities that I've ever walked around.

It's over 2000 years old and is so full of detailed workmanship, and engineering and artistic brilliance, that it must humble anyone living in Los Angeles today (well... actually, anyone today).

I've got over 100 pictures that I took yesterday and, after I sift through them and toss away the crap, I'll upload a few more.

In the meantime, the class is spectacular -- the students are incredibly motivated and, for the most part, talented. Helaine, Tom and I are continually tweaking the curriculum as we find out that the students can handle more than we thought. At the end of this week, they shoot their big film!!

I'll keep you posted.

Jordan -- Post #1

2005-07-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

I don't yet have many photographs of Jordan to upload since I haven't had access to my computer and the net. Nor because they don't have access, but because the price of high-speed internet access in my hotel (the lovely Bristol Hotel aka Holiday Inn Amman) is 35 Jordanian Dinar a night. That's over $50. Should I say that again? FIFTY DAMNED DOLLARS We've asked them who would be so stupid as to pay over fifty bucks a night and their answer was "You'd be surprised. Besides, the Sheraton charges 40 JD."

That's convincing.

These are some of the students attending the very first day of the very first production workshop run by the Jordanian Royal Film Commission and USC together.

In any case, I got here on Friday night along with two other USC people -- Alan Baker, from the Dean's ofice, and Helaine Head, one of my favorite directing professors on the entire goddamned planet. By Saturday we were up and running.

For the three people in the world who I haven't told yet -- I am here in Amman, Jordan helping to run a pilot program for a projected film school that they want to start in several years. We (Tom Curran is the cinematography teacher) are doing a three week version of USC's Production I class which I've adapted for what is essentially an oral story-telling culture. Each student came to the first day of classes with a story that they will shoot someone telling the camera. They're shooting that today -- Monday. They will edit tomorrow and on Wednesday, they will go out and shoot visual material to complement the story. They will then spend the next week or so writing a narrative version of that story and will shoot it in two half-days. instead of seeing someone say "And then Abed walked through the door" they will have to figure out how to shoot an actor playing Abed coming through the door. In a visually interesting way. Or they will figure out that they don't need to see Abed go through the door, but can just cut to the next moment.

There are about 14 students in the class and they are amazing people -- they have backgrounds from visual design, community organizing as well as some film. But they are all very warm, friendly people.

And that is true of every single person I've met here. Now, I don't speak a word of the language, so I can't tell what anyone is saying, but everyone has been very helpful -- speaking their very good English when they can -- and helping me get through the most foreign culture I've even been in.

Later on, I'll talk about this incredible Intel House (a computer camp/day care center) that I visited today with Nadine, the coordinator and go-to person for the program. I'll post some photos I took with my phone as soon as I upload them. For now, I want to say hello to everyone and I'm doing great. More photos and talk in tomorrow's (???) post.

Rain and Bombs -- London on July 7, 2005

2005-07-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

So, I went out this morning to pick up some coffee for Janet, who was sleeping in, and walked down to the Green Park station where everyone was coagulating around the various entrances, being prevented from entering the station by the London police.

I asked around and a few people mentioned they had heard something about "power surges" but that the Piccadilly line was shut down. By the time I ambled back to the hotel, it was clear that these "surges" were a lot more widespread (and therefore, in my mind, a lot more suspicious) than they originally thought.

There's a television in the room that, among the various American shows (MTV, CNBC, etc.) also runs BBC. The reports there were not much more dire than those in the street but it quickly became apparent that this was no ordinary day in London. Sure, the city had just won its Olympics bid yesterday, but today it was the home to a series of terrorist bombings.

London -- An Update

2005-07-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since I've done an entry here (do I sound like a ten year-old girl's diary?) and the only excuse that I've got is that I've been all over this city -- from meetings out in Chiswick to walking through Central London while jets screamed overhead celebrating this country's winning Olympics bid. That, and a slow Internet connection (it's amazing what passes for high-speed in this hotel).

In any case, I arrived safe and sound at Heathrow this past Saturday, hopped the Heathrow Express into downtown and walked into the lobby of the hotel to find Janet and Elizabeth waiting there. They weren't waiting for me, they were waiting for the hotel room to open up. Our early check-in request had been lost in the ether (sending things by email can be wonderful -- especially when they came claim they never got it). We checked into one of the tiniest rooms around, which is difficult with an 18 year old (she actually turned 18 on that very day).

However, by Sunday they had put us in a very nice sized suite and we feel very posh right about now.

It's been an eventful few days -- I've seen a multitude of museums (the Tate Modern IS everything it's supposed to be, and a bag of chips), ate in a multitude of very expensive restaurants (everything is expensive here) and spend a multitude of hours on email planning for this coming three weeks in Jordan.

Phew! That's a multitude of multitudes.

I'll be posting some more photos here, but you can also link to many of them at my Flickr site.

Counting down to London (and beyooooonnnndddd)

2005-06-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

The countdown begins. My excitement builds. I really love travelling and I haven't been to London in years. (By the way, the photo to the left, like many of the photos in my blog, is not mine. I got it from the very funny site Spud's Travels for which I, and my file sharing little ass, can now apologize profusely.)

There are some people who don't do much travel outside of this country and, snob that I am, I just don't get it. I consider it essential for anyone who really wants to understand the world and their place in it. The cliche of the Ugly American is all about people who consider themselves and their way of being to be the only real way. Now, honestly, in most cases I don't think people do that to be self-centered or consciously close-minded. Nope, I think they do it because they just can't imagine a world that's different than theirs. They just can't figure out how people can get along without air conditioners set at 62 degrees, or a choice of fifty different underarm deodorants.

You get the idea.

The cure for Ugly Americanism (no matter which country's citizens practice it) is simply to keep the learning coming.

And that is why I'm really excited to be embarking on this great adventure.

To reiterate -- one week in London, three weeks in Jordan, one week in Chicago, and a half a week or so in New York State. I'll be a very exhausted and very happy camper when I come back (so long as I don't really have to do any camping). I'll also be much savvier about other cultures and other peoples. And that is what is even more exciting.

Is there anyone out there who is afraid of travelling or just plain and simple doesn't like it?

Flying Off To Rio (or not)

2005-06-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

I just got my ticket for my England/Jordan trip (for which I promise to blog and upload photos as much as technology will allow -- so be prepared to be bored). Now, I don't want to sound prissy or anything, but they changed my ticket from a series of direct flights (from LAX to Heathrow, then direct to AMman, then direct back to LAX). Now I get to go through fucking Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris each and every time I get on the plane. So, it's LAX to Paris and then to London. London to Paris and then Amman. Amman to Paris and then LAX.

Are you seeing the pattern here?

I don't want to seem spoiled, since this could be the absolute best travel in my life that I haven't paid for, but when I called to get back onto my direct flights I was politely informed by the woman at Air France that all of their flights between countries must fly though Paris, whether it makes sense or not.

That makes sense, doesn't it.

So maybe I'll blog a little while I sitting on my can for three hours at DeGaulle.

C'est la vie!! C'est la gurerre!!

Fighting

2005-06-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Tamara, over at the must-read blog T&A, has an entry today in which she talks about the odd way that people fight (which is really the same thing as saying that she has a blog entry about how she fights, but never mind that).

It seems to me that most fights are all about old shit and about how our parents used to fight or how we used to fight with our siblings. And they're often not really about what it is that we're fighting about, but what happened with that person in the past (earlier that day, last week, last year...) or what happened with someone else that day.

Anger seems to me to be really about fear, so fights are also about being afraid of something. A lot of people fight about money. Others fight about sex. Still other fight about their kids, or their parents. Many people fight about all three.

What happens to you when you really fight? Do you get out of control or is it a simmering, steaming anger that can be even scarier?

Hard Hats Required -- Brains Optional

2005-06-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

Those of you whose brains are still on "drive" may remember this post about morons at USC. Here's another story for the same category.

Strolling through campus this afternoon, I noticed that the folks who are reworking one of the dorm's exteriors have kindly put a sign up for all of the people who are "handicaped" to help guide them to the proper entrance to the building. I assume that this includes those who are physically handicapped. For all of those who are mentally handicapped, there is another sign -- "Caution. Hard Hats Required" -- to the left of the larger sign.

Maybe their brains are exploding out through their hard hats.

Provided Without Comment -- sorta

2005-06-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

Not that I'm making any value judgements here, but these two ads appeared on top of one another in the LA Times leading me to question whether Will and Nicole are coming out or going in.

But I'll never again question the wisdom, fortitude and humor quotient of the tireless ad slaves at Otis Chandler's great newspaper.

[Can't wait to see if Ferrell's agent calls and objects.]

Live 8 Crazies

2005-06-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

My daughter has decided that since both Pink Floyd and what remains of the Sex Pistols will be playing at Live 8 the date that we arrive in London (July 2nd) that we must, MUST, MUST go there.

Not sure how to scam tickets for a concert that happens several hours after we arrive, without paying eight gazillion dollars (or, in this case, eight gazillion pounds) but any and all advice will gratefully be taken so I can attain true godliness in her eyes.

T-minus a ridiculously low amount

2005-06-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

There are people, I am sure, who plan ahead and pack and get all of their affairs in order before going on a long trip. There are people who organize their pre-travel needs into separate to-do lists and then methodically check off each one as they complete.

I am not one of those people.

I spend enormous amounts of time thinking ahead in the editing room and as a professor, planning and planning for every eventuality (except for the ones that actually happen of course). That all falls apart as soon as I get home.

So, I'm leaving for Europe a week from Friday and I have to start thinking of planning. Not planning, but thinking of planning. Much better.

3% of All Europeans/Africans (or whatever)Like This Blog

2005-06-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Dipping into my site statistics (which you can do by clicking on the Site Meter block on the left) is amusing today. A good 80% of the readers of this blog come from this time zone (I'm assuming that that's my computer). A little over 15% come from the East Coast, which is puzzling because I haven't told my mother about this.

And about 3% come from the time zone that seems to include (if the report can be deciphered properly) central Europe or parts of Algeria, Nigeria and Togo. A huge outpouring of support from the African and European continents (maybe). Those of you from that area, please raise your hands.

[UPDATE!! UPDATE!! UPDATE!!] The fun thing about a dynamically driven site like Site Meter, is that it changes. As of 4:00pm on Tuesday the 21st of June, that Algerian visitor that I mentioned above has completely, totally, absolutely, plain-up-and-disappeared.

Defamer Defames Star Wars

2005-06-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today's Defamer wraps up the weekend box office and has this to say about two of your favorite films (actually, you may remember, I liked STAR WARS, so slap me stupid about this)

4. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith—$9.7 million
Fun fact: ROTS has brought in $347.8 million at the domestic box office. Will it ever catch The Phantom Menace ($431 million)? Mmm…maybe not. This would make George Lucas sad if he hadn’t uploaded all of his human emotions into a mainframe at Industrial Light & Magic, and then had that computer destroyed.

5. The Longest Yard—$8 million
Much more interesting is the bombing of Hilary Duff’s The Perfect Man, which finished seventh with an anemic $5.5 million. To celebrate, rival Lindsay Lohan’s going to skip five consecutive meals.

Defamer is, of course, the daily blog that likes to get catty about everything having to do with Hollywood. It's actually more of a guilty pleasure than STAR WARS.

The War Comes Home

2005-06-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

Tamara, over at T&A, had a link to this post from Miss Doxie, which I had to pass along. Let me give you a warning first; despite it's wonderfully loose start, it's really a post about Iraq and the war there.

I remember during the Vietnam war, most of us who opposed it just couldn't figure out why the rest of the country thought the war was such a damned good thing Well, it's deja vu all over again.

You must go over and read this post. Then I defy you to tell me that this war is worth winning. The worst that could happen would be for us to ignore what's going on. So long as people don't talk about this, and so long as Bush is allowed to stop the press from showing pictures of coffins coming home, and so long as we seriously really really believe that it's better to be there than not be there...

well... there will be plenty more families and friends who will have to reconcile their memories of life with the realities of death.

I wish we could skywrite this story over Washington DC and all of the we-love-Bush states. Because I'm still wondering just what the hell is so good about this war.

Plus ca change and all that.

I Am My Own Wife

2005-06-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

This Pulitzer winning play, I AM MY OWN WIFE, is playing at the Wadsworth up at UCLA and the family trotted over to see it last night. It's an interesting tour de force, the type that audiences (myself included) really like -- one guy plays 35 characters (though most of them are minor -- there are about four or five major characters).

The subject matter might be a little tough for some -- a transvestite antique collector tries to move through Nazi Germany and, later, the East German government (two of the most repressive regimes of all time, according to the play).

Jeffrey Mays is great as most of those characters, and it's great to see live theatre, especially if you're a filmmaker type and spend most of your time with performances that are frozen in time.

Pirated Copy of STAR WARS Rewrites Dialogue

2005-06-17T23:37:00.000-07:00

The often hilarious blog, DEFAMER, has an article in which they post the picture that appears on the left here, which is allegedly a photo off of a pirated (Chinese) copy of the latest STAR WARS film. You know the type -- available on Canal Street or Santee Alley. Last year, when I was in NYC, I actually bought one (ETERMANAL SUNSHINE) to see what they were like. It was hilarious, shot with a videocam from about half way back in the theatre. The image came complete with people chatting around the cameraman, and a few people getting up and going to the bathroom, when they hadn't a clue as to why anyone would want to watch the film. [That strikes me as a good first date question: If they didn't understand and love the film, send them away. Same for MEMENTO.]

In any case, DEFAMER had the following comment about the translation provided on the pirated film. As they put it:

You’ve long suspected it, but now there’s proof: Chinese DVD pirates write much better dialogue than George Lucas.

This may not be that interesting to you. But it's a hell of a lot more interesting, I suppose, than my last rant about Terry Schiavo (judging by the complete lack of comments).

Put This Controversy To Rest

2005-06-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

A news article today says that the autopsy on Terry Schiavo, the 41 year old woman who became the focus of yet another stupid news circus when the Bush administration got involved in trying to prolong her life against the wishes of her husband, proves that her husband acted in her best interests all along.

Actually, that's not exactly how the autopsy read. But it did agree with everything that her husband and doctors said about her, and contradicted everything that Bush, Schiavo's parents, and the rabid right-wing media had to say about the case.

• There was no bodily harm to her.
• She had not been poisoned.
• Most importantly, her brain was 50% the size of a normal human brain and she would never, NEVER have recovered. In other words, she was in a "persistent vegetative state" just like her doctors said.

"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," [the medical examiner] said. "This damage was irreversible."

Sometimes, we're not complete morons who need to be led around by our religious leaders who know so much better. Sometimes, a husband does know his wife's health and desires.

Don't Even Bother To Click This If You're NOT A Parent

2005-06-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal. I know that not everyone thinks that everything that babies do is cute. In fact, not even I think that. And, like boring slide shots of friends' vacations, most of us would rather sit through a slowed-down rerun of MEET JOE BLACK than hear baby stories.

That having been said, Heather Armstrong (creator of the fantastic blog Dooce) has a story today about her, her father, her husband and her daughter's inability to poop that I just had to share with you.

WARNING: Do not click on that link if you think that baby stories need to be used soley for the abuse of political prisoners or mass murderers. But, if you're me (or Jeremy, perhaps) click away.

[And the MEET JOE BLACK reference -- well, those of you who know me, will know what I'm talking about.]

Illiteracy At CollegeorHow Do You Spell "USC"???

2005-06-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last year the Parking Lot Administration People, in their attempt to ease the horrible parking here at USC, decided to use one side of a number of the aisles in some of the parking lots for smaller cars only. In order to make this clear to the users and purveyors of higher education here, they painted the "NO SUV" signs on the floors of each of the parking spaces along those walls.

The success rate of this project can be seen in the photos here.

Is it that the users and purveyors can't read? Is it that they don't give a shit? Is it that the Parking Lot Administration People need to put up neon signs?

Or could it be that they need to enforce it?

The White Gloved Man Is Free

2005-06-13T16:46:00.000-07:00

Free at last, free at last, thanks to the jury I'm free at last.

'Nuff said. In a world where people are dying in Darfur and we're not going to have any health care system soon, I promise never ever to mention this embarrassing trial again.

Ever.

Guilty Pleasure

2005-06-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry. I know it's stupid and obvious and glorifies all that is evil in the world, but I still like Entourage, the show about how vapid Marky Mark and his friends were when he turned into Rich and Famous Mark Wahlberg.

Everyone's favorite character, agent Ari Gold, last night declined a party invitation because "It's anal sex night at the Gold house" and then later got angry at another character for badmouthing his wife.

The writing is just too sassy for words. My words at least. I always love watching this show (especially as the characters grow into their roles -- a real advantage of episodic tv). I just end up hating myself in the morning.

Let Me Flip All of The Cards Over...

2005-06-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

If I've gotten the pictures in there properly then you should have guessed, by now, that the mysterious country that Tamara has been trying to guess for the last week or two (or three) is Jordan. Beginning July 8th I'll be teaching in Amman for about three weeks, as part of a new series of classes that the newly formed Jordanian Film Commission is setting up. It's part of an incredibly busy summer that will see me zip to four and a half different cities in three different countries in six weeks.

Quite the world traveller aren't I?

For fun (and a few business meetings) I'll be heading to London (in merrie olde England) on July 1 (I absolutely must stop dropping parenthetical expressions in so regularly) (soon).

This trip is mostly vacation and a sort of congratulatory trip for my daughter's high school graduation (made all the easier by the fact that someone else is paying for my flight) (and there are those damned parentheses again) (damn!!). We'll spend a week there and then I'll zip onto Amman to start teaching the next day. It will be a kind of 290/507, which only people who have been through the USC Film program will know what I'm talking about. When I finish at the end of July, I'll come back for two days and then head out to a conference in Chicago where I'm speaking on several panels. This will be followed by a bit less than a week in New York (NYC and Annandale-on-Hudson) to drop my daughter off at college.

After that, starting school here in mid-August will seem like a dream!

I'm really looking forward to this since I've never been in that part of the world. It will great for me and, I hope, good for both the Jordanian students and (at some point in the future, when I get out of these parentheses) for USC students, who might get a chance to do some exchange program work there.

Hopefully, I'll be able to keep blogging (I can hear a number of you pleading for dial-up only in my hotel) so you can see some of what I see.

How Not To Be A Suited Idiot On A Film Set

2005-06-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Peggy Archer, who works on Hollywood lighting crews and does the great Total Authorized blog (which, as of today, will be on my list o'links) wrote a guest blog entry for Atlas' blog Assistant/Atlas. [Are we following the chain here?].

This entry, How Not To Be A Suited Idiot On Set, basically is a very valid gripe session about the things that people who know absolutely nothing about film production do when they're on film sets. I think that many of you will recognize the problems (and, I might add, they also can apply to editors who don't spend time on sets -- pay attention folks!!)

3. If you take a picture and are using the flash on your camera, please say "Flashing" loudly - before you take the picture. A camera flash looks exactly like a light bulb blowing out, and if the electricians see the flash of white light and don't know that's what it is, they'll go batty trying to find the blown out globe when it was your camera. This is funny, but very, very mean.
12. Don't stand in front of a light. Feel that heat on your back? It means you're casting a shadow onto the set. Don't walk in front of a light, either. On a related note.. if you can look into the camera lens, you're in the shot.
14. If you don't know what something is, don't touch it.
14a. Don't plug anything in ANYWHERE without asking first. DC power (which some stages still have) will do a number on your cell phone charger, and if you didn't ask before plugging it in, we'll laugh at you.

And that's just a sample.

Haloscan Comments Added but....

2005-06-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

I've switched to Haloscan commenting which, for many of you, won't mean very much. Let's keep it that way.

The main effect of this seems to be that all of your old comments have disappeared.

Sorry about that. Start commenting all over again. Okay?

Ragazze Medie

2005-06-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

According to Babel Fish (the occasionally accurate web translation service) that is Italian for MEAN GIRLS. And last night I went to see the film CATERINA IN THE CITY, or CATERINA GOES TO THE CITY -- as it is called on the title card.

It's got some of the MEAN GIRLS flavor to it.

CATERINA is a movie about a 12 or 13 year old Italian girl from the boondocks, who moves to Rome when her socially star-struck father teacher is transferred there. He places her in the school he went to when he was a kid and Caterina is immediately swept up in the stark social intrigue of the school -- caught in between the goths and the preppie girls.

This film, though simplistic, is really alot of fun and rides on the very capable shoulders of the girl who plays Caterina, Alice Teghil. It's a film that could easily have degenerated into clichés and though there are plenty here, Teghil really makes us see past them and care about her. It's more "heightened realism" than "neorealism."

There are several very funny performances, especially Sergio Castellitto, as Caterina's pompous father, who has stars in his eyes for the Caterina's friends' famous parents but who ultimately comes to realize that all of them share a common bond -- their fame insulates them from understanding the common people.

It's fun. It's touching. It's [fill in your critic-whore adjective here].

Time For Another War!!!

2005-06-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

This graph, from the Washington Post, shows Bush's approval ratings since February 2001. The latest polls (not that they've been particularly reliable but -- hell -- they're always entertaining) show his ratings almost at their lowest ebb ever.

That means, according to graph, that it's time for another war!!! When the numbers were plummeting, he went into Afghanistan and then Iraq. Whoops. getting close to 50% again, so let's go find Saddam!

The funniest item in the graph, by the way, is the flag at May 1, 2003 which tagged "End of Hostilities." Someone needs to tell that to the hundreds of Iraqi, Americans and others who have died or been maimed since then.

Here's Where I'm Going In July

2005-06-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Here's where I'm going in July. It looks 99.9999999% sure (so I've now jinxed it of course).

I will be teaching a class with two other USC professors on storytelling, sort of like the 290/507 here at USC, except with one and a half films crammed into three weeks. More details as they become available.

And, no, I didn't forget to tell you the name of the country/city. I still want to keep Tamara guessing (Happy Aunt-hood Tamara!!! by the way).

What NOT To Do On A First Date

2005-06-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

Todd Levin, owner of the often hilarious blog TREMBLE, had an entry the other day in which he talks about overhearing a first date conversation between a guy and a woman who, I judge, is much his superior. These are some of the most hilarious dating rules I've ever read and makes me glad that I'm an old married guy who doesn't have to worry about such stuff.

The Funniest Saddest Music

2005-06-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but I find this short film, on the IFC Web Site, one of the funniest weirdnesses ever.

Something must be seriously wrong with me. Just don't tell me what it is. Send an email to my shrink.

Thanks. This has been a public service announcement from your friends at the Department of Redundancy Department.

HBO Comes Roaring Out of the Gate

2005-06-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

Both ENTOURAGE and THE COMEBACK started up last night on HBO, taxing my Tivo which was trying to "tape" Family Guy at the same time. And while I think ENTOURAGE was passable (it was never a great show but had a guilty pleasure sort of feel to it, thanks to the great ensemble acting) the new LIsa Kudrow series was a perfect example of why it's better that Larry David keep doing what he's doing and let the rest of the world avoid making terrible copies of his concept.

THE COMEBACK stars Kudrow as Valerie Cherish, a past star of a hit television comedy (stop me if you're gagging yet) who is looking to get her career going again. Despite the fact that this seems like an entire series stolen from a single episode of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, it's also a warning signal for those people who think that just because you're an actor/actress who's been on a successful show that you've got the talent to write and produce something else. You don't. Especially if you're going to be starring in it.

This is a show that, in the fifteen minutes that I was able to sit through it (I have to admit that I bailed half way into it) followed Kudrow/Cherish as she talked endlessly to the camera. You see, the set-up is that she's in a reality show about her doing the new series. So... (stop me when this gets too boring) THE COMEBACK is a television show that is about an actress who's doing a fictional reality show about a ficitional television sitcom. You can just see the series creator dropping Charlie Kaufman's name into the pitch every thirty seconds.

The problem with this show (as with the equally execrable FAT ACTRESS) is that the leads just aren't very interesting and they've put themselves in the middle of a few (very very few) supporting characters who are, if possible, even less interesting. Kirstie Alley had two sycophantic personal aides. Kudrow has a hairdresser and probably some other idiotic sidekick-type people who I would have discovered if I could have stomached watching another 15 minutes of the show.

But if you take a look at how CURB and ENTOURAGE work (as well as every reality show out there) there are normally LOTS of people on the show, all of whom have varying degrees of their own personalities that don't necessarily revolve around the lead. On ENTOURAGE, it's hard to tell who's the lead. And that's not a bad thing. And while CURB revolves around Larry David, many of the other characters don't seem to notice -- they think it's about them. And that's not a bad thing either.

The writing is also a million times better on CURB than on any other show of its kind.

Of course Kudrow (who is executive producer along with former Sex And The City executive Michael Patrick King) won't change any of these things because you can tell by the way she hangs on shots w-a-a-a-y after they've made their point, that she thinks that she's being very very funny at the same time that she's making a very valuable point about Hollywood (Lord save us from well-meaning but incredibly over-insulated stars). Who cares if it gets boring. The hell with the audience attention span.

As another example, there's a running gag where Kudrow makes the "time-out" signal again and again to the reality show producer, despite the fact that we've been told that there's no time out when you shoot reality television (uh huh, you bet). Again and again. It wasn't funny the first time and, despite the conceit that some comedy works through repetition, it never gets any better.

There's also the tone deaf dialogue. At one point, coming into a waiting room for an audition, she spots Marilu Henner who's there for the same role. Henner looks at Kudrow and says something like "Valerie!! Wow. Who's going to be next? Valerie Bertinelli?" The repetition of the name "Valerie" is pointless and stupid.

So... how much did I like THE COMEBACK? Tonight, I'm watching SIX FEET UNDER, and I'm going to go into it pissed off at HBO.

Travel Plans, Part 2

2005-06-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

And, no, I'm not going here either. Nope.

You'll have to guess again.