Month: March 2015

entoruage

Trailer Tuesday: “Entourage”

Patrick Lehe Leave a comment

 What’s new? Well, this trailer for the “Entourage” movie for one.  What’s old? Well, the entire series of “Entourage.”  I love films…I hate the film industry.  All the politics and the nepotism that literally control everything artistically that gets made just infuriates me.  I suppose that’s an inception-y way of saying that “Entourage” is a living representation of the industry that it mocks!  The final season aired in 2011, and granted 4 years isn’t even that long when it comes to getting a film made, but given the controversy and “development hell” that this movie went through just to get to where it is…well, let me explain…

Entourage_5For fans of the show, you’ll immediately recognize the infamous Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) stepping out of his personal helicopter, followed by flashy intros to each of the show’s central characters;  Vinny (Adrian Grenier), E (Kevin Connolly), Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Drama (Kevin Dillon).  We get a lot of the same of what we saw over eight seasons on the hugely popular HBO series.  A lot of partying, a lot of half-naked women, a lot of sad-but-true film industry drama and a lot of cameos by people much more famous than the main characters themselves.  There was a LOT going on in this trailer, to where the story feels like it’s going to be a mess. The show, being a show, obviously didn’t have to jam pack so much into one time frame since it could do a lot over the span of an entire season.  Judging by this trailer, it almost feels like the filmmakers are going to overcompensate by trying to do just that, with the jam-package-ness.   This is writer/director Doug Ellin‘s first significant venture into feature films, so it could really go either way.

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A New Vessel for Video on the Web

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

SmashCut Talk thumbnailLast week the video hosting website Vessel.com opened it’s doors to the world, for $2.99 a month.  It’s a bold move, charging a monthly fee for access to videos that will usually end up on YouTube after 72 hours.  Some of YouTube’s most successful content creators were invited to be a part of this new video venture and provide Vessel viewers exclusive early viewing rights to their latest video on Vessel before anyone else can see them for free on YouTube three days later.

One of those YouTubers, Derek Muller of , describes it as paying a premium to see the latest film in theater before it hits DVD and then your television months or years later.  While I understand the comparison, it’s not entirly correct. Vessel is using the same medium as YouTube – my computer or smartphone screen.  So if Vessel wants me to pay $2.99 a month, their “venue” has to exceed YouTube’s much like a movie theater exceeds my living room.  So, after signing up for a 30 day trial I can report back that the player appears to run smoother than YouTube, there are no pop-up annotations, ads you have to X out of, or any of the other annoying distractions you find on YouTube.  In fact, it’s almost exactly like Vimeo – which, last I checked, costs zero a month.  So, I’ll stick it out for the 30 days and have a more detailed report for you then. If you want to check it out yourself, watch Veritasium’s video to find out how to get your 30 day trial.

lockwood co

Reading for Writing – Lockwood and Co. – Book 1

Mike Pauly Leave a comment

lockwood copyLockwood and Co. by Jonathan Stroud

In a Great Britain beset by a plague of deadly ghosts only fully visible to psychically-attuned children, Lucy and her two other teenaged co-workers at Lockwood and Co. struggle to keep their exorcism business, and themselves, alive after they inadvertently burn down a client’s house.

What I learned, Part 1 – Resonance. I found this concept in the writing tips of David Farland (who has an excellent newsletter). The idea boils down to this: don’t be afraid of actively placing your influences into your writing, chances are that someone who likes the same things you do will enjoy your story all the more. Additionally, it can be an effective shortcut to making the reader experience your exact tone. Lockwood and Co. is an outstanding book, and from the first paragraph I felt it resonating with Sherlock Holmes. Lockwood and Sherlock, obviously have a connection, but beyond that, the list of failed “cases” from that opening text sound like they easily could be taken from Doyle’s writing. This dovetails perfectly with the fact that though the protagonists usually would be simply fighting the dead with silver, iron and salt, they end up embroiled in a 50 year old mystery.

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rings

Why I Murdered My Roommate

Smash Cut Culture Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2015-03-26 at 2.28.00 PMAnnouncing Why I Murdered My Roommate a new television and trans-medial series set and filmed in Buffalo, New York and sponsored by Fractured Atlas.

The project is a creation of three graduates of the Taliesin Nexus 2014 Filmmaker’s Workshop (renamed ).  Feeling inspired by the fact that there was a sympathetic group of liberty-loving filmmakers out there, longtime friends Michael Pauly and Tilke Hill decided to finish working on a script exploring one woman’s desire to live outside of anyone or anything’s control and what ensues when she decides that to be a radical individualist doesn’t have to mean rejecting all human bonds.

Why I Murdered My Roommate is a half-hour dark comedy series where the hash absurdity of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia meets the twisty, violence-promising flashback storytelling of Damages or The Affair.  It is the story of EZ Walensa, performance artist, borderline anarchist, and lonely woman looking to make a genuine connection.

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starsmovie

“The Stars My Destination” is Unfilmable? Not in the 2010s, It’s Not

Dave Huber Leave a comment

Word came a couple weeks back that the classic scifi novel The Stars My Destination is set to be directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts at Paramount. Vogt-Roberts has previously directed The Kings of Summer and the upcoming Skull Island.

Writer John Podhoretz that Stars is “unfilmable.” It is? Why?

Here’s my standard by which a film is “(un)filmable”: If Dune and Watchmen can be turned into major motion pictures, just about any story can. (Granted, the latter example is a much better film than the former, but you get the point. I hope.)

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docwho

Every Modern Doctor Who Episode Ranked From Worst to Best, part 1: “I’m Sorry. I’m So Sorry.”

Daniel Sherrier 5 Comments

doc10opening[Updated with Season 9 episodes]

The Internet likes a good list, doesn’t it? A nice comprehensive, frivolous ranking of a beloved something or other?

All right then. Let’s do this. Let’s rank every episode of modern Doctor Who from worst to best in four weekly installments: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” “Are these good episodes?”, “These episodes are cool,” and “Fantastic!”

I tried not to agonize over the exact rankings, because I wanted to be done this century, so assume a margin of error of plus or minus a few. If I did this a year later, the order would likely turn out differently. It’s all just my opinion, and I respect that you’ll likely disagree. (I know—how dare I rank that episode that low and that episode that high?) This is just for fun, a way to reflect on what’s been a great science fiction series overall.

I love Doctor Who even though not every episode is a winner, and I appreciate how hard it is to write for television. Both showrunners, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, have given us brilliant episodes, and both have been guilty of failing to rein in their excesses. Nevertheless, the show remains great on the whole, and I’m thankful for the many wonderfully entertaining hours both writers and their teams have given us.

But none of us are perfect. So in this first part, let’s get the misfires out of the way:

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neddiad

Reading for Writing – The Neddiad

Mike Pauly Leave a comment

51iEr0WWlDLThe Neddiad by Daniel Pinkwater

In the late 1940’s, a boy and his quirk-tacular family take the train from Chicago to Hollywood. Along the way the boy, Ned, is entrusted with a sacred turtle and the fate of the world. Only “the guy with the turtle” can stop the machinations of a demon, present location the La Brea Tar Pits, who seeks to reverse time and bring back the age of the dinosaurs.

What I learned Part 1: It is possible to write a successful book with a passive protagonist and without tension; but brevity, wit and charm become paramount. From the get-go every line of the book lets you know that it will end well (as does the subtitle), still each moment feels so alive with fresh, weird details that it keeps you reading. An example, the family’s entire move from Chicago to Los Angeles is predicated on Ned and his father’s desire to eat regularly in “a restaurant shaped like a hat.” I would highly recommend this book as a case study of an author breaking core storytelling rules and getting away with it.

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san andreas

Trailer Tuesday: “San Andreas”

Patrick Lehe Leave a comment

sanandreas-guginoHow many times can one country be destroyed? Well, when it comes to Hollywood, the opportunities are literally endless.  The latest trailer for “San Andreas,” starring Dwayne Johnson, serves as no exception.  We have seen America go anywhere from being blown up by aliens, to being thrust entirely underwater by natural causes.  No wonder we’ve got issues here, we’re obsessed with seeing our homeland get demolished! But that’s another issue for another time.

Although the story is cliche, this trailer was pretty darn cool.  For us Angelenos, we’ll immediately recognize some stock-footage-type videography sweeping over the Griffith Observatory with the massive city of Los Angeles making up the backdrop, all played over an eerie but somehow serene cover of “California Dreamin'” by the Mama’s and the Papa’s. Great song choice for this, by the way.  Our main macho man Ray (Johnson) is seen with a couple of beautiful young women, assumed to be his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario) and wife Emma (Carla Gugino); just a couple of the token action movie hotties whom we’re sure to see hanging from buildings as the hand of The Rock’s mighty grip desperately tries to save them…Tangent complete.

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mozart

Mozart as a Freelance Artist

Gabriel Caprav Leave a comment

Mozart_(unfinished)_by_Lange_1782

The most outstanding feature about Mozart’s biography, the one people are most familiar about, is his prodigious musical talent. Everyone is familiar with the story of the precocious Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), who led by his father’s hand, traveled to opulent courts across  Europe as an itinerant child prodigy. As he grew older, he became a professional composer who produced an output of hundreds of compositions in a diversity of genres and styles with many of those works ranking as some of the most inspired music ever composed.

The late German author, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, brought to light in his thick tome about Mozart’s life and work another facet of the native from Salzburg that is perhaps less familiar in the Mozartian mythology. According to Hildesheimer, Mozart was not only an innovator and a master of every musical form, he was also an innovator in the music business; our hero might have been the first freelance composer. Although F. M. Scherer disputes this notion in his essay and claims freelance composers had existed a century before Mozart’s period, it is quite clear Mozart possessed an innate rebellious nature that rendered him as an inadequate candidate to vegetate in tedious comfort as a court composer. Not that he felt a conscious need to manifest a rebellious attitude against the current social order; such a sentiment would have been alien to Mozart’s nature. However he probably searched for a context that allowed him to exploit his powerful compositional skills to the best of his ability.

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dvb

Will You Suffer to Come Unto Me? Remembering Daniel Von Bargen and Lord of Illusions

James Harberson Leave a comment

nix2We lost Daniel Von Bargen on March 1st. He had dozens of acting credits, Seinfeld’s Kruger arguably the most famous. I write to remember his underappreciated turn as Nix, the black magic cult leader in Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions (1995).

The best horror films, I observed last time, disturb our moral reality. In America’s moral reality remains decidedly Christian. And, as Protestants (culturally, if not by affiliation), we (in the words of Illusions’ hero, Harry D’Amour (Scott Bakula)) “[c]an’t have too many saviors.”) We’re always open to new messiahs, either religious (snake handlers, peepstoners, faith healers) or informally so (Tony Robbins, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Oz). Charisma conquers reason, and suddenly we’re . Lord of Illusions examines what happens when we fall for the wrong messiah.

Nix presents as a redeemer. Calling himself “The Puritan[,]” he promises that death is an illusion and that he and his followers will “cleanse the world.” Sound familiar? As often happens with captivating leaders and credulous minions, it all goes to shit. Spurned by his chief disciple, Philip Swann (Kevin J. O’Connor), Nix becomes an anti-Christ who “could eat your fucking soul[.]” He confesses that he “wasn’t born to show people the error of their ways,” but rather “to murder the world.” Von Bargen triumphs by adducing more sympathy for Nix the spurned lover than fear or loathing for Nix the mass murderer. We want to hug our would-be destroyer. For, without love, Nix is “a man who wanted to be a god, then changed his mind.” He discovers that “[t]he grave is lonely,” but, without Swann, “[l]iving is worse.” And he declares, before finally incarnating evil, “I’m going to be rotten shit from now on.” There, there.

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AI featured

THIS is American Idol: Top 10… or, not so fast.

Lily Finn Leave a comment

You know those moments when you think all is right with the world?
But then America just lets you down?

Well, this past week’s episode of American Idol was proving to be one of those very moments.  Until (thank the Lord above) those three AI angels swooped in to give us all a little peace.

This week, in “Movie Week,” each contestant sang a song from, well, a movie.  I had way too much fun predicting who was going to sing what, but for the most part, each one was pretty unpredictable.  Overall, there were three (maybe four) stellar performances – and they each came from the more obscure or unpredictable choices.  This is where I’ll begin.

Joey cook 3.19    JOEY hit another one out of the park!  She showed us her beautifully melancholy and emotional side with a gorgeous rendition of “Mad World” from Donnie Darko.  First, she turned some heads with her officially American Idol stylized new look – a short straight bob (still dyed blue), a frilly red plaid dress with knee high stockings, and a subtle homage to her signature red lipstick.  Still very “Joey” but a fresh and mature look nonetheless.  She abandoned her usual squeezebox or ukelele for a softer seated and hand held mic approach.  Just her, her voice, and the band.  It was the first breathtaking performance of the night – and all the judges agree.  She is so far the most untouchable (girl) of the competition.  And for some reason, I’m surprised by her every week – her choices are bold but she never fails to impress.  And last night she proved she’s more than just a quirky personality with a killer voice.  She’s no dummy – she definitely gets it.

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bingenet

How to Manage Your Binge Watching Problem

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

yall-got-anymore-of-them-episodesWelcome to Binge Watchers Anonymous (BWA).

I promise, if you follow this simple schedule you can change your life for the better.  If you are like most binge watchers, when season three of House of Cards premiered Friday, Feb 27th on Netflix you were probably done with the 13 episode season by late Sunday night.  After waiting an entire year for the season to debut, you immediately consumed it in less time it took the series editors to edit one episode.  I understand, I’ve been there.  I cut the cord a long time ago.  No cable, no satellite.  My Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions were my only link to the “good” part of television.  I have rabbit ears for the occasional sporting event, local morning news, or American Idol (don’t judge me.)

Both Netflix and Amazon have been developing original series for a few years now, and unlike traditional television, they dump the entire season online at once for audiences to consume at their leisure or as fiendishly as possible.  Most people I know, make it a habit to binge watch all 13 or so episodes all at once because, well they can.  As one who’s engaged in the habit, I began to feel disappointed after it was all done.  Because it’s over too quickly.  Sure, I had control and got to maintain the momentum of the series at my own pace, but it was my weakness for cliffhangers that did me in. I began to miss the anticipation you get when having to wait a week to find out what happens next and to digest and savor that one great episode.  Game of Thrones is a great example.  I enjoy watching it week to week because it’s so good and I get months of enjoyment out of it instead of 13 hours over one weekend.

So, if you’ve ever considered trying to maintain a regular schedule of Netflix or Amazon Prime programming, then I have the solution for you.  It’s the BWA 13 Week Program.

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apollo wkshp

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS: The Apollo Workshop: Storytelling in Film & TV

Smash Cut Culture Leave a comment

logo-1The Apollo Workshop:  Storytelling in Film and Television (formerly The Filmmakers Workshop) is a weekend conference connecting 25 talented aspiring filmmakers with 25 members of our faculty of Hollywood screenwriters, producers, executives and talent representatives.  It will take place in August 14-16, 2015 on the UCLA campus.

And imagine this:  the workshop is completely free of charge — free tuition, free room and board, and even travel stipends to those coming from outside of Southern California.

The Apollo Workshop offers training in two critical areas:  Storytelling Development and Career Development.

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most wanted pilots

7 Most Wanted Pilot Scripts

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

blacklistStephanie Palmer over at Studio System News has compiled the seven most wanted tv pilot scripts for writers to download.  One of the best, easiest, and most fun ways to refine your own writing is to read other scripts, especially if they have been produced and as well received by critics and audiences alike.

Last year, Palmer assembled a similar list of 10, which included scripts from Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Office. With Mad Men about to join the other two in television’s retirement home, she has compiled a brand new list of seven current television hits.  Among the collection are pilot scripts for House of Cards, Masters of Sex and The Blacklist… 

… As for how The Blacklist came about, Bokenkamp said, “I was kicking around ideas with John Fox, a friend who’s also a producer on the show. He brought up an idea. Whitey Bulger (Boston organized-crime kingpin) was in the news then. What if a Whitey Bulger-type criminal was captured? What if you had a TV show that flashed back on where Hoffa was buried, who shot Kennedy? A bad guy who knew all the secrets, hopping around in time and place. I spent about three months developing it, coming up with a pitch.” Everybody passed on the show but NBC.

At the upfronts, Bob Greenblatt of NBC said Blacklist testing results were, “better than all other 125 NBC drama pilots in the past decade.”

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rory pga

Rory McIlroy Finally Crowned in Time for St. Patrick’s Day

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

rory pga tour xboxOn March 16, one day before St. Patrick’s Day, EA Sports announced that the number 1 ranked golfer in the world, will not only grace the cover of the brand’s latest incarnation of it’s legendary video game, but that the Irishman’s name will also get top billing.  That’s right, the game that revolutionized playing golf from your couch, Tiger Woods PGA Tour will now be called Rory McIlory PGA Tour.  Make no mistake, this is actually huge in terms of how far Tiger Woods’ fall from grace has plummeted.  This isn’t just losing the cover, it’s losing the whole franchise. It would be as if EA Sports decided to replace John Madden’s name from Madden NFL.  Cowher NFL anyone?

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underdome

Reading for Writing – Under the Dome

Mike Pauly Leave a comment

UTD+New+packshotUnder the Dome – Stephen King

One beautiful autumn morning, a small town in Maine becomes inexplicably surrounded with an impenetrable force-field. Cut off from the rest of the world, the town falls prey to the machinations of its morally-challenged Second Selectman and his deputized army of thugs.

Things I learned, Part 1 – “Clustermug.” – Stephen King is a master of dialogue. The main villain pretends to be religious and never swears, instead cloaking all his horrible thoughts in beautifully constructed euphemisms like ‘clustermug.’ Just that one word tells you so much about the character.

Things I learned, Part 2 – Prophetic dreams work wonders if they’re justified in source. Very early on in the book the children of the town begin having seizures and seeing visions of an awful event happening on Halloween. This gives the reader a climax we are waiting for, and hangs an air of desperation over the actions of the heroes who don’t know what might be coming. Because of the mysterious nature of the force-field the dreams come across as plausible and not a narrative cheat.

Things I learned, Part 3 – Ideas aren’t as important as execution. I avoided reading this book for a few years because it reminded me of the plot of The Simpsons movie and I thought I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously. But then my wife bought the books and within the first page I stopped humming “Spider-pig.” I think the takeaway is not to limit yourself if you have an idea that seems similar to something that already exists. If you love the concept and work hard to put your own stamp on it you should be fine.

kiki

25 Animated Films You MUST See #18: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Mellinda Hensley 1 Comment

Last Monday, I sat on the hardwood floor of my  apartment, leering at the white cardboard box in  front of me. The box, which contained a  disassembled nightstand from IKEA, had been  sitting under my bed for weeks. And one night after  getting home from work abnormally early (before 8  p.m.), I did the adult thing – I put a load of laundry  in the wash, ordered a pizza from Dominos, dragged  the box out from under my bed, and put on “Kiki’s  Delivery Service.”

“Kiki’s Delivery Service,” or Majo no Takkyūbin, was  a 1989 release from Studio Ghibli about a young  witch, Kiki, who leaves home with her talking cat companion Jiji on her 13th birthday, part of a custom where a young witch must be apart from her family for a year and find another town to live and use her special ability in. Kiki’s ability of flight seems like an ordinary witch power, but she finds that in her new seaside town she is able to use it as a delivery girl for a bakery. But her journey to using her talent doesn’t come without obstacles. After one delivery goes sour, she seems to lose her powers. She can no longer fly or understand Jiji and becomes deeply depressed before finally regaining her confidence in herself and her abilities.

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AI featured

THIS is American Idol… Top 12/11

Lily Finn Leave a comment

AI XIVThis week there were two elimination nights in a row! Not sure how I feel about this – barely got to recover from the first one and we went barreling into the second a mere 24 hours later.  Just like that, we went from Top 14 to Top 11! Snap.

Now, considering there seem to be a number of changes to the show’s format, perhaps we’re heading into a double whammy every week – but for my own sanity, I hope not!  Firstly, this would make for quite a short season.  But more importantly, it doesn’t even give America the chance to grieve for each individual who parts ways with the iconic AI stage.  This is an important time in traditional American Idol that allows each viewer to realize the importance of their role in the contestants’ lives, as their favorite is so suddenly tossed aside and never heard from again. It is that very experience that makes each AI devotee commit to their right to vote – for fear of feeling responsible in another senseless American Idol cast off.  But I digress… too heavy?

Anyway, as a follow up to my predictions last week, let’s start there:

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notseen

Think of the Children… A Little Less

Tara Clark Leave a comment

I recently read an about a couple being investigated for child neglect after allowing their two children to walk, unsupervised, a block to the neighborhood playground. The whole idea of it really burnt my bacon. I realize we’re living in a different time, but as a child I spent a lot of time unsupervised. My parents taught me not to get into vans with strangers and told me to be home for dinner. I rode bikes all over my town, my brother and I took the boat out to visit friends, they even left us on Snake Island one night to go camping with friends. Sure, it could have turned into Lord of the Flies, or we could have been , but we were fine.

Technology has made it so easy to police children that it has become expected. “You don’t know where your children are every second of every day? What is wrong with you?” I acknowledge that I can only comment from the perspective of the child as I do not have children of my own, but the idea of constant surveillance sounds stifling. The implied trust my parents had in me to take care of myself and the space to move through the world and judge things on my own was an important aspect of my person growth. Sure, I made some mistakes, and that is when my parents were there to guide me and help me understand my mistakes.

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michelle-rodriguez-machete-kills

A Breath of Fresh Air on the Comicbook and Movie Diversity Craze

Dave Huber Leave a comment

The openly bisexual actress Michelle Rodriguez was asked recently about possibly being cast as the Green Lantern for a future film.

Her answer was epic:

I think it’s so stupid because of this whole minorities in Hollywood thing. It’s so stupid. Stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes. Make up your own. You know what I am saying? What’s up with that?

While this may be a bit harsh (Rodriguez indeed backpedaled a bit after her comment), it speaks to the current craze within, if not yet so much the comicbook movie industry, certainly the print comicbook biz.

The “Big Two” companies, Marvel and DC, over recent years have “re-imagined” many of their popular heroes by

  • turning Thor into a woman
  • having Sam Wilson, the Falcon and an African-American, assume the role of Captain America
  • making Ms. Marvel a teenaged Muslim female
  • making Green Lantern a Muslim male
  • making the original Green Lantern gay
  • creating an Hispanic-black Spider-Man
  • turning Nick Fury into a black man
  • transforming Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, into a black guy
  • making Asgard’s Heimdall a black guy
  • officially making Catwoman bisexual

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Sacrifice

Reading for Writing – The Sacrifice

Mike Pauly Leave a comment

the-sacrifaceThe Sacrifice by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

A fantasy novel about the invasion of a peaceful island kingdom by a magical race, the Fey, well on their way to conquering the world. But a bloody stalemate ensues when the islanders discover that their holy water can disintegrate the Fey on contact.

What I learned, Part 1 – If you think you may want to publish traditionally please examine the cover of this book. This is a cover that the author fought against tooth and nail to no avail (this original cover makes the story appear to be about crudely drawn elves in love). I am the target audience for the novel (magic, battles, political intrigue), but I never in a million years would have picked this off the shelf. The only reason I bought it was because I am a fan of the author’s blog, she writes especially insightful things about the business of publishing.

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moonharsh

MPI Founder and Robert A. Heinlein

Matt Edwards Leave a comment

MoonisharshThor Halvorssen, founder of Moving Picture Institute (MPI), has just been named as a producer for Twentieth Century Fox production of Robert A. Heilein’s novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  Bryan Singer (Usual Suspects, X-Men) is attached to direct as well.  Halvorssen’s work on human rights by airdropping films and educational materials into heavily censored North Korea, through his Human Rights Foundation have made headlines in world wide news outlets.

Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) was the recipient of the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel in 1967 and is often cited as one the best novels to promote individual liberty and a free society. An early democrat activist who worked for Upton Sinclair’s Democratic bid for California Governor in 1934, Heinlein later considered himself a libertarian with a strong belief in the importance of self-reliance and human freedom.

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