I: THE FILM
I sat through the second half of Passengers this evening. Yeah, it took us two evenings. It might not have, except my wife got called off to a birth. And I doubt I would have watched it, except my wife expressed interest in seeing "that guy from Everwood" and Sony lobbed a free screener at me. So we sat through it, my email address in one corner and "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" in the other, while drinking and doing computer shit. Me? Bullshit Facebook. Her? regulatory. Both of us? Unengaged.
And here's the thing. I've been a fan of Chris Pratt since he was literally "that guy from Everwood" and a fan of Jennifer Lawrence since Winter's Bone. I remember when this script came out - it was a Blacklist script in 2007, it was sci fi, and that was the year I schlepped my ass down to Hollywood. It was the bright and shining future, even if back then blacklist scripts were the ones that everybody read but nobody bought. It's sci fi. It's hard sci fi (or pretends to be). And it's shit. It's pure shit. It hockeysticks from slow to stupid without passing through entertaining for even a minute.
It took ten fucking years for this piece of dreck to become cinema. It stars two of my favorite actors of all time (I mean, I wrote parts for Chris Pratt back when he was "the guy from Everwood") and it is so shit. It's two doubles of 50% off rum shit. Excuse me, I need a third.
II: The old-timer
I've got a number of interesting friends. Acquaintances, really. People I used to party with. Facebook friends, of course. And while watching the-dreck-that-is-Passengers I read a post from one of them. See, he had to move his Panera shift, because he needed a new coffee maker and he could get one for 20% off at Target during certain hours or something, but then it didn't fit in the bag, so he had to get another bag because he's riding his bicycle, but that bag didn't fit, so he had to carry his coffee maker to Panera and now it's sitting at his feet while he makes sandwiches.
This guy...
This guy has FOURTEEN fucking screenwriting credits on IMDb. This guy was the editor of a screenwriting magazine. This guy has twelve books on Amazon right now about screenwriting. This guy... This guy moved his shift at Panera so he could save twenty percent on a fuckin' $20 coffee maker.
(drinks)
III: The very next post
I shit you not. Back to back. Another acquaintance. Went to parties yadda yadda. Facebook Friend. Announcing that it was five years ago today that Amazon released his Amazon Studios screenplay as an animation and while he's still working on it, it's cool to see and oh, by the way, could someone grab a copy and send it to him on DVD?
This is troubling on many levels. First of all, I never submitted to Amazon Studios because I discovered my wife's receptionist was a reader for Amazon Studios and I didn't trust her to give me menu advice. Second of all, that horrorshow was five years ago and lo and behold, no magical wondrous talent appeared from it. But primarily, HOLY SHIT YOU MEAN THEY MADE YOUR FUCKING MOVIE AND YOU DON'T HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH RELATIONSHIP TO GET A HARD COPY FROM THEM? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK AMAZON WILL SHIP YOU A GODDAMN LAWNMOWER FOR FREE BY THE END OF THE DAY.
(drinks)
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I mean, I know it's bad. Buddy of mine with screenwriting credits on summer blockbusters has roommates. As in, lives with three other dudes in the Valley. A producer I used to work with (and like) has a movie in development at Nickelodeon and is staff on like Sponge Bob or some shit. Remember me bitching about my horrible neighborhood all summer? He rents up the street. The horrible shithole I deign to slum around in while saving scratch to feed my fambly? That's his fuckin' apex. Muthafuckin' bikejackings and dead heroin addicts along the river and he's fuckin' arrived.
Know what I'm going to spend the weekend doing? Helping to install HVAC. Why? Because I went with the friend of my contractor, and he's hungry for cash, and I don't want him fucking up my walls. And by going with him, I'm saving three grand, and yeah, when you're saving three grand you're spending a lot of money and I don't expect to work particularly hard but who wants to spend their weekend hauling linesets over ceiling tile and shit?
I was venting about this to a buddy and he said "so basically you're making double your dayrate to help install HVAC."
full stop
There's this part of me that realizes I never did the whole screenwriter struggle thing because fuckadoodledoo I'm not the least bit interested in putting up with that degree of degradation. There's this idea that you have to suffer for your art and guilty as charged - I ain't putting in the suffering.
But I mean, it'd be one thing if you struggled all your goddamn life and when you finally got it made, it was Unforgiven. I mean, David Peeples wrote that five years before Blade Runner and it finally got made in '92.
But more often than not, it's fuckin' Hancock. Did you know that script has been banging around Hollywood since '96? Twelve goddamn years to get Surly Will Smith and you forgot that film existed until I reminded you of it just now.
I spent four hours in Pro Tools today. Compiling and organizing a goofy little $50k feature a friend of a friend put together. It's not great. But you know what? It's exactly what the guy wanted, he had total artistic control, it is 100% his movie, nobody else's, and the most he can lose is $50k.
And he doesn't have to change shifts at fuckin' Panera to buy a goddamn Mr. Coffee.
(drinks)
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There's a lot of griping around here about how movies suck these days (paging JTHipster, who I am most assuredly channeling). I don't disagree. But I felt like sharing that in amongst all the shit you watch, there's an absolute torrent of shit the creatives suffer getting it to you. And it's getting bad, friends. It's getting real bad.
Fuckin' goobster wants me to sit through another goddamn fellation of Philip K. Incoherent I Hate People Fuck You and Your Need For Plot Dick and I honestly don't know if I can do it.
I'm so fucking sick of Philip K Dick.
I'm so fucking sick of Nazis.
I'm so fucking sick of Amazon Fucking Studios.
And this is a series shot in my own goddamn back yard, was the inspiration for one of my favorite movies and is everything I should love and I just.can't.get.my.elbows.out.of.the.mudonit.
I'm at the point where I'm pissed off Sony sent me a free movie.
And if that doesn't illustrate a certain discontent towards filmed entertainment, I don't know what does.
The DVD tale reminds me of this video clip. Donno how I missed it, but you mention "The Beast" in that rant. I saw The Beast on a shitty overused VHS on a boat in an ice flow in Alaska back when I was digging out from the hole my life had descended into. I know no other person in real life that has seen this movie; for a while (and without internet you used to have conversations like this) I wondered if the movie was real or not. I remember the movie as it was the palette cleanser after the shitty piece of crap that was Titanic. And if you want a surreal movie experience, imagine watching Titanic on VHS after a 20 hour shift knocking ice off the rigging of a boat at 64°N in an ice storm where you cannot sleep due to chunks of ice hitting the side of the ship.
As a writer in the writer's guild, every single time Babylon 5 airs anywhere Harlan Ellison makes cents, or fractions of a cent, or some portion of fractions of a cent. Doing publicity interviews increases the composite value of the physical media (which was a thing back then), which pays out greater residuals. This is why writers, producers, directors and actors do commentary for free. And yes. They all do it for free. Residuals are a keen advantage of being in the Writer's Guild, or the Producer's Guild, or the Director's Guild, or the Actor's Guild. I have a friend who has so far made about $35k for appearing as a no-lines extra in Mad Men in a scene that got cut before broadcast. My cousin was the voiceover in Jenny Craig commercials before they hired Kirstie Alley. She made enough to live in Santa Monica and drive an Audi. That said, the subject of II is getting residuals from all 14 of those movies and he's working at fuckin' Panera. Those "cameramen" and others he singles out, like the receptionist he's beating the shit out of? If you're IATSE, your residuals get pumped into your union pension fund, which you will never see unless you can get three big network shows or five big union movies a year for twenty years. And then you'll get about $1200 a month after you retire. Do a napkin calc on the likeliness of anyone my age or younger ever collecting that pension. Effectively, my residuals are paying people who got to work with Michael Landon. The receptionist? She's probably not getting paid at all. She's an intern. She probably has a film degree from USC and she's doing this for the "connections." A friend of mine did this. His "connections" got him a writer's credit on Private Practice and he's staff now on Colony. He could afford to not work for four straight years while also working 80 hours a week. I cannot. ________________________________________________________ Harlan Ellison has cultivated a reputation among his fans as being a straight shooter who speaks truth to power. In actuality, he's an asshole that speaks Harlan Ellison and outrage to anyone who will listen. I know of two nonprofits he has stiffed. I was at a memorial service for another (beloved, well-known) writer and he called in to say something nice. Instead he launched into a ten minute expletive-laced tirade about a fight he had the previous week with a producer. The officiant literally had to hang up on his ass. ______________________________ The Beast was the movie Kevin Reynolds exorcised what Red Dawn became from his psyche. I believe he'd already moved to Seattle at that point, or was at least visiting prior to moving, and saw a stage play about a tank crew in Afghanistan. The enfield from The Beast is apparently the most prominent decoration in Kevin Reynolds' office, which is in Issaquah, not Hollywood. When I flew out to Thailand we went through Narita both ways. Going there was Flags of our Fathers. Coming back was Letters from Iwo Jima. I imagine that was about .001% of watching Titanic on a cannery ship in the arctic circle. Or kind of like Harlan Ellison's residuals on Babylon 5.
Which is why just about everyone that has ever interacted with him at a convention hates him. One of the things I like about that clip is it shows exactly how he is, or at least was, at the few ComicCons I went to where he was on stage. Off the stage, I had a nice little interaction with him a million years ago, but then again I did not ask him for anything either. I've also know people who escorted celebrities at events, the guys who volunteer to pick people up at airports, escort to hotels, interact with staff so the "talent" does not have to do that stuff. Hearing all those stories (and one guy has been doing this since the 80's) makes me appreciate the whole Death of the Author argument. Never meet your heroes and all that fun. Huh, he did Waterworld? I've never seen Waterworld, maybe I should try to find a copy online and watch it. We wore out the tape watching and re-watching the boat sink. Working in extreme stress environments is a trip if you only do it for a short time frame. Definitely amps up your dark humor stats.In actuality, he's an asshole that speaks Harlan Ellison and outrage to anyone who will listen.
The Beast was the movie Kevin Reynolds exorcised what Red Dawn became from his psyche.
I imagine that was about .001% of watching Titanic on a cannery ship in the arctic circle.
I've worked with dozens of celebrities. Maybe two were not gracious, friendly, accommodating and amazing, even the ones who are paid to be assholes. Hollywood is an expensive place to be an asshole because we all share stories of who's nice and who isn't. Even the ones that get written up all the time in the tabloids - I mean, I worked with Christina Aguilera a week after she fucked up the Star Spangled Banner. I would describe her as "guarded" but how can you not be when there's an entire subclass of journalist whose profession is to take pictures up your skirt? Kevin Reynolds got kicked off of Waterworld by Kevin Costner. Reynolds discovered Costner back in the day and pretty much made all of his movies up to Waterworld, at which point Reynolds said "we're making a terrible mistake and was shown the door. Ever seen Steel Dawn? It's great because it's pretty much a low-budg US version of Road Warrior (yes, a low budg version of Road Warrior) with some Beastmaster thrown in. It cost very little, it didn't care, and it's entertaining for what it is. Waterworld was written for a two million dollar budget contemporaneously with Steel Dawn. It should have been a campy, ridiculous tale of mutants and trimarans with some dudes on jetskis wearing eyepatches on Lake Mead pretending that the shore isn't visible if we tilt the camera down a little. Instead, it cost a rumored $350 million. Jeanne Tripplehorn is at her hottest. Dennis Hopper throws himself unabashedly into the most ridiculous role he ever played. Even Tina Majorino gives it her all. But it is to Steel Dawn what World War Z is to Shaun of the Dead. I nearly did the fishing boat thing when I was in college. I chose not to when my uncle pointed out "yeah, you'll make money, but you have to understand there's a small percentage of those boats that don't make it back." My second job after college I had an office literally overlooking the Seattle Fisherman's Memorial. I was dating a girl who worked for one of the boats back then when the Arctic Rose went down. I watched them add the names, I watched them hold the memorial, and I saw a few people I'd partied with in the crowd. Then every year after, I watched more names be added. There's still a lot of room on that memorial.
Watch Anomalisa. Charlie Kaufman made stop motion puppet sex and it's amazing. The only good movie I saw last year. Then I guess wait a year for another good movie. At least it might calm you down but I don't pretend to be able to predict your taste in media
I've hated Charlie Kaufman since Being John Malkovich (a film the subject of III rejected for HBO back when he was a reader there). Kaufman firmly believes that humanity is motivated by greed and hatred and I just as firmly do not. Yet another friend of mine, whose work includes one of my favorite films of the past 20 years, got an Oscar nom for Anomalisa. Yet I did not see it, and will not. This is the depth of my Charlie Kaufman hatred.