This is high on my list o’ stuff to see. The original was quite good. And I love the fact that Michael Caine has come full circle from playing the role of the youngster to taking over the role that Olivier played in the original. And that Kenneth Branagh is in charge (whose theatrical upbringing almost guarantees the script’s integrity) makes it all the more see-worthy.
The new trailer:
The original:
The last time there was a full-fledged Writer’s Guild strike, I wasn’t in the Writer’s Guild. That was many many years ago. I remember hearing about the strike and then all of a sudden, Dark Shadows with Ben Cross was on TV. And while I’m in the Guild now, I haven’t actually been an active member for about a year, and I haven’t had a paid gig in a couple, so I’m not exactly pacing with tension over this apparently looming strike–at least as far as making rent is concerned. According to an article in today’s Variety, the WGA have drafted strike rules, a move that’s actually more akin to showing Iran a map of where we’d like to bomb should push come to shove than telling our soldiers what would happen should they go AWOL.
In addition to a ban on any guild-covered work in features and TV, a draft recap of the WGA rules said the guild plans to prohibit any writing for new media and declare that writers can’t do animated features — even though that realm is not under WGA jurisdiction.
The WGA didn’t specify what the penalties would be for violating the rules. It’s also asserting that nonmembers who perform banned work during a strike will be barred from joining the guild in the future.
Craig Mazin over at The Artful Writer, who’s been keeping tabs on Guild maneuverings for as long as I’ve been reading points to something that bothers me about the recent focus of the talks:
Everyone in the negotiating room knows that DVD residuals are the epitome of a sailed ship. Harping on doubling that rate is as pointless and absurd as the companies’ proposal to tie residuals to profit.
I completely agree. Popular or not, DVD will soon be as obsolete as the CD (and if you don’t think the cd is obsolete, go talk to the guys at Apple, or for that matter, at Amoeba) and quibbling over the residual rate seems to be missing the point.
The monster is the novel. It’s time I stopped planning to write it. It’s time I stopped talking about writing it. It’s time I stopped pondering what to write about. I have options. There are so many things I could write. So many stories to put down into prose. It’s time to get going.
But how do I do it? Where do I begin? And most of all, how do I recognize that the procrastination is really nothing more than ill-disguised fear of failure? I plunge in, that’s how. And I write about writing it here. Because if I post this declaration (I will write this damned novel!) and make it public, than I’ve got to do it. So I’m locking the novelist part of me into a small walk-in closet, handing him a typewriter and walking away. Once a week I’ll check in on him, make sure he’s got celery and carrots and plenty of water in his bottle and let this blog know how he’s doing.
This week’s progress? I’ve decided on a project. It’s Strange Angels. The oft-rewritten script has been bogged down with budget woes. What that means is that I’d look at the scene I’d just written and say to myself, “there’s no way Paramount’s gonna want to shoot this ‘whole world blows up’ sequence. Especially if I set it in Venezuela.” So this will be a novel. I can do with the world as I please.
So check in, if you care. I’m going to learn a lot in the next few months.
Man, has it really been twenty years?
When I worked at Amoeba Music recently, I was one of about three people who had a thing for Rush. Three of us. Jim Evens was one. And there was someone else. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Charles. Three of us. Out of a staff of 220. In my estimate, that means at least a hundred of them weren’t fessing up.
Rush was my first concert (December 1985, dude, Power Windows Tour, Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, yeah!) And by first concert I mean the first one I went to by myself. I had already been to see The Grateful Dead and The Allman Bros. Band with my parents. They had nothing to do with this one. If they had, I probably wouldn’t have been dressed in a long overcoat bedecked with cool buttons that said things like, FRANKIE SAY RELAX, FRODO LIVES and WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, DICKNOSE?. Yes, that’s right. I was a geek.
Anyway, it was two more years before they released Hold Your Fire. Back in those days we didn’t have computers that you could carry around with you and we all had free time and spent a great deal of time outdoors. Nothing to do but drop by Hastings Music once a week and see if Rush (or Yes or Marillion or The Fixx) has put anything new out lately. It was a busy two years for me. In September 1987 I was finally rewarded for my efforts.
Good times…
Enon balances crunchy guitars with synth-y goodness like one of those plate spinning acts. The result isn’t always beautiful, but it’s impressive nonetheless. I think the slender, tremulous Kelli Ali style vocals by Toko Yasuda help. She’s got a thin, high warble that somehow holds its own against the crash and bang of the rest of the guys. Grass Geysers … Carbon Clouds, which comes out today, is the band’s first album in four years.
“Doctor, doctor, what am I going to do? I’m so miserable. There’s just nothing going for me. I’m stuck in this lame suburb, I’m working a weird job that involves driving a truck with a musical horn, and I miss Lydia. You know, I hear she’s seeing some guy named James. That makes me want to just tear my insides out with my own blunt fingers. Help me. Please!”
“Dear lad. Drink some water. Get some exercise. And listen to Night Falls Over Kortedala.”
This is a hard album to pinpoint, but then who needs to categorize it when it sounds this good? Critics have been hard-pressed to categorize Tunng anyway, and have come up with the word “folktronica” in an attempt to keep from going mad. It’s a splendid mix of, well, acoustic strums and electronic bleeps and bloops, a little folk, a little electronica. A lot of melody, delicate and articulate. They remind me a bit of Electric President. The new album is called Good Arrows. Check out this tune, called “Soup.” You figure out why.
I’ve only just discovered this one. Gwyneth Herbert has a new album out. I don’t have it yet. So sue me. But after taking a listen to her last one, 2004’s Bittersweet & Blue, and after reading this, I’m interested. The new one’s called Between Me & The Wardrobe, still available only as an import. Buy it here. And while you’re doing that, listen to this cut off the last album, which, while not necessarily representative of the album as a whole, which is like a silky voice wrapped ’round a speakeasy, is a killer cover of the Portishead song.
As I work on getting this blog into shape and I tinker with plug-ins and code and ideas, I keep listening to music. And there’s just too much to talk about these days to keep quiet about it. I can’t wait. So here’s a little something about Ms. Hoop.
I’d been hearing a great deal about Jesca Hoop for the past year or two. I never caught her act, but she cropped up in “Best Local Artist” lists for months, and if you had KCRW on for any length of time on a given day you were likely to hear “Seed Of Wonder.” Finally, her full-length is on shelves, and it seems worth the wait. It’s a complex, spiraling work that immediately calls to mind other recent releases in this vein, such as St. Vincent’s “Marry Me” and Justine Electra’s “Soft Rock.” But she’s got a crystalline quality all her own and within a few hours has managed to dominate my playlist.
I somehow missed the Band Of Horses wagon train when it set out last year. I mean, I found their 2006 effort to be a decent collection, but aside from The Funeral, it all kinda blended together in a great big meringue. So I wasn’t expecting a whole lot with the new one. But there are a few really strong tracks on there, not the least of which is called “Marry Song.”
Check it:
The Onion manages to nail what it is that I love and hate about Pitchfork. The music review site is informative and musically aware, but they can certainly get verbose and elitist. They’re, on the whole, better writers than Harry Knowles and his crew, but I still skip down lower in the review and begin there.
Schreiber’s semi-favorable review, which begins in earnest after a six-paragraph preamble comprising a long list of baroquely rendered, seemingly unrelated anecdotes peppered with obscure references, summarizes music as a “solid but uninspired effort.”
This line makes me wish it were an honest-to-god review:
“We can only hope that [music] will begin to grow with its fans over the next few millennia,” Schreiber said. “If it can stick to what it does well, namely the song ‘Peg’ by Steely Dan, and Tuvan throat singing, then a sophomore effort will indeed be something to get excited about.”
Link.
I’m in New Mexico. An opportunity came up. I’m gonna house-sit here in Santa Fe for eight months. That means I’ve got nothing but time. And what am I going to do with all this time? Well, write, of course. And detox a little. The Hollywood smog was getting under my skin. But also, it’s time to kick this lethargic and unpretty blog back into action. Remember that re-design and focus I was talking about before? Well it’s finally gonna happen.
So stay tuned. I’m hard at work on the new site. No more Hollywoodland. Enter Sixsquare.com.
Stick around.
I return from the desert very early Monday morning. The next day I work. And then the day after that, I work. At last, Wednesday, I get to crash. And crash, I do. I completely shut down for the day, dehydrated, lethargic, cranky. It’s not until today that I’m able to sort through the last of the videos and the best of the photos. Here’s the final round up:
Photos:
Flickr set.
I’m back in Hollywoodland. Pics and videos of Day 3 coming soon.
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, MUSIC, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, MOVIES, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, SCREENWRITING, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, STUFF, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, ME.
Write me here
last.fm
