The days after Obama's election felt like the opposite of 9/11 walking around, a sort of cheesy lack of tension in the air. My only problem with it is that my script may not feel so fresh or daring anymore. It may feel like I'm following a trend by having a black Jesus or I'm implying something is wrong with Obama. Maybe I will have to scrap that idea.
I'm not so sure how I feel about it now that the new interpretation is possible.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
the script
I think it's as good as it'll get. Gotta shoot. But also have to fight the inexplicable chemical apathy I seem to have about movies - right when I need to be more motivated than ever.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
lowest-rated on imdb is Disaster Movie !
Memo to the studio -- Who green-lit this ??????? Does anyone over-see the writing process and say "Hey, how about a story with more of a disaster movie premise driving everything?" Or "How about something actually funny?"Context: Yes, I have seen every prerequisite movie or TV item being referenced, so it's not like I don't get it. Some of those items were themselves a waste of time and attention, and it's not like these filmmakers have much to say about them anyway. They have nothing to say about disasters, about movies nor about disaster movies.I saw this movie on-line for free and I still feel owed something for the time it cost me. If it gets a 1 out of ten the single nugget of goodness might be the marketing. The posters did a great job in promising something that might be the last word on the Disaster Movie genre. The Irwin Allen era was pretty much covered by Airplane! Funny thing that. . .even young viewers who haven't seen Airport '77 let alone Zero Hour GET Airplane! and laugh with it. So it's not even a generational thing. This movie could have explored the late 90's preoccupation with the end. I have wanted to do something about competing asteroids reminiscent of Deep Impact and Armegeddon, certainly there is room for Titanic, Poseidon and various versions possibly clashing. One thing you EXPECT from that kind of premise is built-in tension. But Disaster Movie has none, mainly because it doesn't bother laying out any story really. It reminds me of kids with their first video camera running around and being this and being that - one pop culture reference after another - except without the charm. This is not a Mad TV or SNL skit fest either. Disaster Movie is the worst thing this team has come out with. It is bad in a why bother sort of way. They start with a spoof about 10, 000 B.C. merely because that is a current movie. It's not a hook or inciting incident or insight into the lead character. A prehistoric man of sorts gets stopped by someone referencing a Gladiator TV show, so they fight and "Amy Winehouse" pops up and burps for awhile. It's like each scene has the feeling that someone said "Okay, pad the running time." Imagine the most inept and uninformed improv group taking suggestions from an audience full of ten year-olds. Then imagine someone filmed that and got it into thousands of theaters. Disaster Movie does not play as a movie at all except in two scenes - or maybe I should call them beats: Out of nowhere, someone poorly imitating a fad pop singer is apparently killed and someone says, "She was a national treasure." Or a Manhatten loft modeled after the party scene of Cloverfield is full of young preppy types listening to radio or TV (which provides most of the movie's claim to disaster theme relevance) and a reporter says something like, "The ghetto has just been destroyed. But we're okay about that." That's the extent of the movie's edge. The movie insults Juno and Sex and the City without having anything valid to say about them. Diablo Cody's dialog sounds even better now after hearing some hack(s) attempt it. I mean, spoofing a comedy is uninspired enough. But someone (Is David Zucker still credited as having something to do with them? Tell me no) should tell them that having a character simply show up isn't a comment, a satire, a spoof, nor much of a reference to that character. Whichever actors IMDb lists as playing many walk-ons in different costumes haven't given the estate of Peter Sellers anything to worry about. In fact, they haven't given Leslie Neilsen and Charlie Sheen anything to worry about. Except that certain suits may decide spoofs are "bad box office" now, and for a few years, without looking at how this unnecessary marketing project came to be and why it fails. Now seriously before watching this be sure to watch No Country for Old Men, Juno, Cloverfield, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Batman, High School Musical, Sex and the City, Armageddon, and even lesser movies like Jumper and LOTS of disposable TV not as preparation to understand this movie but so you won't be able to spare the 80 minutes or whatever it is that I sadly lost watching it.I don't mind having to take more time to compose this blurb if it will spare one other human being this example of splintered fingernails on the chalkboard of cinema.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
draft ongoing
It's a long slog. At any time since 2004 I could say confidently that I am done writing this thing and that the script is ready to shoot.
But it is one of those concepts where the research never stops and it keeps reinventing itself, so it is for the best that previous versions never got shot.
That being said, the bar is set pretty high so that by the time I am done shooting this it will be another Kong-size monkey off my back.
But it is one of those concepts where the research never stops and it keeps reinventing itself, so it is for the best that previous versions never got shot.
That being said, the bar is set pretty high so that by the time I am done shooting this it will be another Kong-size monkey off my back.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Odd Delusion
Research is ongoing even though I have declared the script finished a few times.
Always one or two cheeky things to incorporate. Or exclude. Putting words into the mouth of a Jesus character can be dicey.
I’m reading a book by atheist Richard Dawkins which is quite precise in its exploration of semantics. But before I get into what he says or doesn’t say, let me bog down explaining what I mean. When I say he I mean Dawkins, and when I attribute a comment to him I could also mean one of the many quotes from others he is using to support his arguments. On one hand it uses a quote that slams anyone who confuses a use of the word God as guilty of high treason and on the other giving a free pass to Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein for repeatedly referring to God while at the same time apparently meaning “the God of science” which is not the image usually invoked or understood in common language. Usually Dawkins is precise with his own word choice, or at least he keeps telling us that he is. And since the question of God and science predates many of the people using the term God to mean something other than supreme being, one would expect more from those geniuses.
In my ignorance as a Catholic which apparently means I have below average intelligence, I had been willing to accept that if we believe in a God then science would not be isolated from him, her or it because God would have created science, Natural Selection, Charles Darwin, et all. But much time is spent on the passionately held rules where supposedly theories of the supernatural should not be held up to the scrutiny of existing science. I'll admit I do not know for sure that an ovum could be split on its own and double its chromosomes to 46 and begin the process of gestation without the introduction of a sperm, so I wouldn't presume to engage on the topic of virgin birth. But I would expect a scientist to at least mention that hypothesis. Much of the book might make one's eyes glaze over, especially the insistence that the big bang was minor compared with the "big crunch" which imploded another previous universe in order to create the stuff of the bang. That is at least funny, even though it is arbitrary and stalls on the eventual discussion of a point where there had to have been nothing before the beginning of something. It leaves the passionately frothing-at-the-mouth insistence that crunch is a better word than bang, and apparently as for how Natural Selection works chance is dismissed by Dawkins but luck is mentioned often. So chance is superstition and silliness but luck is an element of science and reason.
To support Natural Selection, which I have nothing against, this book states that it is illogical to demand that every stage be covered and explained and gives the example of a security camera that records every stage of a crime. To defend Intelligent Design one might make the same claim, so the standard seems to be lowered where convenient for Dawkins. This leads me to say something a little mean: It's easy for a Darwinian disciple to hide behind the skirt of science as a banner thought mode and take credit for the efforts of those who are curing diseases, but ultimately the reverence for Natural Selection isn't much of a specialisation for a scientist. It appears to be the least useful form of science, as speculative as what may well be the mythology and magic that it purportedly opposes.
Dawkins has a vested interest in Darwinism, perhaps more so than the rest of us. He has a level of zeal for his school of thought that could be called religious, because it does bind him back to itself. Instead of a tenured professor and brilliant author the impression one gets from listening to the book on a set of unabridged CDs is one of defensive runt with sand kicked in his face buy the theologians. The bully thing comes up frequently, even to the extent of suggesting the experiment where we substitute the word jew or communist or witch with “atheist.” At the same time, when someone suggests that a matter cannot be answered by science but can be left up to the theologian Dawkins is bitterly dismissive of that area of study to the point of comparing a theologian to a janitor. This doesn't stop him and his wife (Dr. Who's Lalla Ward) from later referencing Theologians who support some of their claims.
I must say that a recent interview I caught on TV Ontario allowed Professor Dawkins to come off as less hostile than in the reading of his own book which is as chilly and condescending as his friend Douglas Adams was whimsical. Additionally, as his wife interjects quotes throughout this teamwork gives me two impressions. While she does break up the listening experience so that we remain engaged by the vocal changes, the stuffiness and smug formality is uniform and it plays like two people forming a united front or a tag-team – a ploy which would be more redundant if their arguments were more persuasive. Much time is devoted to speculating about the secret popularity of atheism throughout history and current society as if it has to be popular to be right.
They are quick to call critics of their favourite theories on "cheek" and yet constantly insult God believers at every turn (usually somewhat justified, but they have no right to expect a lack of cheekiness, edge or smugness in return as their own life's work is peed upon). In Natural Selection, just who is doing the selection? Is improbability a science, or is it a leap of faith? Certainly the zeal which drives this reading of The God Delusion is no less a closed system than many religions. Believers are easy targets in that The Bible and other holy books do not stand up to close scrutiny and those points of Dawkins hit home easily. But the distinction between chance and Natural Selection gets very tedious, like a joke that could have used a rewrite by buddy Adams to become funny. Dawkins allows that the tiny changes in all things over time are small improbabilities. Then he hinges much of his belief system on the idea that no complex organism can exist which hasn't changed from a less complex form and only the sudden appearance of a creature that has never evolved or changed would satisfy him that there is a God. He also states that if there is a God he would have to be complex. How is that statement scientific? If simplicity is the natural result of profound thought, why wouldn't God be simple? Why wouldn't a God be like so many of the great ideas, where we slap our foreheads in embarrassment and wonder why we didn't think of something so obvious?
In his TV interview, Dawkins was asked his opinion of charitable acts and how they fit into Darwin’s model. He agreed that he had no explanation and that he was happy we have risen beyond our Darwinian history in those cases. Great save, except that it assumes that charity and looking after the ill are traits new to humanity and not something that might have been practiced outside the borders of Sparta all along. He makes the point that it is foolish to assume that if we all stop believing in God and the afterlife society will crumble into murder and chaos; in his vision, everyone will be more committed to living life and the humane side of humanity will win out as long as we do not have religion causing all of the war and the division. This of course leaves out the tribalism that existed between cultures untouched by western religion or any organized theocracy, not to mention the usual conflicts over food, clothing, shelter, land, water, physical appearance, language, and loyalty to sports teams. With or without religion, there will still be patriotic fervor and the haves and have-nots as Darwin would agree.
I have not yet seen Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but the seven minute trailer I saw on Youtube easily explains the hatred it has provoked from critics. That film seems to stew in its own brand of smugness for the other perceived side in these debates. I don’t know if Intelligent Design is behind the creation of the universe, or the world, or the known world, but I do know that some intelligence of design should go into constructing a documentary. It would also be prudent. The film as advertised seems to build up concern over a vast conspiracy to stack the cards against religion and portray all belief as radical or dangerous and a threat to science. Yet if such a threat is known then the filmmakers might have been mindful enough to keep their message subversive and allow the viewers to draw their own conclusions from whatever is presented. As it stands, if Intelligent Design continues to lose ground in classrooms, its advocates might have to content themselves with having a stranglehold on the content of broadcasting and film via lobbies and networks desperate to keep sponsors.
Is the world or Life, the Universe and Everything the result of Intelligent Design? I don't know. Even the works of Douglas Adams were reportedly often dashed off in bursts of last minute stream of consciousness writing sessions with his editor waiting for the pages. The argument for genus as proof of God is dismissed easily, since a Mozart could have existed with or without supernatural inspiration. But when it comes to that something appearing without previous revision I can't help think of Mozart's written notes with no corrections in their first and only draft. The work of Dawkins however has no excuse for having any holes of logic because he seems to choose his words carefully and preface anything with a context and he is very articulate. Judging by his live interviews he can also think on his feet, but he may have arrived at many of his views through trial and error via his scientific process. Despite his appreciation for ignorance as a necessary food for the process of new discovery, he absolutely has his mind made up and this rather unscientific starting point can tend to suffocate the reader or listener.
I certainly wouldn't have the "cheek" to write off Dawkins and his wife as idiots. Much of the bible is wrong, and atheists aren't really hurting anyone. They're not bombing anything that I know of, and if they are surprised to find an afterlife I expect any God worth worshipping wouldn't send them to hell for being sceptics. They would simply slap their foreheads as God tells them the punchline and wonder why they didn't think of it. But in the end I think it would be more fun to meet Mel Gibson.
Always one or two cheeky things to incorporate. Or exclude. Putting words into the mouth of a Jesus character can be dicey.
I’m reading a book by atheist Richard Dawkins which is quite precise in its exploration of semantics. But before I get into what he says or doesn’t say, let me bog down explaining what I mean. When I say he I mean Dawkins, and when I attribute a comment to him I could also mean one of the many quotes from others he is using to support his arguments. On one hand it uses a quote that slams anyone who confuses a use of the word God as guilty of high treason and on the other giving a free pass to Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein for repeatedly referring to God while at the same time apparently meaning “the God of science” which is not the image usually invoked or understood in common language. Usually Dawkins is precise with his own word choice, or at least he keeps telling us that he is. And since the question of God and science predates many of the people using the term God to mean something other than supreme being, one would expect more from those geniuses.
In my ignorance as a Catholic which apparently means I have below average intelligence, I had been willing to accept that if we believe in a God then science would not be isolated from him, her or it because God would have created science, Natural Selection, Charles Darwin, et all. But much time is spent on the passionately held rules where supposedly theories of the supernatural should not be held up to the scrutiny of existing science. I'll admit I do not know for sure that an ovum could be split on its own and double its chromosomes to 46 and begin the process of gestation without the introduction of a sperm, so I wouldn't presume to engage on the topic of virgin birth. But I would expect a scientist to at least mention that hypothesis. Much of the book might make one's eyes glaze over, especially the insistence that the big bang was minor compared with the "big crunch" which imploded another previous universe in order to create the stuff of the bang. That is at least funny, even though it is arbitrary and stalls on the eventual discussion of a point where there had to have been nothing before the beginning of something. It leaves the passionately frothing-at-the-mouth insistence that crunch is a better word than bang, and apparently as for how Natural Selection works chance is dismissed by Dawkins but luck is mentioned often. So chance is superstition and silliness but luck is an element of science and reason.
To support Natural Selection, which I have nothing against, this book states that it is illogical to demand that every stage be covered and explained and gives the example of a security camera that records every stage of a crime. To defend Intelligent Design one might make the same claim, so the standard seems to be lowered where convenient for Dawkins. This leads me to say something a little mean: It's easy for a Darwinian disciple to hide behind the skirt of science as a banner thought mode and take credit for the efforts of those who are curing diseases, but ultimately the reverence for Natural Selection isn't much of a specialisation for a scientist. It appears to be the least useful form of science, as speculative as what may well be the mythology and magic that it purportedly opposes.
Dawkins has a vested interest in Darwinism, perhaps more so than the rest of us. He has a level of zeal for his school of thought that could be called religious, because it does bind him back to itself. Instead of a tenured professor and brilliant author the impression one gets from listening to the book on a set of unabridged CDs is one of defensive runt with sand kicked in his face buy the theologians. The bully thing comes up frequently, even to the extent of suggesting the experiment where we substitute the word jew or communist or witch with “atheist.” At the same time, when someone suggests that a matter cannot be answered by science but can be left up to the theologian Dawkins is bitterly dismissive of that area of study to the point of comparing a theologian to a janitor. This doesn't stop him and his wife (Dr. Who's Lalla Ward) from later referencing Theologians who support some of their claims.
I must say that a recent interview I caught on TV Ontario allowed Professor Dawkins to come off as less hostile than in the reading of his own book which is as chilly and condescending as his friend Douglas Adams was whimsical. Additionally, as his wife interjects quotes throughout this teamwork gives me two impressions. While she does break up the listening experience so that we remain engaged by the vocal changes, the stuffiness and smug formality is uniform and it plays like two people forming a united front or a tag-team – a ploy which would be more redundant if their arguments were more persuasive. Much time is devoted to speculating about the secret popularity of atheism throughout history and current society as if it has to be popular to be right.
They are quick to call critics of their favourite theories on "cheek" and yet constantly insult God believers at every turn (usually somewhat justified, but they have no right to expect a lack of cheekiness, edge or smugness in return as their own life's work is peed upon). In Natural Selection, just who is doing the selection? Is improbability a science, or is it a leap of faith? Certainly the zeal which drives this reading of The God Delusion is no less a closed system than many religions. Believers are easy targets in that The Bible and other holy books do not stand up to close scrutiny and those points of Dawkins hit home easily. But the distinction between chance and Natural Selection gets very tedious, like a joke that could have used a rewrite by buddy Adams to become funny. Dawkins allows that the tiny changes in all things over time are small improbabilities. Then he hinges much of his belief system on the idea that no complex organism can exist which hasn't changed from a less complex form and only the sudden appearance of a creature that has never evolved or changed would satisfy him that there is a God. He also states that if there is a God he would have to be complex. How is that statement scientific? If simplicity is the natural result of profound thought, why wouldn't God be simple? Why wouldn't a God be like so many of the great ideas, where we slap our foreheads in embarrassment and wonder why we didn't think of something so obvious?
In his TV interview, Dawkins was asked his opinion of charitable acts and how they fit into Darwin’s model. He agreed that he had no explanation and that he was happy we have risen beyond our Darwinian history in those cases. Great save, except that it assumes that charity and looking after the ill are traits new to humanity and not something that might have been practiced outside the borders of Sparta all along. He makes the point that it is foolish to assume that if we all stop believing in God and the afterlife society will crumble into murder and chaos; in his vision, everyone will be more committed to living life and the humane side of humanity will win out as long as we do not have religion causing all of the war and the division. This of course leaves out the tribalism that existed between cultures untouched by western religion or any organized theocracy, not to mention the usual conflicts over food, clothing, shelter, land, water, physical appearance, language, and loyalty to sports teams. With or without religion, there will still be patriotic fervor and the haves and have-nots as Darwin would agree.
I have not yet seen Ben Stein’s documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but the seven minute trailer I saw on Youtube easily explains the hatred it has provoked from critics. That film seems to stew in its own brand of smugness for the other perceived side in these debates. I don’t know if Intelligent Design is behind the creation of the universe, or the world, or the known world, but I do know that some intelligence of design should go into constructing a documentary. It would also be prudent. The film as advertised seems to build up concern over a vast conspiracy to stack the cards against religion and portray all belief as radical or dangerous and a threat to science. Yet if such a threat is known then the filmmakers might have been mindful enough to keep their message subversive and allow the viewers to draw their own conclusions from whatever is presented. As it stands, if Intelligent Design continues to lose ground in classrooms, its advocates might have to content themselves with having a stranglehold on the content of broadcasting and film via lobbies and networks desperate to keep sponsors.
Is the world or Life, the Universe and Everything the result of Intelligent Design? I don't know. Even the works of Douglas Adams were reportedly often dashed off in bursts of last minute stream of consciousness writing sessions with his editor waiting for the pages. The argument for genus as proof of God is dismissed easily, since a Mozart could have existed with or without supernatural inspiration. But when it comes to that something appearing without previous revision I can't help think of Mozart's written notes with no corrections in their first and only draft. The work of Dawkins however has no excuse for having any holes of logic because he seems to choose his words carefully and preface anything with a context and he is very articulate. Judging by his live interviews he can also think on his feet, but he may have arrived at many of his views through trial and error via his scientific process. Despite his appreciation for ignorance as a necessary food for the process of new discovery, he absolutely has his mind made up and this rather unscientific starting point can tend to suffocate the reader or listener.
I certainly wouldn't have the "cheek" to write off Dawkins and his wife as idiots. Much of the bible is wrong, and atheists aren't really hurting anyone. They're not bombing anything that I know of, and if they are surprised to find an afterlife I expect any God worth worshipping wouldn't send them to hell for being sceptics. They would simply slap their foreheads as God tells them the punchline and wonder why they didn't think of it. But in the end I think it would be more fun to meet Mel Gibson.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
someone read the draft!
I had a copy of the Fashion of the Christ script on a drive at work.
A security guard read it and said much of it was quite funny.
So it's got that going for it.
A security guard read it and said much of it was quite funny.
So it's got that going for it.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Fashion of the Christ
The 18 page draft of The Fashion of the Christ has not been sellected by LIFT Out Loud for public reading. The generic e-mail said they are willing to look at another draft or another script at a future date. I'd like the script to at least earn a little notoriety before I shoot it. Apparently I am welcome to attend the session on the 4th anyway, moderated by Ken Finkleman writer of The Newsroom, Airplane II: The Sequel and Grease 2. Airplane II isn't bad at all, so having him hear my script might have been sort of cool.
Just what kind of generic, politically-correct, plodding pieces of poo are going to be presented I don't yet know. Nor do I know the value of my constructive criticism for them: I didn't get picked. Maybe what hurt The Fashion of the Christ is a section where characters pick apart the Bible in the same way scripts will be broken down after the public reading.
Meanwhile, I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opening day!
What a refreshing moviegoing trip. It really drives home how today's audiences have been
settling for shite. Action movies really do have to be in the hands of someone like Spielberg.
That lad will go far some day.
Just what kind of generic, politically-correct, plodding pieces of poo are going to be presented I don't yet know. Nor do I know the value of my constructive criticism for them: I didn't get picked. Maybe what hurt The Fashion of the Christ is a section where characters pick apart the Bible in the same way scripts will be broken down after the public reading.
Meanwhile, I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opening day!
What a refreshing moviegoing trip. It really drives home how today's audiences have been
settling for shite. Action movies really do have to be in the hands of someone like Spielberg.
That lad will go far some day.
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