2012 movie race: March and April

Hey, I haven’t updated my movies watched list for you guys in a couple months. Let’s see, I left off in February. Titles in bold are ones I saw in a movie theatre.


               
Movie Released Director Seen before? Date Watched      
       
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai 1999 Jim Jarmusch New 6-Mar-12          
Pusher 1996 Nicholas Winding Refn New 8-Mar-12          
John Carter 2012 Andrew Stanton New 12-Mar-12          
Fear X 2003 Nicholas Winding Refn New 14-Mar-12          
21 Jump Street 2012 Phil Lord & Christopher Miller New 16-Mar-12          
Warrior 2011 Gavin O’Connor New 21-Mar-12          
Wall•E 2008 Andrew Stanton Rewatch 22-Mar-12          
Battle Royale 2000 Kinji Fukasaku Rewatch 23-Mar-12          
The Hunger Games 2012 Gary Ross New 24-Mar-12          
Jeff, Who Lives At Home 2012 Jay & Mark Duplass New 24-Mar-12          
The Lady Vanishes 1938 Alfred Hitchcock Rewatch 25-Mar-12          
The Three Musketeers 1973 Richard Lester New 25-Mar-12          
The Four Musketeers 1974 Richard Lester New 25-Mar-12          
Spellbound 1945 Alfred Hitchcock New 26-Mar-12          
Mirror, Mirror 2012 Tarsem Singh Dhandwar New 30-Mar-12          
The Bride Wore Black 1968 François Truffaut New 31-Mar-12          
Aelita: Queen of Mars 1924 Yakov Protazanov New 31-Mar-12          
The Raid: Redemption 2012 Gareth Evans New 31-Mar-12          
The Unsinkable Molly Brown 1964 Charles Walters New 4-Apr-12          
Titanic 1997 James Cameron Rewatch 7-Apr-12          
A Night To Remember 1958 Roy Ward Baker New 8-Apr-12          
Hulk 2003 Ang Lee Rewatch 10-Apr-12          
The Incredible Hulk 2008 Louis Leterrier Rewatch 11-Apr-12          
Iron Man 2008 Jon Favreau Rewatch 11-Apr-12          
Mission: Impossible 1996 Brian DePalma Rewatch 11-Apr-12          
Cabin in the Woods 2012 Drew Goddard New 13-Apr-12          
The Shining 1980 Stanley Kubrick Rewatch 14-Apr-12          
The Killer 1989 John Woo New 19-Apr-12          
Metropolis 1927 Fritz Lang New 21-Apr-12          
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 Stanley Kubrick Rewatch 21-Apr-12          
Godzilla 1954 Ishiro Honda New 22-Apr-12          
Thor 2011 Kenneth Branagh Rewatch 22-Apr-12          
Captain America: The First Avenger 2011 Joe Johnston Rewatch 22-Apr-12          
Beauty and the Beast 1991 Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise Rewatch 23-Apr-12          
Aliens 1986 James Cameron Rewatch 24-Apr-12          
Mission: Impossible III 2006 J. J. Abrams Rewatch 25-Apr-12          
Batman: The Movie 1966 Leslie H. Martinson New 26-Apr-12          
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol 2011 Brad Bird Rewatch 27-Apr-12          
The Pirates! Band of Misfits 2012 Peter Lord New 28-Apr-12          
The Adventures of Prince Achmed 1926 Lotte Reiniger New 29-Apr-12          
         

Add in the one I watched tonight, and that makes 46 new-to-me films, and 26 rewatches, for a total of 72. For my goal of 366 new films for the year, I’m behind by, well, 77.

But hey. Plenty of time left to catch up, right?

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Fellow creative-types: HELP

I’m having what feels like a unique problem, but probably isn’t.

I have a lot of projects in various states of completion. A novel with a complete first draft that’s a huge sprawling mess. A second novel, more modest in scope, half-completed. A half-finished screenplay. A half-finished outline for another screenplay. An ambitious series of short stories meant to provide backstory for the characters in a graphic novel series I also plan to write. And so on, and so on.

Here’s the problem: I can’t get any traction on any of these projects. I tell myself, “okay, you’re going to work on project A until it’s DONE, and then you can move on to project B.” But then I get frustrated with project A and skip over to project L, instead (citing various justifications in my head as I do so).

The tricky part is, sometimes a project just isn’t working, and it’s a good idea to take a step back and work on something else for a while. But I’m so all over the place that I can’t tell if I actually need breathing room on some of these projects, or if I’m just using that as an excuse to not get any real work done. Eventually (soon) I need to settle down and focus and work on something, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. And it needs to (for many and varied reasons, including emotional, psychological, and financial).

So. Help? Any advice you might have would be greatly welcomed.

(Ah, figured out how to enable comments. That should help.)

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Tell me what to watch!

I’ve been working my way through the complete Lost box set my parents gave me for Christmas, and soon I’m going to need a new show to start. I could go with another already-completed show, like The Wire or The Sopranos, but I’d like more to go with something currently being discussed. BUT WHAT?

Here’s where you come in! Help me make my decisions for me, internet.

What new-to-me TV show should I begin watching next?

View Results

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When tunnel vision is a good thing

This week’s been interesting. Not objectively, just to me.

I had a day-long panic attack on Monday, brought on by the realization that I’m 31 and I’ve accomplished nothing and running through a list of the projects and goals and everything else I should have already completed by now and what on Earth is that sobbing sound oh that’s me and I guess the sound of a head repeatedly hitting the wall is me as well.

I have a lot of projects, a lot of ideas. Half a dozen screenplays, two novels, research for a YA series, research for a non-fiction book. Plus I’d like to learn to play the piano. And speak Spanish. And I need to exercise. And get caught up on TV. And watch a movie every day. And and and.

You can see how this might get out of control.

Tuesday I forced myself not to think about any of this at all and to just veg. Wednesday I came to the (obvious) realization that the only way I was going to get anything done was to just take things one at a time. I need to fasten the blinders and adopt a willful kind of tunnel vision that forces me to only think about one project at a time, and not try to figure out when and how I’m going to accomplish all the dozens of items on my to-do list.

So. Right now that’s my new screenplay. I have a rough outline and two of the three main character bios done; I need to write the third character bio and a more detailed outline, then start churning out pages.

And that’s it. I’m not contemplating what I’ll work on next. There’ll be something, that’s for certain, but I’m not letting myself think about or even decide what it’s going to be.

Tunnel vision. Often bad, here a necessity.

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Creative update: what I’m working on

I don’t think I told you guys (not here, at least) — my Super 8 camera arrived last week! It appeared to be in pristine condition. I shot a test roll, just to make sure everything inside works as well as the outside looks, and sent it off to a lab in North Hollywood (pretty sure this is the same lab that processed the one and only roll of 16mm film I shot while I was in film school at Long Beach State; that roll turned out to be useless, thanks to my ineptitude in loading the film into the camera, but the processing seemed fine). Now I’m just waiting to get my test roll back.

Next on the film-school-at-home agenda is to finish reading the two books on lighting and cinematography I got, and order a light kit. I won’t be going with anything too elaborate to start with; just enough to get the ball rolling. Once I get my lights, the plan is to do some test shoots with my video camera and whoever I can con into helping out. These are going to just be basic “do I know how to operate lights” tests at first, but hopefully quickly moving into “mood” tests, to see how well I can evoke mood and emotion simply with light and color. I may share some of these online, so watch for that!

Also coming soon: ScriptFrenzy! A young lady of my acquaintance turned me on to this: apparently it’s NaNoWriMo for screenplays, and it’s starting April 1st! As I’ve actually been working on an outline for a new feature this past week or so (I described it on Twitter as Fight Club meets Shame meets The Thing, so make of that what you will), the timing is perfect. A 120 page script in 30 days is actually very do-able; that’s only 4 pages per day. I should be able to knock that out, no problem (feel free to remind me I said this when I’m in the tall grass around page 50 or so).

That’s what’s going on! I’m also thinking it might soon be time to return to my 250,000+ word novel and do a second draft (aka a draft that is actually not terrible), so watch for updates on that, as well.

Lots of projects, but I have lots of passion, incentive, and support, as well. All three of those elements have been sorely lacking in recent months and years, so I’m actually optimistic. Stay tuned.

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Review: FEAR X (2003)

Continuing the Nicholas Winding Refn series they’re doing at the NW Film Center, last night I took in Refn’s first English-language film: 2003′s Fear X, starring John Turturro.

How to describe this film … Barton Fink by way of Suspiria, maybe. The similarities are superficial, granted, but that’s what I landed on after leaving the theater.

It’s hard to discuss this film without going into spoilers, and even then it’s a tricky film to unpack after just one viewing. So forgive me if my impressions are vague and unformed. I’ll say in terms of pure entertainment, this is a huge step up from 1996′s Pusher. The lead is sympathetic, the cinematography is good, and these elements — combined with a simple and straightforward story, a wonderful score, and a good performance from Mr. Turturro — all served to keep me in suspense for the bulk of the film.

That said, the use of color symbolism is handled with the deft touch of a college freshman who has just seen Vertigo for the first time, and — without spoiling anything — the ending is frustrating. I’m all for open-ended, ambiguous endings, but this is one of those conclusions that’s teetering right on the line between insightful and lazy, with just a dash of pretension thrown in for good measure.

I wasn’t bored, however, which is more than I can say for my 100 minutes with Pusher. Refn is already honing his craft with this, his third film, and already showing signs of the genius he would come to display in Drive.

NEXT: I missed the screenings of Pushers 2 and 3, sadly, so next up will be either Bronson (2008) or Valhalla Rising (2009), depending on both the schedules of the NW Film Center and myself. I’ll hopefully be able to catch a screening of Drive as well, but then, you already know how I feel about that.

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Review: PUSHER (1996), Nicholas Winding Refn

The NW Film Center here in Portland is running a program at the moment called DRIVEN: THE FILMS OF NICHOLAS WINDING REFN. Refn, of course, is the genius behind last year’s Drive. I’ve been eager to check out his earlier work, and this seemed like the ideal opportunity to do so, so last night I went to the screening of Pusher, Refn’s 1996 feature debut.

And I gotta say, I wasn’t impressed. Maybe I’m holding it to impossible standards, since the only other Refn film I’ve seen is the near-flawless Drive, but even for a first outing, Pusher felt messy and amateurish. The cinematography is dark, past the point of style and into the realm of muddy, and Refn has apparently never heard of a steadicam or tripod. If “shaky cam” films like The Blair Witch Project or The Bourne Ultimatum make you queasy, this will make you lose your lunch. Like the lighting, the camera motion goes beyond style and into “geez, hand the camera to someone with steadier hands.”

More importantly, the protagonist, Frank, is unlikable, unsympathetic, and — most damning — uninteresting. Audiences like a protagonist who makes things happen, who drives the plot forward, who takes his destiny into his own hands (or at least attempts to). Frank, on the other hand, is not only a loathsome excuse for a human being with no appreciable redeeming qualities, he also spends a great deal of the film sitting on his ass doing nothing. Finding a loathsome protagonist engaging isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, or even that rare. But he has to do something, at least something other than being lazy and generally unpleasant to everyone around him. The laziness is especially frustrating, given that he has a deadline to meet and it’s his ass if he doesn’t, but it ultimately becomes incredibly boring, as well.

Lastly — and this may seem like a minor quibble, but it’s not — the subtitles were really poorly done. I’m not talking about the translation; that seemed fine, and, not speaking Danish myself, I’m not really qualified to judge. But the formatting; subtitles would regularly appear stacked on top of one another, even when the second line of dialogue wouldn’t come for several seconds. This combined with the muddy cinematography often made it difficult to tell who was speaking, and really messed with the flow of dialogue (and the film). There were large chunks of dialogue (mostly towards the end, as if the translator got lazy) that weren’t translated at all. And, in a rampant display of unprofessionalism, there was a “you’re / your” kerfuffle, which, as anyone who knows me can attest, I find unforgivable (only half-kidding, there). I’d be curious to watch the film on DVD, to see if there’s a new translation / subtitle production.

That said, despite the almost complete lack of storytelling skill on display here, there were hints of Refn’s future genius to be seen. I found the character of Radovan — a drug lord’s enforcer who is good at what he does, but also sickened by it — to be interesting, and the last couple (dialogue-free) minutes of the film were so well-executed they felt like they belonged in another movie. It’s these little things — along with the knowledge that Refn will at some point metamorphosis into the man responsible for Drive — that will bring me back for the rest of the DRIVEN festival, including tonight’s screening of Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands.

It will be very, very interesting, actually, to watch Refn’s journey from messy armature to the breathtaking auteur he will eventually become. Stay tuned; I’ll chronicle the evolution, and my impressions, here.

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The day I decided to go analog

I am totally buzzed. I just made the decision I’ve been struggling with, on and off, for a couple years now: the decision not to go digital.

Let me say, right off the bat, that I have no problem with digital. It’s fine. Digital still can’t beat 70mm film in terms of quality, but that, obviously, is not really a fact that has any place in a discussion about my humble filmmaking endeavors (oh, would that it did). Down at my level, it becomes a matter of taste, convenience, and price. In terms of taste, I simply prefer the look of film — even grainy 8mm film — to digital. Personal preference.

In terms of convenience, well, yeah, shooting on film is a little inconvenient. You’ve got to order the film online, because I doubt anyone in town sells it. Once you’re done shooting, you’ve then got to pack it off again to be developed. With Super 8, you’re at least spared the frustrating and heart-stopping process of trying to thread film into a camera without the benefit of actually looking at what you’re doing, but you’ve still got to plan your shots more carefully than you would if you were shooting digital, because even if you bring more film than you need (which you should, that’s rule #1 in Filmmaking 101), you still only have so many rolls of the stuff, and it’s expensive, to boot.

And then there’s the cost. The film itself, and the processing, are not prohibitively expensive, but it still costs more than tapes or memory cards, and having the film scanned into a digital format you can then edit on your computer is prohibitively expensive.

But it’s film.

All of these arguments have been bouncing back and forth in my head for the past couple years. Digital seemed like the prudent course: the camera was more expensive ($3,000 vs. $300), but I wouldn’t be paying for processing or telecine afterward. It would be easier to deal with. It would record sound naively. Etcetera.

But it wasn’t film.

So today I said “fuck it.” I did some quick math and realized that, if I consolidate my orders, telecining a bunch of film won’t be as expensive as I thought (it’ll still be expensive, don’t get me wrong). The camera will be cheaper. I’ll get it sooner. And in terms of where my money goes in 2012, I’ll be able to put away more for my move back to California, which means I’ll be able to move sooner.

So I bought myself a nice little late 70s Canon Super 8 film camera. I just need some lights and some quality time with the two cinematography books I bought recently, and I’ll be set. I have a video camera I can do lighting tests / actor rehearsals with.

Today I made the decision to go analog, and it feels so good.

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2012 movie race: February update

My nemesis GOOD FRIEND Elissa posted the list of movies she’d watched in February this afternoon, reminding me that I needed to do the same. You may recall that Elissa is challenging herself to watch 365 movies in 2012, and that I responded by pledging to watch 366.

Here’s how I’m doing so far. Please forgive my sloppy table HTML coding:

# Film Year Director New / Rewatch? Date viewed
1 The Lodger 1927 Alfred Hitchcock New 1/8/2012
2 Blackmail 1929 Alfred Hitchcock New 1/8/2012
3 The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934 Alfred Hitchcock New 1/8/2012
4 The 39 Steps 1935 Alfred Hitchcock New 1/9/2012
5 The Lady Vanishes 1938 Alfred Hitchcock New 1/9/2012
6 Little Ceasar 1931 Mervyn LeRoy New 1/10/2012
7 Stagecoach 1939 John Ford Rewatch 1/12/2012
8 Citizen Kane 1941 Orson Wells Rewatch 1/19/2012
9 High Sierra 1941 Raoul Walsh New 1/24/2012
10 Suspiria 1977 Dario Argento Rewatch 1/31/2012
11 Rome Open City 1945 Roberto Rossellini New 2/2/2012
12 The Lion King 1994 Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff Rewatch 2/3/2012
13 The Guard 2011 John Michael McDonagh New 2/4/2012
14 Rebecca 1940 Alfred Hitchcock New 2/6/2012
15 Mi Vida Loca 1993 Allison Anders New 2/7/2012
16 The Extraordinary Journey / A Trip to the Moon 2011 / 1902 Serge Bromberg, Eric Lange / George Méliès New 2/10/2012
17 It Happened One Night 1934 Frank Capra Rewatch 2/11/2012
18 Cabaret 1972 Bob Fosse New 2/14/2012
19 The Secret World of Arrietty 2012 Hiromasa Yonebayashi New 2/17/2012
20 Crazy, Stupid, Love 2011 Glenn Ficarra and John Requa New 2/18/2012
21 West Side Story 1961 Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins Rewatch 2/19/2012
22 Beginners 2010 Mike Mills New 2/19/2012
23 Pina 3D 2011 Wim Wenders New 2/20/2012
24 Rango 2011 Gore Verbinski New 2/20/2012
25 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind 1984 Hayao Miyazaki New 2/22/2012
26 Singin’ in the Rain 1952 Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen New 2/23/2012
27 Grave of the Fireflies 1988 Isao Takahata New 2/24/2012
28 Princess Mononoke 1997 Hayao Miyazaki Rewatch 2/24/2012
29 Spirited Away 2001 Hayao Miyazaki Rewatch 2/25/2012
30 Howl’s Moving Castle 2004 Hayao Miyazaki New 2/25/2012
31 Dick Tracy 1990 Warren Beatty Rewatch 2/25/2012

Titles in bold were seen in a movie theater. The numbers break down to: 31 total, 22 new, and 9 rewatches. That puts me, as of today, 40 films short of where, ideally, I’d be if I want to watch a film a day throughout the year.

Even if I take the wimpy route and include films I’ve already seen, Elissa’s still ahead, even though I watched way more films in February than she did. Still, what with class and everything, I think I’m doing nicely. Next month when class ends, I should really be able to pick up the pace and pull ahead.

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2012 game plan: Revised “what was I THINKING?” edition

After my last blog post, in which I outlined my plans for 2012, I was left with a feeling of sadness and restlessness. It didn’t take long to figure out why.

I wouldn’t be making any movies this year.

I am, frankly, tired of not making movies. I love writing, and I love exploring different mediums of storytelling, but film is and always will be my first love. It is, to me, the most interesting, challenging, and powerful means of storytelling. And I miss it. Back in high school I was constantly making movies, and I want badly to be at a similar place in my life once again.

And so.

1. I bought a book on cinematography and a book on lighting. Once school is out, at the end of March, I’m going to read these books, get myself some cheap lights and light stands, and teach myself lighting. I have an old, crappy, MiniDV camcorder that would never do for shooting anything I wanted to show to anyone on anything bigger than a laptop screen, but for doing some lighting tests, it will suffice.

2. I’m getting a tax refund this year, for the first time since, well, the last time I was in school. It’s going towards an HD movie camera, which I should be able to afford come May. By May, I hope to be done with the above-mentioned preliminary lighting tests, and also have some scripts for some short films written. Mood pieces, an extension of my at-home course in lighting in cinematography. Testing my ability to communicate not so much narrative, but emotion, via lighting and photography.

3. By the end of the year, I want to have shot and edited 4-6 of these short films with my new camera, and have a script for a feature ready to go into production for 2013.

This is all in addition to the writing projects I mentioned in my last blog post, but this has to take priority. This is my passion. Which I’ve always known, but laying out my plans for the year without any mention of filmmaking was an excellent slap-in-the-face reminder of that. Sometimes you need to stop and look at your life and think what the hell am I DOING? Deciding to quit school was part one of that, and laying out the above plan simply the logical progression.

So here we go! 2012 is going to be the year I start to teach myself filmmaking again.

Wish me luck!

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