I've been getting sloppy.
It's something that's been going on for a while.
You try to give 120 percent. People complain. You make them feel inadequate. So you give 78 percent.
But you can't really give 78 percent. It's not natural. It goes against the laws of physics.
So you dwindle. You fall.
And you're afraid of promoting your blog because of some news story when some guy got fired for a joke on his blog that didn't make sense.
It's a lot of fucking bullshit.
You read blog posts about page views. You do all this stuff. You're chasing. You run for a while. And you stop caring after a while.
You got mothers poisoning their kids for blog views. What a loser. Learn how to be interesting, you degenerate fuck.
Sorry, got carried away...
Your idiot friends/family try to impose their half baked agendas on to you. Everything always seems conceived beforehand. You see all these people do all these different things, not because they want to but because it allegedly leads to somewhere else. Everything they do is a regurgitated rehash of what was popular last year.
Last year's over, hombre.
It takes three years to make a movie. You know what that means? It means, to be good, you need to be able to tell the future. You have to dig deep in the collective subconscious, and say what everyone wants to say, but doesn't have the balls to be able to.
You know that whole story about the guy that says "Once I get promoted, I will work harder", and he never gets promoted because he never works hard? The entertainment industry always excuses its misfires because it builds to a tomorrow that never appears.
Sometimes, producers make movies they don't like on the hopes of winning support from people who often flounder, complain, or don't show up at the box office.
Everything these days is filtered by the actions of what I call a fringe vocal few.
The idiots displaying their assault rifles in the department store. This isn't a political statement, this is about their own narcissism.
The idiots who kill people because no one liked their Facebook post. The idiots who bring drama on themselves.
Fringe vocal few. Rod Serling called them the Lunatic Fringe of Letter Writers. They went from writing letters to CBS complaining about Lassie giving birth to puppies on television to tweeting every celebrity on Twitter waiting for a response.
Never underestimate a person's ability to ruin a good thing.
Society has destroyed the ability to have a real conversation about anything for the fear of mildly damaging anyone's feelings.
Remember good television shows you would watch growing up? Remember how every once in a while they would have a sincere episode about something serious?
Episodes about Boy Meets World dealing with parents abusing their kids.
That one episode of Family Matters where Jaleel White broke character in the end and asked people to think about the violence in the Chicago area.
Yeah, it could be argued that Kirk Cameron took that whole issue-sitcom thing and went way overboard in the cause-related marketing.
But you need that sometimes. You need "Hey Arnold" episodes that talked about real shit. That episode where Stinky became the spokesperson for Yoohoo soda, and turned down a million dollars because the Yoohoo Soda marketing people made him look like an idiot.
They took what Spike Lee was trying to do with Bamboozled and made it universally accessible.
You know Dave Chappelle would watch that episode of Hey Arnold and think about his life afterward.
There's a lot of child stars that need to watch that.
Everything on the Disney/Nickelodeon/eventual ratchet child star incubator is this desensitized slurge where a bunch of kids are screaming "Oh my God! The popcorn machine is exploding!" while a forced laughtrack blasts in between promotional music videos that encourage tweens to have enough emotional baggage to fuel a soap opera.
Your love commodity. The drama that you market.
I'm convinced that actors lose their minds when they make hokey romantic comedies that go against who they are.
Look at each movie a child star was doing before they lost their mind. You think those movies sucked? The child stars who worked on that thing really hated it.
Greta Garbo starred in Two-Faced Woman. It was so bad that she gave up acting. That was in 1941. She passed away in 1990. The movie was so bad, she quit despite five decades of people asking her to come back.
I started really writing scripts in 2007. Sure, there was stuff I did when I was nine years old, but 2007 was when I reached all the way to page 100.
And I had to. Shrek 3. Pirates 3. Spider-Man 3. The climate needed that.
It's said that the seventh year is when an artist breaks out, if they don't lose themselves in the process.
I had severe emotional turmoil a few years back when I was forced to change a couple stories I wrote to something I did not want from closed minded nosey people who did not have my interests at heart. I was also working on a romantic comedy screenplay that drove me to near schizophrenia.
Which isn't to say I don't like romcoms, but this was one of those really crappy ideas. After I saw glimpses of my project's similarities in music videos and semi-Syfy channel movies, I gave up on it. And I should have.
Amputate the limb.
I wasn't having fun. I was speculating on something that cost me more sweat than I got back.
Not again.
We write what we're good at.
We don't apologize. We don't seek validation. We let inertia pull us in.
World Domination Is Not A Crime.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Godzilla 2014 Review
So, I finished watching Gareth Edwards' Godzilla film.
There's been a minor controversy (it's the Internet) regarding this film, so I thought I'd go out and address it.
I wish I could talk about how when I was a kid growing up in Torrance, I bought a VHS case that had a double feature of Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla in it.
I'd also love to talk about the website Godzilla Tower (a Godzilla vs. Gigan reference) that apparently got turned into some fetish site, the G-Fan (I think they called it G-Fan because they loved Gamera too) magazine I always wanted to subscribe to, and this book called Master of Monsters that used to cost $220.
Master of Monsters now costs $20 on paperback since Gareth Edwards read it while researching for the new movie. I am now ordering the crap out of this thing.
I could talk about the kaiju haikus I did in high school, which got me scorn from my teachers, shows how much they were on the pulse of society. I also wonder if They Came From Hollywood ever became a real video game.
I could talk about my neighbor, who did graphic design for a collection of soundtrack CDs showing off the entire history of Godzilla until Megaguirus.
I could also talk about how I started to listen to the Outside the Cinema and Cinema Diabolica podcasts because of their Godzilla episodes, and talked to them about the failed Godzilla vs. Satan project.
I could also talk about how I watch the Heisei series Godzilla as a form of antidepressant (either that or Kakuranger).
I might even talk about Pulgasari, the Godzilla ripoff movie produced by Kim Jong Il that I obsessed over.
But, you don't wanna hear about that.
So, let's talk about this movie.
The first complaint I hear a lot about from this movie is that Godzilla is not in this movie enough.
When I first heard of this, one other movie came to mind:
King Kong 2005
Not gonna lie, I was scared.
But, there's a difference between these two films that sets the absence of the title character apart:
When I was watching King Kong 2005 for the first time, I was forty five minutes in when I had to remind myself that I was watching a King Kong movie.
I remember thinking "wait a minute, this is a King Kong movie, right? It feels like a Merchant Ivory Production" while watching it. I don't think the original 1933 version had such pacing issues, and that film was made by people who hyperventilated when Superman picked up a car.
There's never a moment in Godzilla 2014 when you forget you're watching a Godzilla movie.
There's nuclear plants going crazy, conspiracies, secrets, all types of interesting stuff. The conflict is building.
And while we're on point, King Kong had a lot of fight scenes. It had T. Rexes swinging from trees. It had the deleted Black Scorpion sequence put back in and turned up to 11. Do you like that movie? Do you remember that movie? Is it something you express your love for?
The people who don't like the pacing of Godzilla are the same people who complained that Drive wasn't more like Fast and the Furious. They're the same people who complained that Breaking Bad should've had five more seasons.
They don't like the creative decisions of Bryan Cranston, apparently.
There's a lot of Godzilla movies with wall to wall action. They bore easily. After a while, they turn into the same film. Watch them if you don't believe me. And throw in some Rebirth of Mothra while we're at it.
The only thing that truly stands out from Godzilla: Final Wars is the guy who looks like Josef Stalin, and the fact that Godzilla fought his '98 self, with one of the characters calling 98 zilla a "tuna loser" or something to that effect.
Actually, I remember a lot more from Final Wars, but nothing that resonates like Godzilla 2014.
I think Gareth Edwards watches a lot of Godzilla. Gareth Edwards feels like that one poster on the Ain't It Cool News talkback/Disqus chat/whatever that has an offbeat take on an established property that works.
But, it's not just that.
I think Godzilla 2014 was a perpetrator of opportunistic circumstance.
Let's face it, a Godzilla reboot was in development hell forever. First, they wanted to make it some Imax special. Then, they thought about trying some theme park thing.
And then the 2011 Tsunami happened.
The 2011 Japanese tsunami and the Fukushima issues that occurred afterward have made this film seem really plausible. When you read about how the Japanese government hired homeless people to clean up radiation in the area, the sinister nature of coverup in this movie seems all too real.
Back in the seventies, a couple of film producers had no faith in a project they were working on. Their film was about a nuclear plant run amok. But then, Three Mile Island happened when the movie came out, and The China Syndrome ended up becoming a highly successful film.
Godzilla 2014 feels the same way. It's tapping into our subconscious fears from the last ten years.
I hate it when people shoehorn morality into something. Aaron Carter talking about the power of one while promoting Poke'mon 2000. Yuck...
Godzilla 2014 doesn't do that. It feels real.
We live in a world where Korean ships capsize and planes go missing. And flying robots hunt Pakistani children like they're named John Connor. We're plausible for a Godzilla.
I think the next couple of years of filmmaking will sort of present subconscious themes about 9/11, the Iraq war, sort of the same way a lot of movies in the eighties were about Vietnam.
It takes time to develop a narrative about contemporary history. You can only look back after it's over.
What it was actually like to deal with Vietnam was very different than what the contemporary presentation of events was. Movies like Punishment Park, Vanishing Point, and Billy Jack give a look that's different from contemporary images.
A sort of revisionism is to take effect. We're going to take what we know now and apply it to what happened back then. 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule didn't become a legendary thing until way after it happened.
When you watch The Social Network, even though it takes place in Harvard in 2003, there's no mention of protesting the war, or 50 Cent, or Avril Lavigne, or any pop punk American Pie comedy derivative which will again rear it's ugly head in 2023.
That history was rewritten for the narrative of Facebook.
And pop culture will rewrite history. How else can Nero fiddle when Rome burned when the fiddle is a fifteenth century instrument? Because it sounds too cool not to.
Godzilla '98 was sort of like that as well. The backlash of Emmerich's project only really took root during Godzilla 2000 when the Japanese filmmakers felt that Emmerich did not do Godzilla justice.
The lack of backlash during its actual release of Godzilla '98 (or Zilla, whatever) probably has to do with the fact that American audiences were not used to Godzilla in a serious context. 70s Godzilla, like Japanese Spiderman, was a microcosm of Japan in the 70s: a country not yet taken seriously because it had yet to reach its potential.
70s Japan was a Magikarp. And 70s Godzilla had a lot of splashing.
The '98 Godzilla backlash didn't really become apparent until after 9/11. You can't watch a movie post 9/11 where Mayor Roger Ebert farts over some Hershey Kisses because a couple jets shot missiles at the Chrysler Building. It's not a good look.
Godzilla 2014 is on the same level that Man of Steel is to me. One, because both Godzilla 2014 and Man of Steel are both post-Save The Cat stories that try to do what Blake Snyder said and "Keep The Press Out Of It" regarding the conflict in their stories, but both filmmakers acknowledge that a story on their scale cannot avoid the ubiquity of the media.
So, both Godzilla 2014 and Man Of Steel have this weird tone every time the news media in their movies covers the events that are happening. The media's there, but not really. There's reports, but no real press conferences. We're so used to having press conference scenes in movies of a similar nature, that it feels strange without it.
It's like a movie where the villain wins. If you're tired of watching the hero win all the time, you might welcome it, but you get so accustomed to it, that you wish the hero won when they come up short. Game of Thrones, anybody?
Again, it's a minuscule detail that feels strange, but it doesn't derail the film.
The only thing that might separate the Godzilla 2014/Man Of Steel comparison is that while a lot of goofy Superman projects never made the public eye, we have had a plethora of Godzilla misfires. Read Superman vs. Hollywood. Watch Kevin Smith's Superman movie story. Man of Steel might be as good as it gets.
Of course, the term "misfire" is subjective. I don't think Godzilla 2000 was a misfire. It was a return to form. If anything, it was a failure in marketing. There wasn't the nerd culture that we have today that can embrace something like that. The Internet still had stigma in the year 2000. If you dated someone you met online in 2000, it would feel otherworldly. Now, it's cautious with exception, like actual real world dating.
With this past, it's hard to grade Godzilla 2014 as a film.
So, I have decided to grade Godzilla 2014 on two mantras:
First, we have the Nolan Mantra.
The Nolan Mantra (created by Christopher) goes like this: "A quality film is one where you feel like the person making it thinks this is the greatest film ever made".
Now, the person making the film is not always the director. It's not always the producer. A lot of people have hated the films they have worked on, only to see their embodiment of misery and self-loathing go on to be the defining work of their career.
The point is, someone working on this thing cares. Passion. And when passion is mixed with skill, it becomes dangerous.
Roland Emmerich does not think that his Godzilla was the greatest movie ever. He thinks Stargate and Independence Day are the greatest films ever made. Godzilla was something he was attached to for a lot of money. He was hired because of two movies he made, not for a love of Godzilla.
I think Gareth Edwards thinks Godzilla 2014 is one of the greatest films ever. Gareth made Monsters because of his philosophical fascination with monster movies. I don't think his passion is questionable.
Godzilla 2014 passes the Nolan Mantra.
The second mantra we have is the Nicholson Mantra:
The Nicholson Mantra (courtesy Jack) says that a good movie is "a film that has three great scenes and no bad ones".
There were three scenes from this movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.
They were:
1. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) being forced (spoiler, but it's in the trailer, so not really) to close the chamber down on his wife. It's the type of deep character moment that you can only compare to the original Gojira when Serizawa ponders using the Oxygen Destroyer, a device he has created that sucks the oxygen out of the nearby area.
Since Gojira's powers stem from atomic radiation, Serizawa fears that using the Oxygen Destroyer will only give way to some other abomination (which was explored in Godzilla vs. Destroyah).
The entire Gojira film was a metaphor for the post atomic age and placed the moral dilemma that America had on using atomic weapons in the shoes of the Japanese people.
It's hard to think of another time where there was a deeper character dilemma in a Godzilla film.
2. The reveal of Godzilla showing just his leg. It built suspense up so well. There was so much building up to that moment that it just felt right.
3. The Tsunami in Hawaii/Halo jump. Anyone vacationing in Hawaii with an overactive imagination has looked at that oceanic horizon and wondered if something would come out of the water and destroy the hotel skyline.
The idea of paratroopers seeing Godzilla as they fall is such an ingenious concept, that it's amazing it hasn't been overused like those longneck satellite dishes that shoot out lightning/lasers in every other Godzilla film.
Gareth really scratched an itch here.
While the third act had some minor issues (the warhead plot seemed jumbled on first viewing), Godzilla 2014 passes the Nicholson Mantra.
Godzilla 2014 finally did what those Millennium Godzilla movies wanted to do but failed at: It took away the atomic fears of Godzilla and tapped into our own fears of a nihilistic existence. But it didn't do that by making Godzilla be inhabited by the souls of dead soldiers (GMK: All Monsters Attack), but by making Godzilla a personification of the universe killing us. And when we face death, we figure out what's important.
The 2011 Tsunami changed Japan culturally. Whereas before Japan indulged in all the weird stuff that we associate Japan with, the Tsunami made a minor shift in where the values of the Japanese people were. It wasn't a total shift, Japan is still Japan, but the country is now reevaluating what it finds important.
America had the same effect after 9/11. Hope growing in the aftermath of chaos.
It always seems like we are a couple steps away from forgetting that, and because of that, it feels like the world is always a couple steps away from falling into chaos.
Now, can King Ghidorah be in the future chaos? We can only see.
There's been a minor controversy (it's the Internet) regarding this film, so I thought I'd go out and address it.
I wish I could talk about how when I was a kid growing up in Torrance, I bought a VHS case that had a double feature of Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla in it.
I'd also love to talk about the website Godzilla Tower (a Godzilla vs. Gigan reference) that apparently got turned into some fetish site, the G-Fan (I think they called it G-Fan because they loved Gamera too) magazine I always wanted to subscribe to, and this book called Master of Monsters that used to cost $220.
Master of Monsters now costs $20 on paperback since Gareth Edwards read it while researching for the new movie. I am now ordering the crap out of this thing.
I could talk about the kaiju haikus I did in high school, which got me scorn from my teachers, shows how much they were on the pulse of society. I also wonder if They Came From Hollywood ever became a real video game.
I could talk about my neighbor, who did graphic design for a collection of soundtrack CDs showing off the entire history of Godzilla until Megaguirus.
I could also talk about how I started to listen to the Outside the Cinema and Cinema Diabolica podcasts because of their Godzilla episodes, and talked to them about the failed Godzilla vs. Satan project.
I could also talk about how I watch the Heisei series Godzilla as a form of antidepressant (either that or Kakuranger).
I might even talk about Pulgasari, the Godzilla ripoff movie produced by Kim Jong Il that I obsessed over.
But, you don't wanna hear about that.
So, let's talk about this movie.
The first complaint I hear a lot about from this movie is that Godzilla is not in this movie enough.
When I first heard of this, one other movie came to mind:
King Kong 2005
Not gonna lie, I was scared.
But, there's a difference between these two films that sets the absence of the title character apart:
When I was watching King Kong 2005 for the first time, I was forty five minutes in when I had to remind myself that I was watching a King Kong movie.
I remember thinking "wait a minute, this is a King Kong movie, right? It feels like a Merchant Ivory Production" while watching it. I don't think the original 1933 version had such pacing issues, and that film was made by people who hyperventilated when Superman picked up a car.
There's never a moment in Godzilla 2014 when you forget you're watching a Godzilla movie.
There's nuclear plants going crazy, conspiracies, secrets, all types of interesting stuff. The conflict is building.
And while we're on point, King Kong had a lot of fight scenes. It had T. Rexes swinging from trees. It had the deleted Black Scorpion sequence put back in and turned up to 11. Do you like that movie? Do you remember that movie? Is it something you express your love for?
The people who don't like the pacing of Godzilla are the same people who complained that Drive wasn't more like Fast and the Furious. They're the same people who complained that Breaking Bad should've had five more seasons.
They don't like the creative decisions of Bryan Cranston, apparently.
There's a lot of Godzilla movies with wall to wall action. They bore easily. After a while, they turn into the same film. Watch them if you don't believe me. And throw in some Rebirth of Mothra while we're at it.
The only thing that truly stands out from Godzilla: Final Wars is the guy who looks like Josef Stalin, and the fact that Godzilla fought his '98 self, with one of the characters calling 98 zilla a "tuna loser" or something to that effect.
Actually, I remember a lot more from Final Wars, but nothing that resonates like Godzilla 2014.
I think Gareth Edwards watches a lot of Godzilla. Gareth Edwards feels like that one poster on the Ain't It Cool News talkback/Disqus chat/whatever that has an offbeat take on an established property that works.
But, it's not just that.
I think Godzilla 2014 was a perpetrator of opportunistic circumstance.
Let's face it, a Godzilla reboot was in development hell forever. First, they wanted to make it some Imax special. Then, they thought about trying some theme park thing.
And then the 2011 Tsunami happened.
The 2011 Japanese tsunami and the Fukushima issues that occurred afterward have made this film seem really plausible. When you read about how the Japanese government hired homeless people to clean up radiation in the area, the sinister nature of coverup in this movie seems all too real.
Back in the seventies, a couple of film producers had no faith in a project they were working on. Their film was about a nuclear plant run amok. But then, Three Mile Island happened when the movie came out, and The China Syndrome ended up becoming a highly successful film.
Godzilla 2014 feels the same way. It's tapping into our subconscious fears from the last ten years.
I hate it when people shoehorn morality into something. Aaron Carter talking about the power of one while promoting Poke'mon 2000. Yuck...
Godzilla 2014 doesn't do that. It feels real.
We live in a world where Korean ships capsize and planes go missing. And flying robots hunt Pakistani children like they're named John Connor. We're plausible for a Godzilla.
I think the next couple of years of filmmaking will sort of present subconscious themes about 9/11, the Iraq war, sort of the same way a lot of movies in the eighties were about Vietnam.
It takes time to develop a narrative about contemporary history. You can only look back after it's over.
What it was actually like to deal with Vietnam was very different than what the contemporary presentation of events was. Movies like Punishment Park, Vanishing Point, and Billy Jack give a look that's different from contemporary images.
A sort of revisionism is to take effect. We're going to take what we know now and apply it to what happened back then. 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule didn't become a legendary thing until way after it happened.
When you watch The Social Network, even though it takes place in Harvard in 2003, there's no mention of protesting the war, or 50 Cent, or Avril Lavigne, or any pop punk American Pie comedy derivative which will again rear it's ugly head in 2023.
That history was rewritten for the narrative of Facebook.
And pop culture will rewrite history. How else can Nero fiddle when Rome burned when the fiddle is a fifteenth century instrument? Because it sounds too cool not to.
Godzilla '98 was sort of like that as well. The backlash of Emmerich's project only really took root during Godzilla 2000 when the Japanese filmmakers felt that Emmerich did not do Godzilla justice.
The lack of backlash during its actual release of Godzilla '98 (or Zilla, whatever) probably has to do with the fact that American audiences were not used to Godzilla in a serious context. 70s Godzilla, like Japanese Spiderman, was a microcosm of Japan in the 70s: a country not yet taken seriously because it had yet to reach its potential.
70s Japan was a Magikarp. And 70s Godzilla had a lot of splashing.
The '98 Godzilla backlash didn't really become apparent until after 9/11. You can't watch a movie post 9/11 where Mayor Roger Ebert farts over some Hershey Kisses because a couple jets shot missiles at the Chrysler Building. It's not a good look.
Godzilla 2014 is on the same level that Man of Steel is to me. One, because both Godzilla 2014 and Man of Steel are both post-Save The Cat stories that try to do what Blake Snyder said and "Keep The Press Out Of It" regarding the conflict in their stories, but both filmmakers acknowledge that a story on their scale cannot avoid the ubiquity of the media.
So, both Godzilla 2014 and Man Of Steel have this weird tone every time the news media in their movies covers the events that are happening. The media's there, but not really. There's reports, but no real press conferences. We're so used to having press conference scenes in movies of a similar nature, that it feels strange without it.
It's like a movie where the villain wins. If you're tired of watching the hero win all the time, you might welcome it, but you get so accustomed to it, that you wish the hero won when they come up short. Game of Thrones, anybody?
Again, it's a minuscule detail that feels strange, but it doesn't derail the film.
The only thing that might separate the Godzilla 2014/Man Of Steel comparison is that while a lot of goofy Superman projects never made the public eye, we have had a plethora of Godzilla misfires. Read Superman vs. Hollywood. Watch Kevin Smith's Superman movie story. Man of Steel might be as good as it gets.
Of course, the term "misfire" is subjective. I don't think Godzilla 2000 was a misfire. It was a return to form. If anything, it was a failure in marketing. There wasn't the nerd culture that we have today that can embrace something like that. The Internet still had stigma in the year 2000. If you dated someone you met online in 2000, it would feel otherworldly. Now, it's cautious with exception, like actual real world dating.
With this past, it's hard to grade Godzilla 2014 as a film.
So, I have decided to grade Godzilla 2014 on two mantras:
First, we have the Nolan Mantra.
The Nolan Mantra (created by Christopher) goes like this: "A quality film is one where you feel like the person making it thinks this is the greatest film ever made".
Now, the person making the film is not always the director. It's not always the producer. A lot of people have hated the films they have worked on, only to see their embodiment of misery and self-loathing go on to be the defining work of their career.
The point is, someone working on this thing cares. Passion. And when passion is mixed with skill, it becomes dangerous.
Roland Emmerich does not think that his Godzilla was the greatest movie ever. He thinks Stargate and Independence Day are the greatest films ever made. Godzilla was something he was attached to for a lot of money. He was hired because of two movies he made, not for a love of Godzilla.
I think Gareth Edwards thinks Godzilla 2014 is one of the greatest films ever. Gareth made Monsters because of his philosophical fascination with monster movies. I don't think his passion is questionable.
Godzilla 2014 passes the Nolan Mantra.
The second mantra we have is the Nicholson Mantra:
The Nicholson Mantra (courtesy Jack) says that a good movie is "a film that has three great scenes and no bad ones".
There were three scenes from this movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.
They were:
1. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) being forced (spoiler, but it's in the trailer, so not really) to close the chamber down on his wife. It's the type of deep character moment that you can only compare to the original Gojira when Serizawa ponders using the Oxygen Destroyer, a device he has created that sucks the oxygen out of the nearby area.
Since Gojira's powers stem from atomic radiation, Serizawa fears that using the Oxygen Destroyer will only give way to some other abomination (which was explored in Godzilla vs. Destroyah).
The entire Gojira film was a metaphor for the post atomic age and placed the moral dilemma that America had on using atomic weapons in the shoes of the Japanese people.
It's hard to think of another time where there was a deeper character dilemma in a Godzilla film.
2. The reveal of Godzilla showing just his leg. It built suspense up so well. There was so much building up to that moment that it just felt right.
3. The Tsunami in Hawaii/Halo jump. Anyone vacationing in Hawaii with an overactive imagination has looked at that oceanic horizon and wondered if something would come out of the water and destroy the hotel skyline.
The idea of paratroopers seeing Godzilla as they fall is such an ingenious concept, that it's amazing it hasn't been overused like those longneck satellite dishes that shoot out lightning/lasers in every other Godzilla film.
Gareth really scratched an itch here.
While the third act had some minor issues (the warhead plot seemed jumbled on first viewing), Godzilla 2014 passes the Nicholson Mantra.
Godzilla 2014 finally did what those Millennium Godzilla movies wanted to do but failed at: It took away the atomic fears of Godzilla and tapped into our own fears of a nihilistic existence. But it didn't do that by making Godzilla be inhabited by the souls of dead soldiers (GMK: All Monsters Attack), but by making Godzilla a personification of the universe killing us. And when we face death, we figure out what's important.
The 2011 Tsunami changed Japan culturally. Whereas before Japan indulged in all the weird stuff that we associate Japan with, the Tsunami made a minor shift in where the values of the Japanese people were. It wasn't a total shift, Japan is still Japan, but the country is now reevaluating what it finds important.
America had the same effect after 9/11. Hope growing in the aftermath of chaos.
It always seems like we are a couple steps away from forgetting that, and because of that, it feels like the world is always a couple steps away from falling into chaos.
Now, can King Ghidorah be in the future chaos? We can only see.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Success Is Weird
I never thought I would get this far
Success is weird
I once worried about every step in my life
It all means nothing now
Success is weird
They told me I would never be good enough
I have won and they have been forgotten
Success is weird
To see some people live without a clue
But some buffoons have prospered too
Success is weird
I have suffered, and I have seen my enemies suffer worse
Sometimes it's cake, sometimes it's a kick in the head first
Success is weird
I am having the greatest and worst year of my life
Heaven is my Hell, Purgatory my residence
Success is weird
Failure is in proportion to success, and I plan accordingly
Success is weird
Success is weird
I once worried about every step in my life
It all means nothing now
Success is weird
They told me I would never be good enough
I have won and they have been forgotten
Success is weird
To see some people live without a clue
But some buffoons have prospered too
Success is weird
I have suffered, and I have seen my enemies suffer worse
Sometimes it's cake, sometimes it's a kick in the head first
Success is weird
I am having the greatest and worst year of my life
Heaven is my Hell, Purgatory my residence
Success is weird
Failure is in proportion to success, and I plan accordingly
Success is weird
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Unresolved Plotlines From My Life
There's a bunch of weird stuff in my life that just sort of happened without explanation.
Like, I need closure for some things.
For example,
In the fourth grade, this kid said his mom took him to a play where some guy stabbed himself in the eyes.
Now, I'm pretty sure that was Oedipus, but I need to get that confirmed. Because if it wasn't, that would be weird. Kids randomly going to plays where people kill themselves.
What was that?
I also remember in the third grade when I had to go this weird class that other kids did not get to go to. It was this place where we talked about moral issues.
What was that?
Back in the sixth grade, this guy entered our class one day with a clipboard. He said he was from Nickelodeon. He then said to the class "raise your hand if I have your attention".
Everyone raised their hand.
He then said something about how we wasn't from Nickelodeon, and that he monitored children. The teacher was in full attendance, so this couldn't have been some random goof.
Who is going around to random classrooms lying about working for Nickelodeon?
When I was a kid, my mother said that they made the video game Doom into a horror movie. Now, this was before the 2005 film with the Rock, and I swore I saw a commercial of Doom with a guy in the role of a space marine. So I spent a large portion of my life thinking there was this Doom movie that I was missing out on.
My mother also said that she saw some version of the Exorcist where the demon lives and conquers the world. I always wanted to watch that film, but that movie does not exist. Elements from this nihilistic-project-that-does-not-exist show up in my work from time to time. Like, I think subconsciously, I'm trying to make that movie.
Now, English is my mother's second language, but there's a lot of confusion going on. But I've got to say, it's effected me in an odd way.
You ever have some weird stuff from your life that continues to creep in the back of your mind?
Like, I need closure for some things.
For example,
In the fourth grade, this kid said his mom took him to a play where some guy stabbed himself in the eyes.
Now, I'm pretty sure that was Oedipus, but I need to get that confirmed. Because if it wasn't, that would be weird. Kids randomly going to plays where people kill themselves.
What was that?
I also remember in the third grade when I had to go this weird class that other kids did not get to go to. It was this place where we talked about moral issues.
What was that?
Back in the sixth grade, this guy entered our class one day with a clipboard. He said he was from Nickelodeon. He then said to the class "raise your hand if I have your attention".
Everyone raised their hand.
He then said something about how we wasn't from Nickelodeon, and that he monitored children. The teacher was in full attendance, so this couldn't have been some random goof.
Who is going around to random classrooms lying about working for Nickelodeon?
When I was a kid, my mother said that they made the video game Doom into a horror movie. Now, this was before the 2005 film with the Rock, and I swore I saw a commercial of Doom with a guy in the role of a space marine. So I spent a large portion of my life thinking there was this Doom movie that I was missing out on.
My mother also said that she saw some version of the Exorcist where the demon lives and conquers the world. I always wanted to watch that film, but that movie does not exist. Elements from this nihilistic-project-that-does-not-exist show up in my work from time to time. Like, I think subconsciously, I'm trying to make that movie.
Now, English is my mother's second language, but there's a lot of confusion going on. But I've got to say, it's effected me in an odd way.
You ever have some weird stuff from your life that continues to creep in the back of your mind?
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Gwyneth Paltrow, Overgrown Child Stars, And Defining The Difficulty Of Working In Hollywood
Divorces.
Divorces change how you see yourself.
It's like watching your friends break up. No, it's weirder than that.
It's like watching your enemies break up.
You ever see two people that you hate? Two people that diss you and think they're better than you? And those two people break up, and the two people that hate you now spend the time hating each other?
That's a weird relationship to have with someone. I have issues with you, but I also have issues with the person you don't like, so there's this weird symmetry going on with the whole thing.
But anyways...
Divorce is a nasty thing.
A long time ago, I was waiting in the parking lot trying to pick up my sister from school. I had my Game Boy Advance SP, doing my thing, where I hear this psychotic screaming. I thought someone was pissed off about a parking job.
I look over. My windows are up. The car a couple rows down has its windows up. And there's a guy. And he's screaming to his friend in the passenger seat. At first, I thought an altercation was about to take place. But, then I heard minor references to "paying for her, and she doesn't do anything" and "completely unfair".
This guy was losing his mind over his divorce.
It was more passionate than any Screamo song I've ever heard. A lot of those death metal guys are trying too hard. If you want to make the music of angst, try to sing like a man losing money over child support and alimony. That's true pain. That's true artistic suffering.
That's why I'm afraid of starting a family. That and figuring out immunization shots.
Seriously, I think I'll have to have a minor certificate/degree in the medical field before I have kids. I either have to deal with autism or tuberculosis.
Domestic life looks like someone taped Maury Povich over an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Splitting a couple is like splitting an atom.
You see a part of people that you never thought you would see before. People say things out of passion that have no logical sense.
This increases incrementally with celebrity divorces.
OJ Simpson. Mel Gibson.
And it feels comical when it happens to Hollywood royalty.
Gwyneth Paltrow.
Shakespeare in Love?
Nah, Shakespeare in a custody battle.
Gonna be a Titus Andronicus up in this.
And so, we have gotten to this little piece of soundbite foolishness that is Gwyneth Paltrow saying that she works harder than a single mom. Gasp, *coughing*. I coughed trying to gasp is what I'm getting at.
This mirrors Tom Cruise's (or his lawyer's, to be specific) statement that Tom's acting career is harder than working in the military.
This of course, made a lot of people angry.
But, does the fact that this person makes a lot of money doing what they do take away from the fact that their job is hard?
Now, let's be honest, these statements, made in the desperation of obtaining a child's custody, have opened up these celebrities in a way that they did not want to be seen.
Law #30
Edwin Neal was a Vietnam Veteran who received a Bronze Star for his service in the military. When Edwin Neal came home, he was cast as The Hitchhiker in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
When asked about his experience filming the movie in the Texas heat, Neal responded that Vietnam was easier than shooting the movie.
Now, Neal can say that. He's done both. He can compare.
For all we know, Tom Cruise might have had military advisers on sets that have said the same thing about their experiences. And they can say that.
Tom Cruise's lawyer might even be right. There might be some Afghanistan veterans who feel that way about acting. But even though they might be right, for the purposes of etiquette and respect, a celebrity should not compare his work to those of the armed services. Especially if that celebrity makes more money than most people see in a lifetime.
Because filmmaking is hard. Even when you're brilliant, it's difficult. Even when you're lucky, it's aggravating. Even when you've analyzed all your past mistakes and apply it to what you're doing now, it can break you.
Harvard Graduates losing their minds in production meetings, and having all of their intellect reduced to a Baby Geniuses sequel.
And it needs to be difficult. Do you know how many people want to get into filmmaking? Especially those that do it for the wrong reasons? The industry destroys those people, cause there's a never-ending line of them jumping in everyday.
In Do The Work, Steven Pressfield has a chapter where he talks about the difficulty of writing versus the difficulty of being a Navy SEAL.
Pressfield states: "There's a difference between Navy SEAL training and what you and I are facing now. Our ordeal is harder. Because we're alone. We've got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our butts to keep us going. We've got no friends, no fellow sufferers, no externally imposed structure".
There's no due date for a writer working on their novel. They could take the day off if they truly wanted to. Too much freedom can mess with a person.
It isn't that it's more difficult, it's that it's a different kind of difficult. This lack of autonomy might be one of the reasons why a lot of veterans find themselves homeless. Self motivation is needed on the job hunt. Comedians have a little too much time on their hands. It's easy for them to be self-destructive.
Busy is good. Productive is better.
It's this complex nature of work that causes a lot of child stars to lose their minds.
A lot of people wonder why some child stars self-implode while others go on to have wonderful careers.
The answer is simple.
Every child star that wanted to be an actor became successful. This is what they love.
Leonardo DiCaprio. Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
This is what they want to do. As much as there are moments where you think about quitting, there's something about it that keeps you in orbit. Every time you push, it pushes you away, but before you decide to leave, something pulls you back in.
You try to quit, and some producer calls you and asks you to look over something.
Now, you have to imagine how difficult it must be for someone who never cared for acting to act because their parents wanted them to. They don't feel anything click when they're on stage. But they're forced into it because someone in their family didn't have the balls to do it themselves.
There's a bunch of people that work at a job they don't like to fuel whatever addiction they have. Washed up stars are the same way. Corey Feldman and Farrah Abraham are blindly smacking their head against anything in the hopes that it will keep them in the public eye. And it's sad.
There's that old saying/statistic about how most people would rather die than go into public speaking. So when you see that old tape of Amanda Bynes doing her father's comedy routine at nine years old, it's amazing she did not implode earlier. It's a lifetime of fear and rejection. A lifetime of doing your best to keep it together.
It doesn't help if the projects you're getting are not up to caliber.
Amanda Bynes always wanted to be in a film like Mystic River. Instead, she got Love Wrecked. And when you do Love Wrecked, people want you to do more projects like Love Wrecked.
Now, as an outsider, I can fully say that, Amanda should have taken the active role of being a content creator in her life and made a dark twisted webseries that would show off her sensibilities. Unfortunately, she was brought up in a time when digital content was seen as being below a celebrity. Sometimes in life, you have to abandon this disposable public consciousness, and go for what you believe in.
And give yourself room to fail. It might save your sanity. You could even make your silly romantic comedies if you wanted to.
But honestly, there really is no genre that is more artificial than the romantic comedy. Real relationships do not work out that way. You are portraying something that does not exist to make the masses forget about the horrible nature of their own lives.
When you're forced to take on a film you didn't want to do, and then suffer criticism from a lot of people over it, you too will go crazy. It's like being called a murderer when you didn't kill anybody. It's not who you are, and you suffer for it.
When Miley Cyrus was told by Radiohead that she wasn't cool enough, and received criticisms from her family over an image they dictated to her, of course she went insane.
Remember when she covered "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and everyone was like "Eww, you ruined it"?
You try to please people, and they boo you. Why not go full kitsch and make everyone angry?
No teenager in this day and place acts like a Disney child star persona.
In the next twenty years, there's going to be a cultural shift. There's too much stuff on the Internet. We know you're lying. Society is going to be forced to be honest with itself.
We have to realize that people in the public persona are still people. We look at fame and a money amount, and we think it justifies criticizing them.
It's scary when you think about college sports, and you think about all those players who go on their Twitter and they see a thousand random people, some of them their own fans, chewing them out for no apparent reason. My heart goes out to those guys.
People take themselves too seriously in something that they themselves do not participate in.
Divorces change how you see yourself.
It's like watching your friends break up. No, it's weirder than that.
It's like watching your enemies break up.
You ever see two people that you hate? Two people that diss you and think they're better than you? And those two people break up, and the two people that hate you now spend the time hating each other?
That's a weird relationship to have with someone. I have issues with you, but I also have issues with the person you don't like, so there's this weird symmetry going on with the whole thing.
But anyways...
Divorce is a nasty thing.
A long time ago, I was waiting in the parking lot trying to pick up my sister from school. I had my Game Boy Advance SP, doing my thing, where I hear this psychotic screaming. I thought someone was pissed off about a parking job.
I look over. My windows are up. The car a couple rows down has its windows up. And there's a guy. And he's screaming to his friend in the passenger seat. At first, I thought an altercation was about to take place. But, then I heard minor references to "paying for her, and she doesn't do anything" and "completely unfair".
This guy was losing his mind over his divorce.
It was more passionate than any Screamo song I've ever heard. A lot of those death metal guys are trying too hard. If you want to make the music of angst, try to sing like a man losing money over child support and alimony. That's true pain. That's true artistic suffering.
That's why I'm afraid of starting a family. That and figuring out immunization shots.
Seriously, I think I'll have to have a minor certificate/degree in the medical field before I have kids. I either have to deal with autism or tuberculosis.
Domestic life looks like someone taped Maury Povich over an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.
Splitting a couple is like splitting an atom.
You see a part of people that you never thought you would see before. People say things out of passion that have no logical sense.
This increases incrementally with celebrity divorces.
OJ Simpson. Mel Gibson.
And it feels comical when it happens to Hollywood royalty.
Gwyneth Paltrow.
Shakespeare in Love?
Nah, Shakespeare in a custody battle.
Gonna be a Titus Andronicus up in this.
And so, we have gotten to this little piece of soundbite foolishness that is Gwyneth Paltrow saying that she works harder than a single mom. Gasp, *coughing*. I coughed trying to gasp is what I'm getting at.
This mirrors Tom Cruise's (or his lawyer's, to be specific) statement that Tom's acting career is harder than working in the military.
This of course, made a lot of people angry.
But, does the fact that this person makes a lot of money doing what they do take away from the fact that their job is hard?
Now, let's be honest, these statements, made in the desperation of obtaining a child's custody, have opened up these celebrities in a way that they did not want to be seen.
Law #30
Edwin Neal was a Vietnam Veteran who received a Bronze Star for his service in the military. When Edwin Neal came home, he was cast as The Hitchhiker in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
When asked about his experience filming the movie in the Texas heat, Neal responded that Vietnam was easier than shooting the movie.
Now, Neal can say that. He's done both. He can compare.
For all we know, Tom Cruise might have had military advisers on sets that have said the same thing about their experiences. And they can say that.
Tom Cruise's lawyer might even be right. There might be some Afghanistan veterans who feel that way about acting. But even though they might be right, for the purposes of etiquette and respect, a celebrity should not compare his work to those of the armed services. Especially if that celebrity makes more money than most people see in a lifetime.
Because filmmaking is hard. Even when you're brilliant, it's difficult. Even when you're lucky, it's aggravating. Even when you've analyzed all your past mistakes and apply it to what you're doing now, it can break you.
Harvard Graduates losing their minds in production meetings, and having all of their intellect reduced to a Baby Geniuses sequel.
And it needs to be difficult. Do you know how many people want to get into filmmaking? Especially those that do it for the wrong reasons? The industry destroys those people, cause there's a never-ending line of them jumping in everyday.
In Do The Work, Steven Pressfield has a chapter where he talks about the difficulty of writing versus the difficulty of being a Navy SEAL.
Pressfield states: "There's a difference between Navy SEAL training and what you and I are facing now. Our ordeal is harder. Because we're alone. We've got no trainers over us, shouting in our ears or kicking our butts to keep us going. We've got no friends, no fellow sufferers, no externally imposed structure".
There's no due date for a writer working on their novel. They could take the day off if they truly wanted to. Too much freedom can mess with a person.
It isn't that it's more difficult, it's that it's a different kind of difficult. This lack of autonomy might be one of the reasons why a lot of veterans find themselves homeless. Self motivation is needed on the job hunt. Comedians have a little too much time on their hands. It's easy for them to be self-destructive.
Busy is good. Productive is better.
It's this complex nature of work that causes a lot of child stars to lose their minds.
A lot of people wonder why some child stars self-implode while others go on to have wonderful careers.
The answer is simple.
Every child star that wanted to be an actor became successful. This is what they love.
Leonardo DiCaprio. Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
This is what they want to do. As much as there are moments where you think about quitting, there's something about it that keeps you in orbit. Every time you push, it pushes you away, but before you decide to leave, something pulls you back in.
You try to quit, and some producer calls you and asks you to look over something.
Now, you have to imagine how difficult it must be for someone who never cared for acting to act because their parents wanted them to. They don't feel anything click when they're on stage. But they're forced into it because someone in their family didn't have the balls to do it themselves.
There's a bunch of people that work at a job they don't like to fuel whatever addiction they have. Washed up stars are the same way. Corey Feldman and Farrah Abraham are blindly smacking their head against anything in the hopes that it will keep them in the public eye. And it's sad.
There's that old saying/statistic about how most people would rather die than go into public speaking. So when you see that old tape of Amanda Bynes doing her father's comedy routine at nine years old, it's amazing she did not implode earlier. It's a lifetime of fear and rejection. A lifetime of doing your best to keep it together.
It doesn't help if the projects you're getting are not up to caliber.
Amanda Bynes always wanted to be in a film like Mystic River. Instead, she got Love Wrecked. And when you do Love Wrecked, people want you to do more projects like Love Wrecked.
Now, as an outsider, I can fully say that, Amanda should have taken the active role of being a content creator in her life and made a dark twisted webseries that would show off her sensibilities. Unfortunately, she was brought up in a time when digital content was seen as being below a celebrity. Sometimes in life, you have to abandon this disposable public consciousness, and go for what you believe in.
And give yourself room to fail. It might save your sanity. You could even make your silly romantic comedies if you wanted to.
But honestly, there really is no genre that is more artificial than the romantic comedy. Real relationships do not work out that way. You are portraying something that does not exist to make the masses forget about the horrible nature of their own lives.
When you're forced to take on a film you didn't want to do, and then suffer criticism from a lot of people over it, you too will go crazy. It's like being called a murderer when you didn't kill anybody. It's not who you are, and you suffer for it.
When Miley Cyrus was told by Radiohead that she wasn't cool enough, and received criticisms from her family over an image they dictated to her, of course she went insane.
Remember when she covered "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and everyone was like "Eww, you ruined it"?
You try to please people, and they boo you. Why not go full kitsch and make everyone angry?
No teenager in this day and place acts like a Disney child star persona.
In the next twenty years, there's going to be a cultural shift. There's too much stuff on the Internet. We know you're lying. Society is going to be forced to be honest with itself.
We have to realize that people in the public persona are still people. We look at fame and a money amount, and we think it justifies criticizing them.
It's scary when you think about college sports, and you think about all those players who go on their Twitter and they see a thousand random people, some of them their own fans, chewing them out for no apparent reason. My heart goes out to those guys.
People take themselves too seriously in something that they themselves do not participate in.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
To Be Like A Cat
To Be Like A Cat
Is One To Catch A Rat
And Catching Of A Rat
Makes One Creep Where One Once Sat
How Ironic Of A Cat That's Fat
That's Love Of The Chase Stops It At Bat
Is One To Catch A Rat
And Catching Of A Rat
Makes One Creep Where One Once Sat
How Ironic Of A Cat That's Fat
That's Love Of The Chase Stops It At Bat
Monday, March 3, 2014
Social Media, Artistic Adolescence, and Higher Ratings For Award Shows
So, this years Oscars have come to a close.
And I think Ellen pulled it off.
It feels silly being a critic about things sometimes. Like I'm somehow qualified to offer an opinion.
But I think in a history of award shows that are notoriously filled with misfires, this one was a good one.
I think as an artistic collective whole, society knows how to execute greatness.
There aren't as many cringe moments that filled shows of recent past.
The artists know how to use the technology to reach the fans, and the fans know how to use the technology to reach the artist.
Ellen's selfie reminded me a lot of Rowan Atkinson's tweet at the London Olympics opening ceremony. The only difference is that Rowan's tweet was something of an Easter egg. It was reported in a couple places, but it wasn't openly known to be done in real time.
That, and the time delay of the Olympics sort of caused issues with the power of that tweet.
But, watching the quick response people had to the selfie, and the Kevin Spacey/Nicholas Cage photoshop jobs that happened minutes of the selfie being taken have really added an new dynamic to the awards show.
In times past, it was hard to get excited for these displays of the self congratulatory. You have this mishmash of the common folk dismissing the awards of the ceremony while you have others who live their dreams of other people during these events.
And social media brings it all together as a huge communal experience in real time.
Even if you don't like the Oscars, you can follow your favorite comedians on Twitter and listen to their own interpretation of events as they unfold.
You can tell that the Internet has helped make these award shows a much more interesting communal event. You have the haters fighting blindly devoted fangirls who want Jennifer Lawrence to win in every category.
The minimalist "fan" posters displayed during the Best Picture Nominees makes you realize how the nerd online influence rubbed off on Hollywood.
And Ellen was in her element. She developed a chemistry with a lot of the Oscar nominees that were interviewed on her talk show, and it shows. The celebrities were used to Ellen goofing on them, so there wasn't this insecurity thing going on when the usual Oscar hosts do their jokes.
So for now, it's good.
See, happy review. Don't mock the monotone nature of positive thinking.
And I think Ellen pulled it off.
It feels silly being a critic about things sometimes. Like I'm somehow qualified to offer an opinion.
But I think in a history of award shows that are notoriously filled with misfires, this one was a good one.
I think as an artistic collective whole, society knows how to execute greatness.
There aren't as many cringe moments that filled shows of recent past.
The artists know how to use the technology to reach the fans, and the fans know how to use the technology to reach the artist.
Ellen's selfie reminded me a lot of Rowan Atkinson's tweet at the London Olympics opening ceremony. The only difference is that Rowan's tweet was something of an Easter egg. It was reported in a couple places, but it wasn't openly known to be done in real time.
That, and the time delay of the Olympics sort of caused issues with the power of that tweet.
But, watching the quick response people had to the selfie, and the Kevin Spacey/Nicholas Cage photoshop jobs that happened minutes of the selfie being taken have really added an new dynamic to the awards show.
In times past, it was hard to get excited for these displays of the self congratulatory. You have this mishmash of the common folk dismissing the awards of the ceremony while you have others who live their dreams of other people during these events.
And social media brings it all together as a huge communal experience in real time.
Even if you don't like the Oscars, you can follow your favorite comedians on Twitter and listen to their own interpretation of events as they unfold.
You can tell that the Internet has helped make these award shows a much more interesting communal event. You have the haters fighting blindly devoted fangirls who want Jennifer Lawrence to win in every category.
The minimalist "fan" posters displayed during the Best Picture Nominees makes you realize how the nerd online influence rubbed off on Hollywood.
And Ellen was in her element. She developed a chemistry with a lot of the Oscar nominees that were interviewed on her talk show, and it shows. The celebrities were used to Ellen goofing on them, so there wasn't this insecurity thing going on when the usual Oscar hosts do their jokes.
So for now, it's good.
See, happy review. Don't mock the monotone nature of positive thinking.
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