Staring Out the Window

I Am Iron Man

2008-05-11T10:00:00.006-07:00

E and I recently snuck away to a weekday matinee, the first movie we've seen in a theatre since a certain baby girl took over our lives. And while it was a fun little getaway (thanks, Opa!) it reminded me why I'm loathe to go to the theatre. Granted, it was a Silver City megaplex, but by the time all was said and done it cost us about fifty bucks! If Hollywood wants to lure people back from their home entertainment systems I'd suggest that they start by lobbying theatre chains to reduce the prices at the concession stand. We were even in a mood to splurge. But come on, $4.99 for a small popcorn, (49 cents extra if you want real butter), and $3.69 for a Diet Coke?! The film of choice begged for big-screen viewing though, so we sucked it up.

Anyway. After sitting through six or eight commercials, the previews finally came up, and half an hour after the posted start time we were finally treated to the opening credits.

What did we see? Iron Man. Which was awesome. Seriously. Good enough to salvage the afternoon of consumer gluttony and have us leaving the parking lot with smiles on our faces. It's been getting good reviews, and I've always loved Robert Downey Jr.'s acting (his performance alone worth the price of admission) and Jon Favreau's direction. But it was surprising to see both of their work in a summer, tent-pole blockbuster like this.

On the heels of its $100 million opening weekend, Marvel Studios, fresh from having pissed all over itself, announced the sequel for April 2010.

Oh, and the song over the closing credits, even though the lyrics have no relevance whatsoever to the plot of the movie? Black Sabbath's Iron Man, natch.

Bill C10

2008-04-11T10:13:00.006-07:00

I'm admittedly playing catch-up, not having kept up to speed on the Senate hearings on Bill C10 over at Parliament Hill. But I have been following Sarah Polley's thoughts on the matter because, well, she's fantastic. Well spoken, passionate and after distinguishing herself as the Oscar nominated writer/director of Away From Her, one of our finest filmmakers. And she's, what, all of twenty-eight years old?

Anyway, I digress.

Jennifer MacMillan had a nice piece in the Globe and Mail earlier this week, here's an excerpt:

Oscar-nominated actor/writer Sarah Polley arrived on Parliament Hill on Thursday to protest against a provision now before the Senate banking committee that could cut off tax benefits for film and TV productions that contain graphic sex, violence or other content that the government finds offensive.

'If there's something artists fear, it's censorship,” Ms. Polley said Thursday at a press conference.

'Part of the responsibility of being an artist is to create work that will inspire dialogue, suggest that people examine their long-held positions and, yes, occasionally offend in order to do so.'

And then there's the niggling little problem of American productions being granted a pass, which would effectively increase the divide between American and Canadian content and make it even harder to compete against corporate Hollywood.

Equally upsetting to Canada's cultural sector is the fact that the legislation, criticized as a "morality hammer," applies only to Canadian TV and film projects. Hollywood and other foreign productions that apply for tax credits get a free pass.

And for those of you out there who think spending tax dollars on films and television is a waste of money anyway, how about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on months of Senate committee hearings when the end result seems like a foregone conclusion?

Check this out at Dead Things ON Sticks... unbelievable, indeed.

Think I'll go back to bed now.

Lost in Translation

2008-04-04T12:16:00.003-07:00

Consider this the launch of what will become a recurring feature here on Staring Out the Window. Lost in Translation will showcase particularly tricky or absurd lines culled directly from the Japanese-English translation scripts I work from. For the sake of discretion, (and respect for my Non-Disclosure Agreement), I won't reveal which show the line is from, or which character it is attributed to. Believe me, it wouldn't make much of a difference if you knew anyway.

So, without further ado...

'Aiee. The final day is passing like another day?
Gee with. Where did my princess go?'

Fallout

2008-03-28T18:40:00.004-07:00

Reports are just coming in about the fallout from the writer's strike which ended last month. Seems like there's lots of ugliness and uncertainty, particularly on the TV side of things, what with the pilot season being pretty much obliterated.

This from an article entitled Recession, post-strike blues grip town in Variety earlier this week:

Thunder Road producer Basil Iwanyk said that the overall level of anxiety and stress around town is "very high," and that anyone who claims otherwise "is lying."

"Everybody is shocked there wasn’t a barrage of scripts," he said. Iwanyk, who also works in TV, said the small-screen biz is "a complete catastrophe."

A little further down the column, Canadian writer Hart Hanson attempts to set the record straight about the feeling that producers are wreaking vengeance, intentionally screwing writers and sabotaging deals.

"Nobody’s getting a big fat raise, at least not easily or automatically," he said. "I feel I have to justify expenditures even more than usual. I have to say, though, I don’t get the sense of the companies ‘taking revenge.’ The strike hurt their bottom line, and they are trying, as corporations, to mitigate the financial hit they endured. There’s not the feeling of personal vengeance behind it."

Vengeance can be a tricky thing. And expensive. With the recession looming, everyone's watching their bottom line. Or at least the bottom line of their shareholders. Sounds like business as usual if you ask me.

Of course it looks like the studio bosses might well be in for more of the same in June, when the Screen Actors Guild contract expires.

Day Job

2008-03-19T17:11:00.010-07:00

In previous posts I've hinted at and alluded to various projects on the go without taking the time to explain them properly, mostly because I either didn't have the time or the freedom to do so. But as I sat down to write a blog about my afternoon yesterday, much of which was spent in a studio in front of a camera recording DVD extras for an anime series I've been working on called Hunter X Hunter, I realized a little housekeeping was in order.

The first thing people always ask me when I tell them I'm writing for a Japanese animation series is if I speak Japanese. And the answer is always the same. No. I don't. I work from translated scripts. What I do is called ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) writing. The company I work for does post-production for Japanese animation that's being redistributed in English to North-American audiences.

This is my day job, so to speak. The thing that pays the bills. And, like a lot of day jobs it can be a real grind at times. But let's face it, I'm essentially watching cartoons for a living, so I have no reason to complain. I've done a lot worse. A lot worse.

So basically what I do is take a direct-translation line like this:

The world is filled with mysteries.
A hunter is a person to pursuit those mysteries and precious items that are hard to obtain.

And rewrite it to become something like this:

The world has many mysteries and hidden treasures...
And a Hunter is someone who goes out to uncover them.

It's not as easy as you might think. If you're paying attention you might've noticed that the original lines and the rewritten lines are different lengths. That's because in addition to making the line coherent and palatable for North-American audiences, I also have to make it fit the pre-existing mouth flaps on screen. Those don't change.

Hunter X Hunter is an adventure story in which a young boy goes on a quest to become a Hunter in order to find the father he never knew. 'Hunters' in the context of this series, are members of an elite society of people with super-human skills, like ninjas. Or Jedi. Come to think of it, our hero's not unlike Luke Skywalker in Star Wars in many ways, a gifted young kid being raised by relatives who discovers he's part of a world he never knew existed.

So back to me, sitting in a dark studio in front of a camera answering questions for the Hunter X Hunter DVD extras with a little cover-up on my face.

Q: What's the biggest difference between writing an original screenplay and writing ADR on a show like Hunter Hunter?

A: They're very different in that when you're writing an original screenplay...

Q: Excuse me Angelo, begin your answer by restating the question, please.

A: Right, sorry, I keep forgetting...

The biggest difference between writing an original screenplay and writing ADR for a show like Hunter Hunter is that when you're writing an original screenplay you're creating the entire world - the characters, the story, the dialogue, everything. But when you're writing ADR you're just focusing exclusively on the dialogue. Sometimes there are ways to enhance the story through the dialogue, and in that sense it's not unlike re-writing an original screenplay. You're trying to make each and every line as good as it can possibly be.

Q: Cut, print. That was brilliant!

A: Gee, thanks!

Unwarranted Nostalgia

2008-02-18T10:37:00.006-08:00

Okay, i have to admit, nostalgia compelled me to turn on the TV at nine o'clock last night for the return of Knight Rider. I could've cared less that KITT (Knight Industries Three Thousand instead of Two Thousand, clever huh?) had been upgraded from a Trans Am to a Mustang Shelby. I was more interested in seeing how David Hasselhoff would get shoe-horned into the new plot as Michael Knight while his vigilante burden fell on the shoulders of the younger, sexier, roguish "ex-Army Ranger and failed race-car driver", Mike Tracer! (Michael - Mike, clever huh?)

It started out okay with a tasteful modern rendition of the old theme song... and KITT taking off on his own to find the daughter of his murdered creator.

Well, I didn't last past the first commercial break. It was brutal. I don't even know who she was or how she fits into the plot, but one of the main characters was introduced surfing at dawn before she proceeds to strip off her wetsuit in an outdoor shower scene before returning to her bedroom and her one-night-stand lesbian lover to suit up for a day at the office as... an FBI agent. Get it? Young. Tuff. Sexy! No, I'm not making this shit up.

Cut to Mike Tracer, (our hero remember?), being woken up in the middle of the day by a couple of thuggish money collectors bashing down his door... oh, wait, there are two women in his bed! What a guy! He's young. Tuff. Sexy!

CLICK.

Struck

2008-02-11T09:01:00.000-08:00

All weekend people were telling me the strike was over. And it looks like they may be right. There has been a lot written and reported on with regard to the writer's strike, a lot of it hyperbole. I followed much of it.

The shift in perception seemed to come after the Golden Globes went from being an orgy of red-carpet arrivals and celebrity self-aggrandizement to a perfunctory press conference awards presentation with poorly written jokes. Which raised the spectre of an Academy Awards show cancellation. No one wants that.

TV writer Denis McGrath has a nice analysis on his blog, Dead Things ON Sticks. His observation that 'The weary inevitability the screwing of writers has always garnered has lifted.' may be our most significant, hardest-won gain.

Think

2008-01-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

One of the best things I did for myself and my career last year was to buy myself a decent chair. When you spend as much time sitting at your desk as I do, the importance of a good chair cannot be overstated. But it wasn't easy. I looked for this chair for a long time. Years.

When I first started writing and wanted to be Jack Kerouac, I sat on a wooden stool. Just like him. Or rather, like he had, since he was already long dead by that point. He said it kept him grounded, kept him awake. That and all the Benzedrine. I loved the monastic asceticism of it. But those of you who know me know that I don't have a lot of meat on my bones, and after a couple of hours sitting on that stool I began to worry about pressure bruises on my ass. But I kept that up for a couple of years. Mostly for lack of a viable option. We didn't have a lot of furniture at that time. I kept the bruising at bay by taking a lot of breaks, which wasn't so good for the writing in the end.

My last chair wasn't much better. It was one of those old oak steno chairs from the 1950s. It had wheels, and even swivled, but the seat was hard as... well, oak. I think it's a chair Kerouac would've approved of. It was left in the house by the previous tenants, and I loved the way it looked. There was a certain purity and simplicity to it. And I appreciated the irony of working on a modern laptop while sitting on an ancient chair. But I still had to get up and walk around a lot.

I had long been dismayed by the pathetic gaggle of chairs on offer at Staples or any of the big office supply stores. It's like they keep them in the back of the store out of embarrassment. They are without exception, overpriced, plastic, disposable, ugly and uncomfortable. I've sat in many of them in the various offices I've had the displeasure of working in over the years, and not one of them ever inspired me to go out and buy one.

Then one day along came the Aeron chair. I read about it somewhere, probably in the New York Times, but I can't remember now. After doing a bit of research (Google) I knew I'd never be able to afford one, but hoped that since they were so immensely popular, someone somewhere sooner or later would build a more economical version that employed similar technology and ergonomics. Or, at the very least, that manufacturers of office chairs would start to give some serious thought to their product.

And so it was, years later, that I found the Think chair (pictured above). I first saw it in a photo on the side of a moving truck for an office supply store. A week later I had the Think chair in my office. It's simple, and elegant, and awfully comfortable but not in a soft, gooey way. It's firm and efficient. The arms are adjustable, not just for height, but forward, backward and side to side by way of an ingenious swivel built into the arm cap. One brochure I read claimed that the chair would increase productivity by 70 percent. I'm sure it's done at least that for me.

Anyway, I'm not trying to sell the thing. I'm just sayin'.

Benny's Gift

2008-01-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

It being Sunday morning and all, I thought I'd catch up with my favourite televangelist.

The Season

2007-12-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

Between l' enfant, writing ADR on a new sixty-two episode classic Anime series, having the metaphorical dust blown off of an old feature project and thrust into preproduction, and a rewrite on a more recent feature... the headlong plunge toward the holidays has been particularly harried this year.

I'll take the time to expand on all of the above here in the near future. I promise. But until then, Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Strike On

2007-11-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

A few people, mostly friends and family concerned with my financial well-being, have been asking me if the WGA strike affects me or not. Since I am neither American nor a member of the Writer's Guild, the quick answer is: no. But, as with so many other things, the outcome of this strike in the states will set the bar for us up here. So it's safe to say I have a stake in it, even if that's down the road a ways for me, career-wise.

And for those of you who are interested... or those of you who couldn't care less because you were led to believe by certain media outlets that this strike is all about a bunch of whiny rich Hollywood writers trying to fleece even richer whinier Hollywood producers, Mark Harris lays the whole thing out rather nicely at EW.com.

Thanks for your concern.

2007-10-22T11:02:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty excited about this...

...not least of all because E and I spent three months in India in 2004, and about three weeks of that time in Darjeeling.

In addition to the eclectic soundtrack on offer, the Darjeeling Limited website has some neat little on-location making-of clips. We saw many of those same places firsthand on our Indian sojourn, including the Osian Dunes. Although the trains we rode bear little resemblance to the film's namesake.

Wes Anderson has also done something interesting in making Hotel Chevalier, a short-film precursor to The Darjeeling Limited, available for free on iTunes. And I read somewhere this morning (can't remember where at the moment) that it may play ahead of The Darjeeling Limited in select theatres. Which would be kinda cool.

Now all I've gotta do is find time to go and see it.

I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski

2007-10-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

This made my day.

Something I was reading recently referred to The Big Lebowski as a 'cult film', which made me do a mental double-take. I've loved The Big Lebowski since I saw it in the theatre on opening weekend (1998) while ducking out of a wedding shower my wife was holding in our apartment for one of her friends. I think it was the first time I ever went to the theatre by myself. And laughing, out loud, during the film in the theatre by myself, felt strangely wonderful.

I've seen it probably a dozen times since. Maybe more. A good friend and fellow traveler bought it for me when it came out on VHS. And I still watch it whenever I stumble across it playing on television, and although the General audience edit isn't nearly as funny, I know what the lines are anyway. And still laugh.

But cult film? Why did it surprise me to read that? Not sure. Maybe I think of cult films as hallowed vestiges of some bygone era that have been somehow rediscovered by a younger generation desperate to bring some semblance of coolness to their existence. Not something I discover for myself, by myself, in a shopping-mall movie theatre in Abbotsford. And I guess it makes sense that if I've loved this movie enough to watch it over and over again, subconsciously imprinting lines of dialogue in my grey matter that come out of my mouth unbidden in everyday conversation, others would, too.

All of this because I stumbled upon the Lebowski Fest website again this morning. I found it a few years ago... or maybe a friend sent me the link. I don't know. Can't remember. But it warmed my heart. And made me want to take the morning off - it's raining, and dark and gloomy in Vancouver - and pop in that creaky VHS tape.

Top Ten?

2007-10-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

I just got a note from Bevan informing me that Retired is in consideration for Canada's Top Ten Shorts of 2007.

From the Toronto International Film Festival Group website:

Canada’s Top Ten was created in 2001 to recognize and honour excellence in Canadian cinema. Each year, an independent 10-member national panel of filmmakers, programmers, journalists and industry professionals vote on the best Canadian films of the year, which can include features, shorts, documentaries, animation, and experimental films. Each film selected as part of Canada’s Top Ten must have either premiered at a Canadian film festival or had a commercial theatrical release in Canada during the year.

Well, that all sounds rather lovely. And it behooves me to say that even being considered is an honour. But to be quite honest, I find it a bit perplexing because Retired wasn't accepted to screen at TIFF.

So what are our chances? It's hard to say. Who knows what moves the hearts and minds of independent panels of independent filmmakers, programmers, journalists and industry professionals these days. At the best of times this stuff feels like a bit of a crapshoot. Sometimes you get accepted, sometimes you don't. Most often you don't. At least that's been the case with Retired. When I saw the first cut of the film I thought it had all the makings of a festival darling... it was dark, quirky and quite beautiful, with a disturbing climax followed by a hanging bittersweet ending. It's all there. And yet... and yet. Almost resoundingly rejected by festival panels across the country. Well, okay, not rejected. Just not accepted.

So, having said all of that, this "consideration" is a welcome thing. Although I'm still unsure whether it restores my faith in the jury process or dashes it completely to bits.

From Sunny Goose Bay, Labrador

2007-10-02T06:00:00.002-07:00

Well, my writing career has taken me to some interesting places, but none as far-flung and fascinating as the one I find myself in this morning, the barracks at 5 Wing Goose Bay, Labrador. Now, my character doesn't align itself easily with the military mindset, so I was a little uncomfortable when I showed up at 443 Squadron Hanger at the Victoria airport after dark for my 11:40 pm Canadian Forces Airbus flight - a milk run that took us to Edmonton, Winnipeg and Trenton before arriving in Goose Bay at five o'clock the following afternoon. Luckily there were two other civilians on the flight to deflect some of the attention - an adolescent girl and her younger brother who were accompanying their father as far as Trenton. I did get a chance to sit up in the cockpit with the pilots for take-off and landing, an experience that, in this day and age of airline paranoia felt akin to stepping into the Holy of Holies to have a look at the Ten Commandments.

5 Wing Goose Bay is a Canadian Forces Base that was built in the lead-up to WWII to protect North America's northeastern flank. It made headlines around the world on 9/11 when seven trans-Atlantic commercial airliners were diverted here following the closure of North American Airspace.

I'm here with Lank/Beach Productions covering SAREX 2007, a training exercise and competition for Search and Rescue Technicians from squadrons across the country. These are the guys in the blaze-orange flight suits you see on the evening news, pulling unfortunate weekend sailors from their overturned skiffs.

Not sure exactly what I'm in for, yet - the "Exercise Activities" start tomorrow morning. I passed on the opening night reception at The Canuck Club last night. I was a little burned out from the flight and decided I wasn't up for drinking beer with about a hundred guys who jump out of airplanes for a living.

Six Years Later

2007-09-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

It's September 11th, six years later... and in many ways it feels like the world we've lived in for six years now is normal. And I guess it is. A new kind of normal. At the time many said things would never be the same again, and I guess they aren't. Six years doesn't seem like much of a marker, really. A plain, ordinary number. Not like ten or twenty-five. Yet I suppose the day, September 11th, will always dawn for us under a shadow.

In the days, weeks and months following September 11th, I began to imagine how the events of that day would figure into the literature of the future, much like other enormously catastrophic events of our history have of their representative eras. I haven't seen a lot of that yet, but some of the greatest writers and photographers of our time contribute regularly to the New York Times which annually compiles the best of their talent largess for its 9/11 reflection. It's worth tapping into, even if you have to sign up (it's free).

The art above (by John Mavroudis & Owen Smith) is poached from one of my favourite New Yorker covers of all time. It's from the September 2006 edition, and depicts Philippe Petit's famous tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in 1974 in the ghostly absence of the towers which made the feat so spectacular.

Finch

2007-08-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

I always intended for this blog to be about my professional meanderings in the writing trade, loosely aimed at keeping friends, family, colleagues and sundry contacts informed about what I was up to. I haven't been very good at updating it, but there's not always a lot happening. And when there is, sometimes I can't talk about it.

At any rate, I've tried not to tie in to my personal life too much - a good friend once wrote in his in his own blog that no one needs to know what he had for breakfast, a sentiment I heartily echo. But I do feel that I would be remiss if I didn't mention what has been taking up the bulk of my time, energy and attention in recent days, even though it may veer dangerously in the direction of personal journal.

You see, on August 8th my wife and I welcomed a lovely little creature into the world whom we named Imogene Finch, and the intervening days have been some of the most wonderful of my life for all of the obvious reasons. An inordinate amount of time has been spent staring into her wide eyes as she tries to make sense of what she's seeing, (blurry shapes whose voices sound strangely familiar). That and the changing of diapers.

But fret not, dear friends, I've already got my ass back in the chair. Daddy's gotta bring home the bacon, after all. Not that there's any bacon in our house, not unless Grandpa's visiting, but you get the idea.

Thanks for listening.

ReBoot ReGenerated

2007-07-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, I can talk about this now. For the last four or five weeks I've been more-or-less holed up in my office re-imagining a new direction for the re-launch of the much beloved, prematurely canceled, computer-animated series ReBoot. And it's been a lot of fun. And it ain't over yet.

The basic idea is that parent company Rainmaker Animation assembled five teams and charged each with coming up with a new direction for the rebranding of the show, which they intend to relaunch with a feature-length trilogy. In the meantime they're attempting to enlist the avid ReBoot fanbase by putting the five pitches up online. Fans can interact with the creators and offer their thoughts/comments/criticisms and eventually vote for their favourite take. And it seems to be, um, working. It's been just over twenty-four hours since the site went live, and it took the fans all of two nano-seconds to weigh in. I think I can safely say the response has been overwhelming, and only time will tell how it all plays out.

The host site is Zeros2Hereos, and even though there are some issues with the the site, it is a beta-test version and I've been assured that the outstanding issues are being dealt with as I type (fingers crossed). At the moment, finding your way to our team's project, ReBoot: ReGenerated, is a little tough. You can start by going to the ReBoot Launcher, and then clicking on any one of the sample art images or "Follow the Team" links except, of course, ours. A Flash window should pop up, and if you then click on ReBoot: ReGenerated you should be on your way.

So, check it out. And let me know what you think because... that's kinda the whole point.

The Tease

2007-07-23T21:43:00.000-07:00

The project I alluded to in a recent post is about to launch... here's the teaser. Check back for the lowdown later this week.

*Playback makes it official.

Rat-a-too-ee

2007-07-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure whether it's the fact that I've been immersed in animation work myself lately, (wink-wink), or that Esther and I were recently in Paris, or that we're about to become parents ourselves in hours/minutes/days... but seeing Ratatouille in a matinee theatre filled with kids on summer holidays was a blast. It's about Remy, a rat who happens to have a culinary gift, and the inept restaurant garbage boy who helps him achieve his dream of becoming a chef. We went to see Toy Story in 1995 under similar circumstances, and ever since I've made it a point to see animated films in the afternoon with the kids. They're just so present in the moment, oohing and ahhing, spitting laughter, giggling uncontrollably... gasping, sometimes even whimpering, during the scarier scenes. And when the male lead Linguine got kissed full on the mouth by his love interest Collette, one little girl let out a genuinely disgusted "Eeewwwwh!" I imagined how great it would feel to be the filmmaker, sitting in the back row.

Pixar's Ratatouille is the second directoral effort from Brad Bird. His previous film, The Incredibles, won him an Oscar, and is one of my favourite films just because it's so darned fun.

And it's also worth mentioning that this film has once again taken animation to a whole new level visually. The rats looked cute, of course, but also wet and bedraggled, and turned my stomach slightly when they streamed across the kitchen floor en masse. But Paris - and the Notre Dame from the banks of the Siene - never looked so beautiful.

Something New...

2007-06-22T16:10:00.001-07:00

I'm working on something new right now... something I've signed non-disclosure agreements for, so it will remain a secret for the next six weeks or so. At which point it will go public in a big way. I can say that it's very collaborative, exciting and most importantly a lot of fun. So far.

The Project in question came about sort of out of the blue, but because of and in part due to, much of the work I've been doing in relative anonymity over the last, oh I don't know, five years or so.

But I should leave it at that. This is all, quite deliberately, to say check back soon, and all will be revealed...

In the meantime, why don't you go and watch a short film? There's a new one every day, brought to you by the IFC. Yesterday's film, Ha Ha Ha America, was very entertaining. I laughed out loud a couple of times. A great example of a smart, simple concept done on the cheap to great effect.

What I'm Reading

2007-06-12T08:54:00.001-07:00

Last night as I sat down on the couch under my favourite new lamp with the pile of books I'm currently working my way through, it struck me as kind of an odd group. Normally, I try not to read more than one thing at a time, but lately my interests seem to be expanding and my reading list widens daily. And the books pile up. Here are a few of them.

The mainstay of the pile is The Yiddish Policeman's Union, the
latest novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. It's a fun, hard-boiled detective story which takes place in an alternate history where the State of Israel collapsed following WWII and European Jews fled to Sitka, an outpost settlement in Alaska. I've been following Chabon since Wonder Boys, reading back to his earliest work, Werewolves in Their Youth, and forth, and was eagerly anticipating his first full novel since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, (which won the Pulitzer in 2001). The thing I like best about Chabon is that he seems to believe that reading should be fun. In between novels Chabon's been writing short stories, comic books, children's fiction, editing for McSweeny's and a whole bunch of other cool stuff, most of which seems to have a decidedly pulp-fiction (not the movie) bent. All good stuff.

Next up is The Losers, Ante Up the first in a series of graphic novels (long comic books, but usually with more R-rated themes and content). It's about a crack team of black-operatives who take on the CIA after being betrayed and targeted for elimination by their superiors after witnessing something they shouldn't have. The Losers is everything I always wished and hoped comic books would/could become. The art is great, very cinematic (it is, of course, being developed as a feature film in Hollywood, slated for release in 2009). The writing is spare and terse and visceral. Without being, dare I say it, as cheesy as the comics from the golden age, which, lets face it, haven't aged very well. A number of modern comics seem to be going in this direction, like my beloved Amazing Spiderman.

And finally, the biggest book on the bottom of the pile (separated from the others by various comic books) is Garden in the Wilderness, Mennonite Communities in the Paraguayan Chaco, 1927-1997. This is an engaging historical account of the exodus of the Mennonites, my people, from Europe against the backdrop of the two most devastating wars in history, detailing their journeys and travails as they try to find a place where they can live out their lives, and more importantly their faith, unmolested by governments. And even though the book focuses on the Paraguayan Mennonites and how they transformed an inhospitable wilderness into a prosperous region, it ties all of the migrations of this stubborn, determined but humble and pragmatic people together nicely, including my own ancestors who came to Canada in the late part of the nineteenth century. Fascinating stuff.

Summer Redux

2007-05-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it feels like summer's back... (not sure what happened to the spring. Although it was only eight degrees Celsius in Vancouver on Monday. Weather, whatever. Bah!) ...and that means summer blockbusters. I've been more out of touch with what's been happening in the theatres lately than in recent history. (Incidentally, since my last post Grindhouse flopped at the box office. A hard sell to the masses, I guess. It's all about opening weekend, don'tcha know?)

Seems like it's the summer of thirds. Shrek the Third, Ocean's 13, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Bourne Ultimatum, Rush Hour 3...

Speaking of which, I did go to see Spiderman 3 and was... what would the word be... mildly entertained, I guess. Which isn't all bad. Not exactly disappointed, but not thrilled. Even though, yes, the 10-man-years that were reported to have gone into the special effects for the flick were spectacular, (and, as I've said elsewhere, after spending so much of my childhood imagining, I could watch the webhead swing around Manhattan for the duration of the film and be satisfied), they couldn't save the muddled overwhelming mass of story. Too many plotlines intersecting needlessly, and with outrageous coincidence, waaay too many villains, enough villains for three or four more movies. And Venom, well, that whole storyline was so butchered that... I digress, (and show my -- I hesitate to say it -- fanboy leanings when it comes to the black suit).

All of which is to say that my opinion, and the opinion of most movie-goers doesn't really matter when the Hollywood marketing machine manages to draw enough viewers for, what, a $151 million opening weekend for Spiderman 3?! Does it really matter what anyone thinks after that?

So, what's coming up that's of interest?

Not much, I'm afraid.

Live Free or Die Hard? (No, I didn't make that up. Coming to theatres late June.) There is Sicko, the latest polemic from Michael Moore which got rave reviews last week at Cannes. In the film Moore takes a group of sick Americans to the only place in America with free health care, Guantanamo Bay. And it'll be interesting to see how he has adjusted his tactics now that he's an international media personality.

And okay, there's The Simpson Movie, that'll be good. I'll go see that.

Moviegoing

2007-04-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy with the day job lately, (of which a post has been percolating for some time), but not too busy to sneak out to the movies this weekend to see Grindhouse. And this stylized retrograde double-feature by tag-team directors Robert Rodrigeuz and Quinten Tarantino really did make the moviegoing experience feel like sneaking out, playing hooky... it was that much fun. One-hundred-and-seventy minutes of cinematic exuberance. I don't think I've had fun like this at the movies since I was a kid.

The first movies I ever saw were in the ramshackle single-screen movie house in Saint-Pierre-Jolys, Manitoba.

I remember walking in to the sickly-sweet smell of popcorn, pop and cheap candy, and marvelling at the posters on the walls of the narrow entrance hallway. Particularly this one:

I couldn't understand why a woman would want see-through panels on the back of her jeans... I was probably nine years old at the time. I still don't. But it was exciting, I knew that. I saw Pinocchio in that little theatre, and Treasure Island and On the Right Track starring Gary Coleman as a shoeshine boy who lives inside a locker at the train station. And I LOVED them all.

As crude and misshapen as Grindhouse was, it made me feel kinda like that again.

I have to admit, there haven't been a lot of films that have pulled me into the theatre lately. I been struggling to put a finger on exactly exactly why that is until I saw Grindhouse. It's not that all the films coming out are bad or anything, (I'm no snob), but it's just that in recent days the Hollywood fare just feels so... calculated. It's almost like you can see shareholders meetings that have gone into making them.

I refer to A.O. Scott's review in the New York Times:

"Really, though, what Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Tarantino try to evoke is less a particular style or genre of moviemaking than a lost ambience of moviegoing."

The audience for the three-o'clock show on Friday afternoon was kinda rowdy, and broke out into spontaneous applause for the faux B-movie trailers that were part of the Grindhouse package, laughed and groaned together. Making it feel less like the lifeless multiplex that it was, and a little more like a rickety, smelly old theatre in some small cultural backwater. Which is, arguably, a good thing. At least in this movie-lover's opinion.

Good, Great, Okay

2007-03-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

The films were good, the people were great, and the parties were okay. At least that was my experience at NSI Film Exchange this year. But then again, I'm more of a pub person than a club person. I'm not so good with yelling in the ears of people I've just met. And not a lover of skewered meat appetizers.

The Retired premiere went smashingly. The house was packed, and a number of old friends showed up, lending a charmed almost dreamlike quality to the experience for me. All of the short film programs were hosted by Shane Smith from Movieola, who did a fabulous job with the post-screening Q&As. He knew the films, appreciated the craft and dedication that went into making them, and asked insightful, thought-provoking questions. I guess this shouldn't be surprising from the man who was the director of the Worldwide Short Film Festival for the last six years and was on the shorts selection committee at Sundance this year. He understands and respects the medium.

The climax of the weekend, A Conversation With... Sarah Polley, was not to be. She cancelled due to some kind of family emergency. Which was a shame because her appearance had been hyped by the festival - rightly so - and the local newspapers for weeks in advance. I've never been a huge Sarah Polley fan, although I appreciate her work and her position on the state of Canadian filmmaking, but after seeing her feature film directorial debut, Away From Her, I'll certainly have to rethink that. The film is magnificent. Destined to become a Canadian classic in years to come. Although, now that I think back, it's not quintessentially Canadian in the usual, obvious ways. It's subtle. It doesn't pander to its audience. And it's heartbreakingly beautiful.

Perhaps one of the reasons I liked Away From Her so much was that, like my short film Flickering Blue, it starred venerable actors - Gordon Pinsent, Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis - at the height of their craft. Gordon Pinsent was in attendance for the Q&A and, reminiscent of my friend, James Karen, answered each question, no matter how simple or petty, with class, grace and good humor, in that studied, deep, resonant voice.

And then there were those two Neil Young songs. Now, Neil Young songs in a Canadian film may seem natural and obvious. But apparently Neil hangs onto the rights to those songs pretty tightly. Quick, name another movie with a Neil Young song in the soundtrack... nope. I couldn't think of any either. One of the producers apparently spent four months trying to get a 'yes' from Neil's manager. For two songs. But, trust me, it was worth it.

Away From Her comes to Canadian theatres May 4th.

Every film festival seems to have its own atmosphere, its own culture. It's hard to say who creates this, what drives it. Sometimes it's about the filmmakers, sometimes it's about the famous guests they've managed to attract, and sometimes it's just about the festival itself. The panels seem to have their own culture, too. Many of them are optimistic, telling filmmakers to keep at it, to push through and get it done no matter what. Others seem to be saying that you can do it if you really want to, but it's tough and ugly an extremely difficult - almost impossible - but go ahead and try it. At Film Exchange both of these camps had equal representation, in my experience anyway. Canadian festivals seem to have a more realistic approach in general. I was disappointed, however, that of all the conversations about how to save the Canadian film industry (that is to say the English-speaking Canadian film industry, Quebec is doing fabulously, thank-you very much) I didn't hear a single creative idea, perspective or even a hint at a solution to the problem. And that troubles me.