Dope Penmanship

I feel like this all the time

Adaptation. Awesome, awesome movie… about screenwriting. A screenwriter writing a screenplay about screenwriting. Charlie Kaufman is great.

See: Me (Wired Writer Writes About Writing) writing about this (“The Kaufman Paradox“)

John Laroche, An Orchid Thief/Dealer:
What’s so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There’s a certain orchid that looks exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, it spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they’re designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live – how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way

Our Deepest Fear

by Marianne Williamson (brought to me by Akeelah and the Bee)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

In Almost Famous, a teenage journalist (William Miller) tours with the fictional rock band Stillwater for a Rolling Stone story. His somewhat mentor is Lester Bangs, a writer for Creem Magazine played by Philip Seymour Hoffman

Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn’t.
Lester Bangs: That’s because we’re uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don’t have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we’re smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love… and let’s face it, you got a big head start.
William Miller: I’m glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I’m always home. I’m uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.
William Miller: I feel better.
Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

“It is unsinkable. God himself could not sink this ship.”

On Saturday night (early Sunday morning really) I caught the final hour-and-a-half or so of Titanic on…I forget which channel. Earlier that day, I’d read in EW that it was 10 years ago this month (August) that Titanic officially broke bank, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time–$600 million at the box office. EW wrote about how the brilliant Dark Knight may come close to beating that record, but that it probably won’t. for many reasons, but mostly the reason of change…

“Titanic started strongly over the Christmas holiday in 1997, but not dramatically so: According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, the movie boasts merely the 238th-best opening weekend ever (placing it slightly below the sequel to Jackass). And Titanic took nearly a month to gross $200 million. The Dark Knight hit that mark in just five days. But what happened after that — in the second month, and the third — is what made Titanic a phenomenon that now seems like a remnant of a lost world. People kept going. And going back. And then more people went. The movie, which opened at No. 1, stayed there not for weeks, but for months.

[...]
In the decade since Titanic, studios have just about perfected their ability to get masses of people into theaters in the first weekend or two of a movie’s release. For blockbusters, and blockbuster wannabes, the mantra is ”See it now, or be the loser who didn’t see it now!” And we go, early and quickly, because it’s fun to be first, and because we want to outrace Web spoilers, and because something big is coming next week that will make this movie yesterday’s news. Or, more often, we wait for the DVD. But staying power? A three-month run at the top? That’s so 1998.”

I don’t remember which week of its release that I saw Titanic in theaters. but it wasn’t the first. It came out in late December 1997. I assume I saw it either then or early January 98. I was 14, finally entering high school. Things were different. Life was changing. Unfortunately, my Titanic experience was ruined. I went to see it on a blind date with a guy I never saw again after that. We arrived late and missed the first few minutes. As I struggled to catch up, he kept talking. And talking. And bothering me all throughout the movie, forcing me to slouch ever lower into my seat. Tres awkward.

Of course I saw it plenty of times after that first, traumatic viewing. I didn’t know how big it would become. I remember watching a special on the making of the movie that same year, 1998, and being in awe. I thought the story was amazing. some parts are somewhat cheesy, looking back. but Leonardo DiCaprio became an official heartthrob. A great actor. And there was passion. there was romance, classicism, history, action, suspense, villains, heroes, love, humor–smart humor, iconic moments, great writing…everything you want in a movie. So 600 million makes sense. Right?

Rose: I know what you must be thinking. “Poor little rich girl, what does she know about misery?”
Jack: No, no, that’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, what could’ve happened to this girl to make her feel she had no way out?

Supernovas, black holes, time warps, worm holes… Anything astronomy amazes me. The stuff we’re made of, and the stuff that makes us up. I’ve watched a few Discovery Channel specials on time travel. whether it was possible. But I can’t imagine it. everything that’s happened has already happened. At the least, maybe you can go to a place in time, though, like in Jumper.

This is a dope concept. A guy who can teleport himself to and fro different parts of the world (where would you go? I wonder if he can go to outer space?). From what I understand, Hayden Christensen’s character, David Rice, was able to somehow create these wormholes and travel through them to wherever he wanted. A jumper. There were others like him. And others against him—Samuel L. Jackson’s horribly played character Roland (“Only God should have this power!” from what I gather, was his major motive…)

(Re: time travel, there’s also the alternate universe theory. that if you go back in time and change something, an alternate parallel universe is created. As in Déjà vu and Back to the Future.)

Jumper wasn’t well written, nor did it keep me engaged. The writing was blah, and the characters just sort of annoyed me. I gave it 3/5 stars on Netflix, which means I just “liked it.” which is being generous. I just love the concept. Action scenes could’ve been better (surprising since this is the director of Bourne Identity and Mr. And Mrs. Smith), and just… overall this could’ve been a way doper movie than it was, given the material. I knew what I was in for from the first line, a voiceover:

David Rice: Let me tell you about my day so far. Coffee in Paris, surfed the Maldives, took a little nap on Kilimanjaro. Oh, yeah, I got digits from this Polish chick in Rio. And then I jumped back for the final quarter of the N.B.A. finals–courtside of course. And all that was before lunch. I could go on, but all I’m saying is, I’m standing on top of the world. [As he’s standing on top of the Sphinx in Egypt]

EDIT: Too pretentious. I’m no screenwriter (yet). but I think that opening scene, where they show him in all these different places, while he’s talking about all these different places, would’ve been better with no voiceover. just some background music. The audience would know what’s happening (we saw the preview). Same point would be achieved. Sometimes no writing is the best writing. The movie is based on the novel (by science fiction author Stephen Gould) that I imagine is way more engaging. I’ll be reading that.

This movie…so weirdly hilarious. Dale is played by John C. Reilly. Brennan is Will Ferrell.

Dale: “OK, name your favorite dinosaur?”
Brennan and Dale: “Philosoraptor.”
Brennan: “Alright. If you were a chick, whose the one guy you would sleep with?”
Brennan and Dale: “John Stamos.”
Dale: “WHAT?!?”
Brennan: “Did we just become best friends?”
Dale: “YEP!”

Unless you count those Archie Comics I used to read when I was younger (Jughead was the ish) I’m not what you would call a comic book buff. So I’m not gonna pretend to know all the idiosyncrasies of Batman and Spiderman and Ironman, etc, etc, or their back story. I’m guessing some people have already written thousand-page theses and research papers on what I’m about to write. But, well, this is mine. In less than a thousand words…

Amid all the Dark Knight hype (I can’t describe Heath Ledger’s brilliance so I won’t) and after seeing Batman Begins for the first time–right before I saw Dark Knight–I think Batman is my favorite superhero. (Him and Darkwing Duck). He’s dark. He’s mysterious. He glides, doesn’t fly. He doesn’t have any super strengths. He destabilizes criminals through his own devices and, uh, ninja tactics. In short, he created his own powers. They didn’t come to him from some random nuclear reaction in a bat-filled cave, which is honestly what I was expecting while watching Batman Begins, having forgotten the story of little orphan Batman. SOR-RY. I vaguely recall the versions with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. And I did used to watch the cartoons growing up, but those memories have long been deleted from my small cache. Replaced by Ghostwriter.

In Batman Begins, the actor who plays Ras al Guhl (? Whatever) tells Christian Bale/Bruce Wayne/Batman at one point, “You’re just an ordinary man in a cape.” Which would imply that he’s playing the role of Batman. He’s not, though. He’s a superhero in an ordinary man’s, um, cape. He created this other self. It wasn’t magically given to him. I think the best superheroes are the ones with no powers. Just sheer will. A hero doesn’t have to be someone with fireproof coating who runs into a burning building—just someone willing enough. And a superhero doesn’t need powers. Just the will to be powerful. It’s the reason I like Ironman. And why I’m not much a fan of Incredible Hulk—I mean, be a little more creative? [scoff]. And besides the Kryptonite thing, Superman is a bit too perfect with his flying and superhuman strength. Please. (Although I was a huge fan of the TV series with Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher). Batman, on the other hand, is a regular dude looking to make wrongs right after his parents die at the hands (well, gun) of a criminal. It’s a little more complicated than that. But I’m not gonna get into the story.

With the whole superhero movie craze and me actually liking some of these guys, I feel like hitting ebay and investing in a few comic books. Maybe going back and reading the old Batman and Ironman series. I might learn something. I wonder which will be mined into movie gold next. Cause you know they’re milking this. They have to. Something about money. I vote Wonder Woman. That would be a challenge. See: Catwoman. Actually, don’t see it…

Finally got the chance to watch What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? this week on regular TV (I havent even seen Scarface yet [gasp] I have a ways to go). Leonardo Dicaprio as Arnie, a mentally ill child. Johnny Depp as Gilbert Grape, his brother, taking care of his morbidly obese mom and two sisters. And trying to figure out life. It wasn’t uninteresting. Becky was Gilbert’s love interest…

Becky: I love the sky. It’s so limitless.
Gilbert: It is big. It’s very big.
Becky: Big doesn’t even sum it up, right? That word big is so small.

Big is the smallest word I know…I dream bigger than big.

I was gonna do a post something along the lines of, “Why did you buy Lil Wayne’s album?” And then I figured people have long grown tired of the subject. Then again, ONE MILLION FIVE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTY FIVE people bought his album. So I thought, So what, this is my blog. Then I thought, no.

I was watching The Savages (Netflix) back in April. Savages is a simple movie with a simple storyline, but with plenty of meaning. It’s about a brother and sister whose father has developed dementia and after a series of unfortunate circumstances needs them to care for him or, like they do, find someone else to do it. They decide to put him in a nursing home. They’re both writers and they’re two pretty fucked up depressed pill-poppers. While the sister essentially has a mental breakdown over the decision (in the beginning she’s somewhat apathetic), the brother (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman…the Capote guy) is cynically nonchalant throughout the whole ordeal, although you can tell he’s suffering from the thought of leaving his virtually incapacitated dad to the care of others. Crazy how something that simple becomes so complex.

There’s a good scene where the siblings have to decide what to do with their dad after he dies. So over breakfast (or lunch, I don’t remember) they tread lightly over the topic. It’s their dad. After some awkwardness the brother asks something like (I’m paraphrasing) “In the event that uh something happens uh what should we…do with your body?” The dad’s face turns all what-the-fuck mixed with confused-old-person. “Whaddyamean what do you do with me??!!” he screams. “You bury me! You dumbass. You bury me.”

If you (two readers) want to talk about why you bought Lil Wayne’s album, that’s fine, too.