Usually, I’m a person who would rather not meddle in other people’s affairs. Even when it’s family, I may have opinions and disapprove of certain things, but I don’t want to get involved in debates about their personal affairs. But sometimes, there comes a point when I feel there is a need to intervene, especially when it involves someone’s safety. Alcoholism and drug addiction are examples that come to mind.
Recently, I was at the UCLA campus, hanging out at a diner by the School of Theater, Film and Television, when a group of student actors burst out on the quad, doing a strange dance, shaking their arms, limbering up, hopping around and yelling out a mantra that sounded like “Hooda Hooda Waka Waka Shoop Shoop” (or something of that nature).
So I’m curious if you YOMYOMFers have any kind of exercise, warm up, ritual/ superstitions (i.e. carrying a certain good luck charm), or other prep that you do before the job? Or is there anything about your environment you need to set up before working? Justin once told me that when he needs to write, he sometimes goes to Vegas and shuts himself in a hotel where he claims the oxygenated air keeps him awake. (Sounds more like an excuse to get to Vegas.)
One of my favorite hobbies is perusing through daily listings of real estate. I love looking at houses that I can’t afford, imagining which could be my forever home. But when I came upon this property listing photo of a house in the upscale neighborhood of La Cañada, a number of questions came to mind:
Are these wisps of smoke coming from a chain smoker’s cigarette or a ghostly apparition? If they were from a cigarette, why would the realtor be smoking in someone else’s house and be taking photos at the same time? Is this realtor insane? Why would he even post this photo as part of the listing? (This is the only photo in the bunch where the wisps appear.) Are realtors required to disclose the existence of ghouls and hauntings?
Everybody knows the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant toils during the summer to save up for winter, while the grasshopper has a jolly good time and finds himself starving in winter.
Perhaps it’s not an exact analogy, but in my mind, I am an ultimate ant. I always pay credit cards in full, fill the gas tank when it gets to about ¼ tank, always have a reserve roll of toilet paper ready in the bathroom, and usually stock backups of everything before it runs out. My husband is the complete opposite. Before I married him, I would curse him when I went to his place and found an empty toilet roll staring at me in the bathroom, after which he would sheepishly hand me a box of Kleenex through the door. I have been in his car when it stalled to a stop in the middle of the street because he was out of gas. I handle all our finances now, because on his own, he managed to rack up a hefty credit card debt that had me crying for weeks.
SPOILER ALERT: “2012″
Since I love apocalypse topics,and the end is nearly upon us according to the Mayans, I have two questions. First question: What is your favorite post-apocalyptic movie?
One of my favorite short stories is “A Boy and His Dog” by Harlon Ellison. When I heard there was a movie based on it with a young Don Johnson, I thought it would have to be crap. It turned out to be a bizarre movie, but good in a cult classic kind of way. And I don’t know why, but every time I go to Japan and I hear a disembodied voice or music over the speaker system in a dark place, I think of this movie.
(By the way, this is a fan-made trailer that looks so much better than the real trailer.)
Second question: Would you rather be like John Cusack in the movie 2012 fighting tooth and nail to get on the last Chinese-cruise-ship-Noah’s-Ark, or would you rather have a front row seat like Woody Harrelson and go when everyone else does? On the one hand, chances are the post-apocalyptic world would be pretty bleak and chaotic, with every man/woman fighting for him/herself, but on the other hand, there’s your natural gut instinct to want to survive.
A while back, we had some interesting blogs here and here about taking on roles that perpetuate stereotypes. Normally, I would take the actor’s side on this—they’re just struggling for gigs in this town.
But I have to say that I’m going to eat my words now, because I am completely outraged that an attractive, young, Asian-American actress would sellout to being the face for a completely racist, anti-Asian campaign for politician Peter Hoekstra.
Here’s the ad that ran during the Super Bowl:
Whoever this actress is, in this day and age, has sold out big time.
Of course, the real culprit in all of this is Peter Hoekstra, who continues to refuse to apologize for this ridiculous ad.
Last year, I had blogged about dictator fashion after it was declared in the Rodong Sinmun Communist Party newspaper that Kim Jong Il’s suits had become a “global fashion phenomenon.“
Unfortunately 2011 was a bad year for all those following the autocrat runway. We lost two out of three of our despot trendsetters. And even Fidel Castro has stepped out of the limelight into retirement.
Kim Jong Il’s successor, Kim Jong Un, clearly is not ready to take over the legacy of fashion icon that his father left behind. The navy blue drubs that Kim Jong Un has chosen to sport simply blend in with his fellow statesmen.
“Matango” is a Japanese classic movie from 1963 which might be considered either one of the pioneer J-Horror movies or a really good stoner movie.
It begins with a shipwreck on a deserted island. I can almost hear the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island” as a yacht with a small group of sightseers gets tossed in a storm. The skipper, his first mate, the rich couple, the girl next door and the professor are all on board.
As they forage for food, the wise skipper tells them to stay away from the ‘shrooms. They could be poisonous. There is dissension and mistrust among the castaways and of course, it’s only a matter of time before they start eating the fungi, with eerie consequences.
A friend of mine had a copy of this classic with dubbed dialogue and we watched it in the wee hours of the night. Despite my initial skepticism and the laughability of the dubbed dialogue, the movie has somehow continued to haunt me every time I look at a mushroom.
In Part I, I described the prep work my producer and I went through for a pitch we were taking around town for an adaptation of a Young Adult novel. Now it was time to go off on “the dog and pony show,” as my agent once affectionately described it.
It’s always best to arrive earlier than later, so for our first pitch, the producer and I decide to meet 20 minutes early. We go over last minute notes, how we’re going to intro, etc. We finally get called in 15 minutes after our scheduled appointment.
If there’s one thing I hate about being a screenwriter—it’s the pitch.
Doesn’t anyone realize how unnatural it is for writers to be delivering pitches? Hello? If we were “good in a room” we wouldn’t become reclusive writers who like to spend hours on end alone with a computer in the first place. There have been many times when I wanted to shout “Damn it, Jim! I’m a writer, not an actor!”
But whether I like it or not, pitches are part of the job and for those of you who are aspiring writers, here’s a rundown of the process of a recent round of pitches.
I have recently become a fan of Bollywood. I hadn’t really sought these movies out before. But now I’ve become a convert.
Sure, these movies tend to be 3 hours longs and it is not possible to have one without breaking out into a dance/musical number, even in the most serious of historical dramas. But there’s a certain joy and innocence about them that harkens back to the old days of Hollywood film-making. I’ve actually learned to look forward to the dance and musical numbers, which are always boldly colorful and fun.
India actually produces more films than any other country in the world, so there’s bound to be something for everyone.
Around the Horn: Will Internet Commenters End the World?
Justin Halpern, who started a twitter feed, a book and a now defunct TV show called “Shit My Dad Says,” posted a great conversation with his dad about why Internet Commenters will eventually end the world. I won’t post the entire article, which you can read on Funny or Die , but here are excerpts:
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“Hey, Dad,” I said, answering the phone.
“I just read on the internet that you’re a talentless piece of shit,” he said.
“What?”
. . . .
”Doesn’t it bother you that people can go on the internet and call you a talentless piece of shit, and never have to say it to your face?,” he continued. Read more...
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