Daily Archives: June 1, 2009

You don’t puff or snorkel and make death-like rattles

Posted by Benjamin Light on

Previously, on Lost…

Lost!

That Dick Cheney doesn’t lack for ways to piss off liberals. I think he just jumped like 20 spots on the Top 100 all-time Villains list. Much as I despise the bastard, I must tip my cap. Nicely done, you son of a bitch. Dare I say a move worthy of Benjamin Linus?

He's a Bond Villain come-to-life

He's a Bond Villain come-to-life

Anyway…

Dear Hollywood,

What the fuck happened? It’s not even June and the only Event Movies left in the docket and G.I. fucking Joe and a sequel no one asked for to that godawful Transformers movie. This summer movie season has barely started and it’s already over. Last year, the Specter of The Dark Knight hung over everything, saying, “hold tight, you’ve got something to look forward to.” This year, Hollywood, you thrust once, came, and fell asleep on top of us.

FAIL

FAIL

Ticket sales might look good if blockbusters still only cost $100 million to make, but these days you can’t drop an event movie for less than $150 mil, before marketing. Do you think that maybe, maybe. Maybe. Maybe this endless procession of milking weak properties into joyless shaky-cam set pieces is starting to take its toll? 3D will not save you. Rebooting a franchise twice in under 20 years will not save you. Michael Bay will not save you. Turning Sherlock Holmes into a fucking buddy action comedy will not save you. Hire some real fucking writers and let them finish the script before you start pre-production.

People did not go see Wall-E, Iron Man and The Dark Knight over and over again because of the CG and the action sequences.

Whatever, Hollywood. You’re busy making Yahtzee: the Movie. If you can’t be bothered to churn out an ounce of original material, can we at least work on your formula. There’s some easy tweaks we can make to hit a wider demograph. Listen up, suits. This is my 5 point plan to get your mojo back:

1) Remake all Nic Cage movies with Matthew McConaughey

"I've always found Matthew to be a very haunting and ethereal performer" --Nic Cage

"I've always found Matthew to be a very haunting and ethereal performer" --Nic Cage

That’s right, and this includes all the movies Nicolas has already remade. (ed. note: holy shit, I just spelled “McConaughey’ right on the first try. What do I win? Or lose?) Naturally, some of the settings and timelines may have to be shifted a little to allow ample opportunities for Matt to take his shirt off, or at least leave it unbuttoned to the navel. The Wicker Man could take place on an island in the Gulf, and maybe Trapped in Paradise involves a Memorial Day wedding this time. Maybe he’s stealing 50 jet skis in 24 hours now. Not hard. Kate Hudson should probably play the love interest in 25 percent of these. Oh, and the best part of this plan: we get Cage to play the antagonist in every one of them. You know he’d do it. I just turned Face//Off into fucking Vertigo.

2) Aaron Yoo must always play the wacky sidekick

Money.

Money.

Everybody loves wacky asians. Also, it’s imperative that Yoo’s character be shown frequently using the latest consumer-electronics equipment and/or social networking services. You hit your youth market and get some money on the back end from product placement. Surely Microsoft is waiting to dump millions in your lap to hype their latest Zune failure. Also, don’t be afraid to have Aaron play it gay: you’ll get free reign to make jokes about pretty much every ethnic or gender group there is.

3) Ditch the origin stories

the good part

the good part

Take a cue from The Watchmen or Wolverine and just pack the whole origin into the opening titles sequence. Because let’s be honest, when it comes to story-telling, musical montage is about the only thing modern music-video-culled directors can really handle (special bonus to Wolverine for telling the whole origin story in the opening credits and then filling screen time for another 90 minutes! Win!) With pretty much every reboot the audience walks out of these days, the reaction is: “Huh, that was okay, can’t wait for the real movie now that they’ve got all that out of the way!” Why wait and hope for enough B.O. to get another one green-lit when you can just jump right into the sequel by page 10? In fact, your marketing people would love it if everyone just pretends this is already the follow-up. Memorial Day, 2010: The Wire 2: Slim Charles N Charge

4) Why stop at one love interest?

Oh Kristin, I had suck fuckin hopes for you

Oh Kristin, I had such fuckin hopes for us

These days you need both the good love interest and the bad love interest. And it’s imperative that the bad one reject our hero early in the film, only to come crawling back later begging for cock, sexually debase herself and then get rejected by the hero. Or, as I like to call it, The Apatow Affect.

5) Snuff it up a little

Because everyone slows down to check out a car wreck

Because everyone slows down to check out a car wreck

Don’t scoff, you’re competing with YouTube and the Internets now. I’m not saying you do anything rash, but hey: you’re filming your McConaughey/Cage/Yoo reboot of World Trade Center (WTC²: Burj Dubaicalypse) on location; life is cheaper there, regulations not so rigid… you just never know when an accident might happen on set when 13 cameras are rolling. Don’t worry, you won’t use that footage in the finished film out of respect for the family (though sadly, the unfortunate victim won’t have had anyone that would miss him) but the viral campaign leading up the release would be like writing a $20 million dollar check for extra first-weekend grosses.

Now how easy is that, Hollywood? Don’t thank me, just pay me. We can build on this!

– Benjamin Light

Believe in me like I believe in you.

Posted by Marco Sparks on

La Voyage dans la lune, 1902, by Georges Méliès, which translates to english as A Trip to the Moon. It’s simply a classic of the silent film genre or of just the art of film in general and is considered by many to be one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century. The story is loosely based on two novels by the two of the great writers of early science fiction:

From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne, and

The First Men on the Moon by H. G. Wells (a novel of scientific romance).

But Méliès’ lovely little film is also the inspiration for something else I like…

The music video for “Tonight, Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins, from way back in the halcyon days of 1996.

The thing about the Pumpkins and, well, Billy Corgan, is that I am a fan of theirs/his still. I’m going to throw that out there and not profess as to why I still am, because frankly, when it comes to other people not liking them or being frustrated with the seeming egomania of Billy Corgan, well… I get it. As a fan of his, let me just put it this way: If you think he drives you crazy, you can only imagine how nuts some of his bullshit makes me.

But still, this is a great song, undeniably, I say, and a wonderful video too, directed by powerhouse team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who then went on to direct Little Miss Sunshine. And after you’ve seen this video, it’s impossible to separate the images from the music in your mind forever after.

from here.

About two years ago now Conrad Noir and I were watching the band perform at one of their very intimate and very cool comeback residency gigs in Asheville, North Carolina and even as this song was playing – which had a tremendous impact on me, something akin to be subjected to magical electrocution, which can often happen with a good band a good song and a good performance when you’re trapped in the middle of an audience that’s feeling it as hard as you are – and even then, just a few of the images from the video floated in my mind. Even as a few people whipped out lighters and others did the cell phone lighter thing (which I find so painfully dumb and dumb looking).

If I really wanted to be sappy I’d tell you about this friend I’d had years ago. And that’s all I’ll say about them, because the story’s not really about them, no story is. It’s about me. But this friend and I shared a mutual love of the band and once, we were parting ways, one of us moving far away. And I decided to leave this friend with a mix CD of music, the kind of thing when you’re stupid and immature, a mix primarily of Smashing Pumpkins music because we both loved it and shared that bond and rather tellingly, I titled the disc Believe In Me Like I Believe In You, which I will admit rather pretentiously is a line from this very song I’ve been discussing all this time. And yet I ask you, is there any stronger, more simple and beautiful sentiment than that in someone you care for or respect with all your being?

And if I really wanted to get emo on you, I’d tell you how I discovered later that that mix CD with that beautiful title and that I poured my heart into and bled over the track listing for was… well, it was never listened to. It’s case was never opened. If I really wanted to be tremendously pathetic with you, I’d share that vague little anecdote with you. But I don’t. Instead I give you the music video for the song, which I hope you enjoy…