sundry

[rm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63763-2003Nov19.html -- great editorial that I ganked from chite's journal.

The folks that I am interviewing to SM a tour for keep calling to confirm I'm coming to the interview. So that's turning into a more likely turn of events which I am slowly forcing myself to be more comfortable with.

And I bought my bus ticket to Texas. Because of all the connections and what not, stretched out it's taller than me -- I need to take a picture of it.

The Two Towers extened edition is a masterpiece -- all the editing issues and pacing concerns are gone thanks to the restored footage, and Jackson proves himself to be both an utter genius and the campiest little horror-movie obsessed freak at the same time. I'm not keen on all the restored footage, as I feel it eases the emotional pressure at the end of the film too much (I like the feeling of choking at films, it seems), but watching it has really blown me away, as it's a much more daring film than the first one stylisticly, and for the most part it works very very well. I am very very impressed. As a side note, I've never seen Sean Bean actually play a character that was happy, until I saw the restored footage in TTT -- the degree to which he absolutely forces your attention at a point in the film when you're nearly too tired to care, is quite a thing.

Also mindblowing on TTT, is the degree to which they made Tolkein's language work -- there are so many lines of nearly biblical oddity that work because of great performances, a great score, and very very judicious scripting. I haven't watched most of the extras yet -- but Andy Serkis rocks, and so does the stunt team (which I might add has one unbelieveable hottie on it, but I may just have been done in by his accent).

Definitely at about 90% on doing something about my name. And I feel really good about it. Because while it's a lovely melifluous name, it's also full of swallowed sounds (and there's the branding issue). Sounds that actually have to leave my mouth would please me more, and make me more confident, and that's okay.

Recently I had a wonderful conversation with someone, who asked me, "What film that already exists would you have made exactly as it exists?" Which is to say, don't tell me your favorite movie, but tell me what movie reveals your stylistic quirks. I'm still puzzling over it, although I have some halfway decent answers (with the usual caveats and explanations).

That's about all I can think of right now.

Comments

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's an excellent question. For me, the answer would be 28 Days Later... (sections of which were shot-for-shot along the lines of a film I dreamed up back in high school)(although I'd probably have set it in NYC, had I shot in summer 2001, as Boyle did. Not sure how I'd handle that now, although I suspect English film crew union regs would give me hives were I to shoot there).

Bought TTT expanded, although I grayed out just after Sam shows Frodo the box of salt from the Shire, touching scene that that was.A

[rm.livejournal.com]

For me, I think Gattaca comes closest of anything I've thought of so far.

It's very cyclical, which is something I do in the stories I tell. It relies heavily on music and color cues, is interested in what formality can accidentally reveal, and sexualizes things on the fringes of sexuality to command attention. I don't think it's the sort of story that it would have occurred to me to tell, because I take the film very personally, and have a hard time going near stories that hit me that way, but the way in which is told reflect both my tastes and my abilities. There are other films I admire far more wildly, but the direction they exist in is not the direction I tend to reach in, at least when entertaining directorial type-thoughts.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

That is a great editorial -- thanks for the link!

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

What film that already exists would you have made exactly as it exists?

Blood Simple.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

"What film that already exists would you have made exactly as it exists?"

Peter Weir's The Last Wave. I still remember sitting in the theater 19 years ago with the shards of my soda cup sticking unknowingly between my fingers when the credits rolled. It was perfectly made in a way that so little is.