I've Never Wanted to See a Movie so Badly

This reviewer does the best job ever of making me want to see a film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0

Defending the Music XVIII: Seems a Million Miles Away but it Gets a Little Closer Every Day

I had to miss the concert. It was the only reasonable course. I had tickets. It was the first stadium concert in twenty years. I had even did back-flips to arrange the best possible chance to be able to go... but when the time came I was too tired and had too far to go to complete my task and at too great stakes to risk the additional exhaustion of seeing one of my favourite bands of all time live... for possibly the only time in my life...

When I first saw the video for Every Breath You Take, I already recognised that The Police were an established band of note though I couldn't name any of their songs (though it would turn out I did know a few already.) I was taken in my the compellingly moody single instantly. It wasn't even the coolest video to come off the album.

I think I actually got Synchronicity through the Columbia House music club - which in those days was a 4-6 weeks 'til delievery kind of affair, a seeming enternity compared to the Amazon.com 4 business days of today.

I loved the album, but Demetri... I think it's safe to say that that album changed his life. Demetri became a lifelong Police fan, and as one of my best childhood friends, he brought the rest of the Police albums into my life.

Five albums seems like such a rip-off. We only got five from one of the best trios ever put together.
Sting: This guy started his career as one of the greatest song-writers in rock history... and there is only one direction to go from there. His time with the Police produced several dozen of the most perfectly crafted songs ever. Paul McCartney personally thanked him for writing a perfect bass-line for Walking on the Moon. Sting's solo career however fell victim to the law of diminishing returns. Dream of the Blue Turtles is a masterwork. Nothing Like the Sun has masterworks on it. Soul Cages has a masterwork on it. After that his career becomes a scattering of moderate accomplishments floating amongst a sea of noodling pretentious mediocre MoR.
Stewart Copeland: Watching Live in Atlanta more than a decade after it had been released, I found myself entranced by Stewart Copeland's performance. His rhythmic texturing made the Police what they were - not to detract from either of his compatriots prowess. He's fucking brilliant. After watching that video I wrote an email to Demetri expressing my appreciation for Stewart Copeland in a way I have never managed to recapture the effectiveness of.
Andy Summers: When they formed the Police, Andy Summers was already a London Club Act legend. He was the guy who lost out to Ron Wood as Mick Taylor's replacement (Oh how different music history would have been!) in The Rolling Stones - but clearly Keith Richards wasn't going to allow himself to be upstaged by the gargantuan talent of Summers. (Yeah, bring it on Stones fans, I have nothing but contempt for the three chords your boys have never wavered from at tedium.) Put it this way, when Summers agreed to be the senior member of the police, Sting and Stewart, went all fanboy.

When a year ago a reunion tour was announced, I went all fanboy. Demetri went all fanboy. We went and paid the extra cost necessary to get advance tickets through Best Buy with our other friend David. Demetri made plans to fly from London England to Vancouver in order to see the first Police concert in what might have well have been ever in our lives.

Then life started to interfere.

My film, Beast of Bottomless Lake was necessarily scheduled to overlap with the concert. Our schedule quivered back and forth right up until the end, and in the end I arrived back from the Okanagan the day before the concert, exhausted and already on the verge of an exhaustion triggered illness I would have been borderline... but something had also come up for Demetri. He couldn't make it either. That pretty much did it for me. Being there without him seemed to me like it would have been awkwardly hollow. I felt like I would have been betraying him.

I admit I really wish I could have seen the Police, and the fact that technically I could have made it makes it a real question, but given the same choice under the same circumstances I would take the same option - regretfully missing one of the most anticipated concerts of my life. The additional stakes were simply too high.

Demetri did eventually get to see the Police. If I get a second chance, I figure I'll take it.

Greatest SNL Sketch Ever

To be fair, there are a LOT of potential best-SNL-sketches-ever. This is merely one of my favourites. I wish I could find it somewhere on line. It's at least as remarkable as it stands out in an episode chock-full of unusually funny sketches with a guest who by all rights ought to be totally tepid - Chris Evert Lloyd.

I think this is a case where the script itself carries most of the hilarity... or perhaps it's just that I have the benefit of carrying a fairly crystal clear image of the sketch in my mind's eye. The basic conceit is Mike Meyers is an executive for Columbia Picutres which has just been acquired by a Japanese media conglomerate and he is very excited to tell us about their new programming....







[Tatsuo sits at desk. behind him are posters of Columbia Pictures films]

Tatsuo Nosaka: Hello, my name is Tatsuo Nosaka, I am new president of Columbia Pictures. I want to take opportunity to tell American people, we understand what you like! We are working hard to make many new films and television shows for you to consume. In fact, we have just finished new situation comedy for American TV audience. It is crazy and out to lunch! It is called "The Nude House Of Wacky People." Here are some scenes:

[Stock footage of a car wiping out and hurtling down a cliff. Inset circle of Tatsuo narrating]

Here is the father coming home from work with many American hamburgers for the family. He is driving so crazy it makes me laugh! Oh, no! He is crashing so much I have to laugh again! This is too much for me to look at and yet somehow I want to watch more!

[Sitcom living room. The father carries an armload of hamburgers through the front door]

Here is the father again, trying to carry the hamburgers home. Maybe he should carry the car it is so small by now!

[doorbell rings]

Oh, no! How much more insane can it get, I am wondering also.

[Father opens door. Bear enters & immediately attacks Father.]

A bear? How did he get there? There is no time for wondering, because the father is already fighting the bear! Then the bear leaves.

[The bear does indeed stop fighting and walks calmly out the door.]

Whew! Could we please stop now because it is so insane? No, we cannot!

[Wacky mother descends staircase]

Uh-oh, here comes the mother! She is asking the father why the hamburgers smell like a car that has crashed. He tries to think of a falsehood, but he cannot! So he throws fudge at her!

[Father throws a handful of fudge at mother. Bear enters from front door]

Then the bear comes back for more fighting!

[Fight continues]

This is so unusual, I might have to lose my mind! This family is too eccentric!

[Bear calmly leaves again]

I am glad it's over.

[The two children come down the stairs]

Hey! Here are the children of the wacky family! "Thank you for so many hamburgers," they say! "Ohhhh," says the father, "you cannot have hamburgers or candy canes until you do your homework!" "But we have no homework," say the children. "No homework?" Says the wacky father, "Then you will have to fight the bear!"

[Father opens the door for the Bear, who now fights with all four family members.]

I hope you have enjoyed these scenes from "The Nude House of Wacky People," Coming in January on CBS! If these pictures have not already convinced you how insane it is, then how about this?

[a green, dollar-sign-festooned show ribbon appears with Ronald Reagan's face inside]

That is right, it is the Ron Reagan United States presidential seal of approval!

Ronald Reagan: The Nude House Of Wacky People is just the kind of wholesome family entertainment that Japan is known for. Nancy loves it too!

Tatsuo Nosaka: And, don't forget our other new shows, such as:

[Appropriate title card appears for each show]

"You Can't Stop Him, He's Too Insane!"

"Good Hitting Police,"

and, "Who Can Figure Out Such Devices?"

If I am not mistaken, they will all drive you into a gourd! Later, dudes!

[fade to black]

Defending the Music XVII: I don't have a gun...

Kind of got knocked off the flow for a bit there. But I'm in the home stretch.

I've got to say that I've actually said plenty about each of the remaining artists at some time or another and part of the stall has been me struggling against the probability of repeating myself - not to mention the heaps of other writing that has been done about each of them.

I've already written about the quite powerful musical moment in my life where Nirvana screamed onto the scene and I realized that 'every thing has changed' and I won't retread that here.

So, what was it about Nirvana that spoke so directly to such a huge swath of people? And my HUGE I mean that they were one of the last bands (none after it spring to mind, though I'd be interested in hearing nominations for challengers) to ever manage to reach the vast majority of an entire generation. They were the first triple platinum punk band.

It had been a long time since music had so completely tapped into the emotional zeitgeist of the youth culture when it was in a volatile state. Which is not to say that there wasn't a voice for the disenfranchised between the summer of love and 1992. It's not to say that there wasn't music that stood up and demanded that it's point be heard. It's not to say that there was no cathartic vent for generational anger fuelled by three chords. But no one quite brought it together the way Kurt Cobain did on Nevermind.
And yet, what was he ever saying? No, I don't mean in a Weird 'Al' Smells like Nirvana way. I mean that even when you looked at the lyrics you often got the feeling that they most likely only ever made sense to Kurt. And THAT meant something. We were a generation without meaning and we knew it - the tiresome analysis by the Boomers of our place, threw it in our face (is it any wonder I have such contempt for the Beatles?). And the irony was that instead of making us pointless it wound us up to a fever pitch. "Fuck you. We're going to matter." We cried. Now, with the youngest of us on the back end of our thirties, I'd like to think we managed it, and I'd also like to think that our greatest days are still ahead.

It was so incredibly visceral, and in their brief heyday they proved that they were not a one trick pony. The Nirvana Unplugged album is one of the better and best selling Unplugged albums MTV ever released.

When Kurt died, (Leaving us one of music's most ironic lyrics behind in Come as You Are. Other contenders being the Who for My Generation and Amy Winehouse for Rehab. (Wow, I just ruined a sober point with a leavening paranthetical.)) it truly felt like something was lost. We lost a voice and we lost a future of music which would have been fascinating to watch unfold - even, if like so many artists all he could manage to do was to disappoint us (Sting, I'm looking at YOU!) But then again... perhaps Dave Grohl might have taken more of a part in the writing, and gawd knows he's proven himself.

Defending the Music XVI: We are Widening the Corridors and Adding More Lanes

There seems to be two very distinct camps on this band (discounting the third whose response is 'who?') there are those who rabidly love them and those who seem to think "Really? They're the most personality-less band ever." I generally pitch my tent in the first camp - but, like the Pixies, seeing them in concert was a big let-down.

John McRea has precisely four bits of stage business. And as he uses an average of two of them in the course of each song, they get old real quick-like. It was the first and only time I ever had front row tickets, and as much as that was cool, it wasn't enough to elevate the rather tepid performance to anything remotely approximating inspiring.

So how, in the light of that, does Cake rise above the chaff to earn a place amongst my all-time favourite bands? Pure quirk. What some see as a lack of personality comes across as entirely the opposite to those of us who are true believers? It seems so. Their sound is so distinctive. John McRea's detached sounding vocals, Vincent DiFiore's trumpet... even the revolving door of lead guitarists (actually there aren't anywhere the number of lead guitarists that there have been either bassists or drummers) find a unified sound somewhere in the middle of their audio palette. Cake songs sound like Cake songs, but they breadth of their style extends from country to disco to hard rock. It may be that Cake are too cool for their own good and their sense of hip comes across as smug aloofness... and I suppose I can see how that might be off-putting.

I'll admit that it's tough to defend Cake on any specific basis. I figure you either love 'em or you don't. If they've accomplished nothing else in this world, their irony dripping cover version made it acceptable for straight guys to sing "I Will Survive." The fact that their song "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is the theme song for the hit geek-chic spy-comedy-adventure "Chuck" is testament to their arrival in the eschelons of the eternally cool.

Defending the Music XV: Save the Shame for Me

Marquetta didn’t turn me on to R.E.M. but she played me more R.E.M. albums than I had previously heard. At that time I had pretty much only heard the ‘Document’ album, with its muscular-sounding iconic ode to using and discarding lover after lover (or at least loved one after loved one), “The One I Love,” and luckily some other boob had made an ass of himself by calling them “Rem” in my presence before I said it out loud myself – to the mockery of other college rock fans in the room. Boy did HE look dumb. (To be fair, at some other point I declared my appreciation for a band I referred to once and once only out-loud as ‘Inks.’)

Pete Buck’s unique guitar style – he is one of the few guitarists in popular music in the latter half of the 20th C. to finger-pick as a habit – made the simple repeated riff that drives the song snag into my brain. It was catchier than any lyric that had ever come before it. The plaintive one-word chorus was wrought with guilty self-hating angst… Fuck, how could an 18 year old not love this? At first, the repeated verse seemed unimaginative. But I forgave it long enough to understand it. The repetition, it turns out was a little bit of genius. This abuse – getting what one needs and moving on, is a serial habit, to the point where one victim is no different from the last.

Here is the true magic of R.E.M. Michael Stipe’s lyrics are not merely art. They often rise to the level of high-art, being structurally sound in support of their meaning and imagery.

Douglas Coupland spawned a Gen-X trend by declaring in his seminal (and frankly rather boring) novel that countless numbers of us had memorized the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World as We Know it.” (Which is no mean feat. Just try and get them all straight!) But here’s the thing… he didn’t make it up out of whole cloth. He was merely acknowledging a genuine trend. I don’t believe it was a fad until he mentioned it. I memorized them before I had read the book because of the combined challenge and the compelling nature of the screed of stream of consciousness that it represented.

And this was all before they put it out of the park.

The Juanabees used “Losing My Religion” as the theme-song to our first show ‘We Juanabee Bigger than Jesus’ (of which religion was a major theme). By the end of that summer I would have been happy if I never heard that song again. I’ve gotten over than feeling in the intervening 16 years. It’s that good a song.

In the years that I was making beer-money busking in ‘The Wookie Co.’ with Matthew we made liberal use of R.E.M. songs. Once, pretty much as a joke, we played “Superman” (Which to be fair was a cover.) for an entire set at the Kingston Buskers’ Festival. We didn’t make much money in that set, but damn did we amuse ourselves. We had a lousy location with mediocre walk-by traffic, and from a previous set in the same place we’d found that no-one seemed compelled to stop and listen to our ‘witty banter’ at that location (honest to god, they did in other locations) due largely to a lack of decent seating for a ‘starter crowd’ to begin forming. (Funny. People will happily stand once others have started watching and listening, but try and get the first person to stay without somewhere to sit.) We figured that if people were only going to be listening for the 90 seconds it took to walk past that we may as well only play one song. Later we were told by someone who had been listening across the street that they were at first confused that we just kept on playing the same thing, then they got tired of it and bored, then a bit annoyed and eventually came to find it funny. Looooong way to go for such a high-concept joke.

We also used “Me in Honey” & “You are the Everything” to great end. …Though we never played either of them for forty five minutes straight. “You are the Everything” was one of the few songs we never made light of and actually played quite straight. It was always one of our favourites. “Me in Honey” remains one of the most heartbreaking songs ever for me.

I gotta admit that from “Monster” onwards I felt like R.E.M. was only firing on half its cylinders. But even a half-functional R.E.M. was better than most bands ever were. They remain capable of creating songs that are pure art, and stringing five of the best albums of my lifetime back to back is more than enough to earn my unflinching trust in their abilities. I’m looking forward to their first album in four years sometime in April. I’m harbouring hopes that they’ll have had a good port-polish and that engine will be putting out a full horse-power.


Oh, and in the off chance J. David ever reads this… Yes, your version of ‘Stand’ remains one of the funniest Karaoke incidents ever.

Defending the Music XIV: The Bombs Never Hit You When You're Down So Low

Hitting the home stretch now, the last eight of twenty-one. I've saved my two all-time favourites for the back-end, and I've already done all the artists that I'd consider to be the least of the best. I did a few bands early on that sit amongst the absolute cream, but from here on out that's all there is. Stuff I really really love.

I figure that of the eight artists left I'll start with the two that I fell the least responsible for my own appreciation of. Two bands that friends pestered me into liking. And obviously they were right. I love both these groups. I'll tackle them chronologically.

The first one I have Jason and Paul to blame for, but it my first experience with the band was with a girl.

I hadn't even heard of Midnight Oil before Marquetta had a crush on me. Back in first year university, my only year in residence, a girl from a building across the quad had a big crush on me. It was kind of unfortunate really. She was cute and I'm betting that a few more years of maturing would have made her gorgeous in a sexy-librarian kind of way. She was cool and I really enjoyed hanging out with her - good thing as she knocked on my door practically every day. But she just wasn't 'my type.' One thing she was really great at was identifying music that I would like. She turned me towards a number of bands - one other of which is yet to come on this list - which were 'alternative' when that still meant something which have gone on to major mainstream success. One related thing that connected us (and this is going to date me) is that we were the only two people we knew with those new-fangled CD players.
One day Marquetta brought over 'Diesel & Dust.' "Listen to this. You'll like it." Damned if she wasn't right.
I didn't really pay a lot of attention to Midnight Oil for the next few years. I owned "Diesel & Dust" and listened to it, but it wasn't in high rotation.

Eventually I found myself playing music with other guys. Jason pushed for us to play "The Dead Heart." That 'de doo doo doo - doo de doo' intro and extro was a LOT of fun to play. We learned a lot about dynamics playing our way out of that song. It was one of our better numbers and we also worked on some other Midnight Oil songs. It soon became apparent to us just how good these guys were as musicians. They had a remarkable ability to make quite complex songs sound much simpler than they were.

By this time "Blue Sky Mining" had been released and I had added it to my regular playlist.

During one of the summers I spent house painting Paul was bound and determined to convert everyone who he painted with into rabid Oil fans. He owned all their albums and played them on the company ghetto-blaster every chance he had. His plan worked. By the end of the summer I too owned all the most significant Oil albums - as did several of my other co-workers. I'd also found a new favourite Midnight Oil song, which holds the title to this day. (For the record, the video almost comically fails to capture the power of the song.)

I was the right age to be easily inflamed by the politics of their music. I was in my activistic stage and they were the soundtrack to the injustices of the day.

I missed Another Roadside Attraction in '93 because I was on tour. In fact, I missed the A.R.A. tour all three times because I was on tour. Without fail I'd be in Winnipeg and they'd be in Saskatoon. Two nights later we'd be in Saskatoon and Winnipeg would be rocking out. Grrrr.

That tour was politically linked to the logging issues in the Clayoquot though the band was also touring in support of "Earth and Sun and Moon" which was for practical purposes their last big album. They already had a political issue that was killing them as a band...

They didn't have much to complain about during the Clinton administration. Or rather they thought it diluted their message to start picking at the minor indiscretions of the world's remaining super-power. Think what you like about that. I don't know that it's as righteous as I'd like to think Midnight Oil as being, but that was what they claimed eight years later when I did finally have a chance to see them live.

Midnight Oil in the Commodore Ballroom was the most awesome show I ever saw in that spectacular venue. Imagine the Lurch-like six and a half foot bald-headed Peter Garrett whirling and spastically dancing (There's plenty of examples for your imagination in the linked videos.) mere feet above your head.

They declared that night that there was something wrong in the world again (Hmmm... I wonder what?) and that they has something to say and thus they were back. Sadly it wouldn't last long. Six months later Peter Garrett finally did something he had threatened to do before their breakout "Diesel & Dust" - he quit the band and went into politics. Apparently he figured he could accomplish more in the Australian Parlaiment. He is now the Minister of Enviroment, Heritage and the Arts.

While I do wish for another chance to see them live, or a new album, I respect Peter Garrett's committment to walk the talk. There are a number of bands on this list with strong politics. Few were ever as strident and none put their money where their mouth is with this much fervence.

How to Start Lecture

A heads up...

This Wednesday Jan 30th I'll be doing one of Biz Books' "How to Start" lectures. All the details (stolen from their site) follow below, so I won't get more redundant than I already have been.


HOW TO START:

How to Start… Getting Off the Couch and Making that Independent Film You’ve Been Saying You’re Going to Make with Kennedy Goodkey

A thoroughly non-technical look at how to get the ball-rolling towards the ultimate goal of Making a Feature Film. From the importance of an initiating idea, to basic self-organization, through the value of a good partner in crime to how to manage your life partner while you have a two year affair with a film. Also covering the realities of finances and just how much work it takes to make a movie; and the importance of good publicity, an un-flinching faith in yourself, and a voracious capacity to learn and learn and learn.

Wednesday, January 30th; 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
To ensure we have a space set aside for you, either call: 604.669.6431 or e-mail: info@bizbooks.net

Kennedy’s passion for film-making is evident in the scripts he produces. He writes from the heart, but uses his head to make sure it comes out right. He is an asset to every film he produces.
— David Nykl

Kennedy is unstoppable… ’cause the road to The Beast of Bottomless Lake was an impossible one, but he travelled it.
— Mark Leiren-Young

Kennedy Goodkey is the host of the podcast "Micro Film: A Close Look at Making Big Films on a Small Budget."
He is also the winner of the First National Sketch Writing Competition, and a well known British Columbia writer/actor who is currently one of the principals in Vancouver production company Provost Pictures.
While he's perhaps best known for his work as both an actor and writer in the independent Vancouver theatre world (as well as many years spent on the Fringe-Festival Theatre circuit), Kennedy's writing credits include the animated films A David Lynch Family Christmas and The Gnome Who Knew Too Much (winner of the 'Special Achievement Award', 2003 ReelFast 48HR Filmmaking Competition). Additionally, Kennedy has written the live action short Rewind, as well as the shorts Godot and Straight Flush, both of which he also directed.
Kennedy is a Jessie Richardson Award-nominated actor, with appearances on The L Word and a lead role in the feature Sons of Cohen for which he also wrote the screenplay. He was the first recipient of the Provost Writer's Award for his play Sarcophagus, which is about the Chernobyl disaster.
Kennedy is currently involved in post-production for the feature-length film The Beast of Bottomless Lake, an interpretation of Moby Dick filmed primarily in the Okanagan region of British Columbia.

Cloverfield vs. Jaws & The Art of Missing the Point

WARNING! SPOILERS!

So I went and saw Cloverfield last night.

It was a wild ride. I totally loved it. When I left the theatre I mentioned to the friends I went with that I expected that most of the criticism that would be lobbed at it would be how it failed to explain the initiating circumstances or the implied victory over the monster. I also had heard people couldn't handle the 'handy-cam cinematography' a la Blair Witch Project.

So this morning I took a look at what was available on-line.

Sure enough.

Other criticisms: Lame witless dialogue. Exploitative 9/11 imagery.

Every single one of these criticisms are complete and utter bullshit.

For starters I can name a dozen film (easily) that feature an enormous creature rampaging through a city. Most of them include the word 'Godzilla' in them, but it's hardly limited to that franchise. I highly recommend The Host. Despite The Host's rather refreshing look at the genre, it needs to be said about the genre as a whole - "Been there, done that."
We've all seen the tale of how the plucky team of scientists, intrepid military men and the token civilian pulled into the thick of things band together to vanquish the building-sized monster.
What hasn't been seen is the story of the guy who we see get crushed under it's foot before the final reel. THAT is this story. Uncompromisingly so. J.J. Abrams & Director Matt Reeves are never tempted to swerve to a place where our heroes become instrumental in the creature's demise. They come close, witnessing the inital bombing runs on it, but then they become the victims of the obligatory swipe at a pesky helicopter. As our beaten heroes lay in the rubble at the end of the film waiting for it to all end, their hideout becomes collateral damage to the final all-out attack on the creature.

We can assume that the creature is defeated - it is strongly implied by the nature of the faux government tag applied to the start of the film, one which indicates an inquiry into the incident. Did Rob and Beth survive? Probably not, but we don't know. Did we hear the creature's demise? We don't know. (There are reports that if you play the final radio transmission backwards that it say's "It's still alive." Even if true, frankly 'backwards masking' doesn't really exist in the world of this film. But the concept of the film directly prevents us from knowing based on the internal context, and that is how it should be. Anything else would be a cheat.

And the same applies to the cinematography and the dialogue. Both were slavishly realistic. Real people aren't capable of tossing out witty one-liners in response to their strife every two minutes for 90 minutes (or seven hours - the time the film plays out in). The film even subtly comments on it - "Why don't you ask me if I've ever heard of... Garfield." A line so witless, commenting on another character's lack of wit... it's genius.

And nothing can better put us in the situation than to see it all first person... though naming the character with the camera 'Hud' (Hudson/Heads Up Display) walks the line of self-reference. This does mean that we don't see much of the monster, 'cause naturally the protagonists are usually running in the opposite direction, but refer back to my first point - WE'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE! Not only do we not need to see the monster, it's a refreshing and more realistic to show it to us this way.

Which leads me tot he complaints of exploitation of 9/11 imagery. Exploitation? Go to hell. If anything it's the greatest of respect. I've got this theory - stay with me here - that if we were all to be exposed to the horror of being in the chaos of the hot zone it owuld happen a hell of a alot less. And the hot zone could be anything from Ground Zero at the World Trade Centre or downtown Baghdad in April of 2003 or Guernica in 1937, or Dresden 1945... I can go on of course. In all these cases a common trait is that the civilian victims (and survivors) at the centre of the storm have little notion of what is actually happening. They might know 'we are being bombed' but even that may be obscured (note that many people thought 9/11 was a bombing while it was happening - despite the jet-liners flying into buildings overhead.) Cloverfield presents this reality clearly (in it's obscurity) from start to finish. In his final address to the camera, Rob says "If you are watching this you know more about what's happening than I do." This is thematically a very important moment. What is the name of the film? "Cloverfield." A military slang term referencing the appearance from above of an area which has just been carpet-bombed, as the dust is still settling. Could this be any more clear? What is it like to be in the horrific heat of that moment? Cloverfield attempts to capture that. Again, the first-person view is an unrelenting choice which hammers this point home and never breaks it's own rule. Having the attack in question be a movie monster rather than a military power is almost irrelevant. Part of the point is that our protagonists only know a tiny sliver of the story, so it might as well be Godzilla - or whatever.
Let's face it, being a giant monster gets more people through the doors. Just look at the record breaking box-office figures of the first week. In that sense it's more exploitative, but if it had been an attack by a military power (which in New York would be even more absurd than a movie monster in today's day and age, the supernatural allows the leap of willful suspension of disbelief) half the people would come out to watch the movie... and the political subtext would be far too on the nose and less powerful.
My ultimate point here - if you've missed it - is that Cloverfield actually honours the victims of 9/11 (and more importantly, more horrific events - some people (cough, cough, New Yorkers, cough) really need to get over themselves) by bringing us inside the horror of such events so that we can all understand what it might be like, how confusing and terrifying it can be, and hopefully steel a little more resolve in each of us to prevent it from happening again.

Okay, I'm off my soap box for the moment. But that doesn't mean I'm finished!

A few more thoughts...

Titanic was a love story set against the backdrop of the world's most famous passnger liner sinking. Cloverfield does the same by putting a story against the backdrop of a Godzilla-like attack. The attack isn't the story. Surviving in the heaping rubble is.

I went home and rather randomly put Jaws in the DVD player. Watching the infamous first opening scene I had a revelation. Spielberg knew exactly what was going on underneath the water as Susan Backlinie was attacked by the shark. None of what happens is random. I know that making a reality of what is unseen is an important creative tool, but suddenly with outrageous clarity I saw what was going on beneath the surface. A taste... a bite and tearing a piece (leg or legs) off. A moment's respite as she clings to the buoy, legless, in shock as the first morsels go down and the shark circles for a second attack.... I imagined it all in greater clarity than this. (In a side note - I got to see our Jaws tribute scene edited last weekend. Made me very happy. It was always one of my pet scenes in the "Beast..." script.)

It occurred to me that Abrams and Reeves similarly knew at any given moment in Cloverfield what was going on in the bigger picture. What stage of any pedestrian creature feature would be going on in the world of the film.

Okay, I'm done.

Wikipedia

I meant to blog about this already.

A few weeks back I made a facetious comment about not having a Wikipedia entry. Well, someone was listening. (Thanks Lisa!)

So now I DO have my own Wikipedia entry.

While it is almost entirely plagarized from the Provost Pictures website, it has since been formatted (which I believe is called 'wikifying') and looks like a real-ish Wiki entry.

It still needs some work as far as Wikipedia is concerned - there's notices at the top about how it's incomplete. Officially I can't do it myself - though I don't know what is actually stopping me.

I'm figuring it won't last long though. Someone mentioned a newspaper article written by a New York Times (possibly the most famous newspaper on the planet, almost certainly the most read) reporter who was surprised to find that the entry on himself had been removed because he 'was not famous enough.' The New York frikken Times! Like I've got cigarette's chance at an A.A. meeting. So if you feel inspired to 'fix' the article - don't!

Pilots Go the Way of the Dodo

This came up in this morning's Cynopsis and I thought it might be interesting to people outside of the industry.

-----
So much for "pilot" season at NBC. Jeff Zucker announced yesterday the network would no longer order up pilots as a matter of course each year leading into the upfront season, thereby saving the network tens of millions of dollars, reports The NY Times. Typically each year, NBC and the other broadcast networks order up a series of pilots for shows in development, choose a handful of them as potential primetime series in the upcoming season, and show the pilots to advertisers during the upfront season. No more, says Zucker. Rather, the network would order perhaps one or two pilots each season. Zucker says the reason for this decision is pure economics in light of the current WGA strike and due to the current US economy.
-----

It certainly implies that the change is permanent, but I haven't gone straight to the source (not that that would definitively clear it up) so it could just be a 'this season' thing courtesy of the writer's strike.

Future Facebook Ghosts

I recently came across a friend who has someone friended on Facebook who I know had been dead for about a year.

At first my reaction was THAT'S MORBID! But within a few seconds I have moved on to No, that's respectful and honouring of their memory.

I then started thinking about how that might carry on into the future.

Imagine Facebook remains the social networking utility of choice well into the future - well after you and I are all gone. What will happen to our accounts? As we each pass away and our friends honour us by leaving links to us as friends... what will happen?

We can't check out profiles of people more than one person removed (and few of us have our privacy settings set low enough to even allow one person removed viewing)... and of course we'll all take the passwords to our profiles with us to the grave. (Right?)

So eventually there could be this web of interconnected Facebook ghosts who no-one can actually access.

Actually that's probably not realistic at all. IF Facebook were to actually last that long I suspect that there would either be some sort of protocol put in place to either delete dormant accounts, or possibly to 'de-classify' the archive of dormant accounts after 'X' amount of time. Say 120 years after an account was created, or 30 years after it's last use? Or a certain amount of time after the declared birthdate of a user's profile - say 150 years (to allow for both the death of the user and any immediate descendant)?

I don't know.

Just musing on our digital immortality.

Defending the Music XIII: I Want You (In a Vinyl Suit)

I've been plugging away at other endeavours. Including taking a massive blow to the face. Got hit by a planet (you can probably deduce which one) and my head is still ringingBut I'm back now... at least for the moment. No doubt I'll get distracted again.

The first time I heard The Offspring, I thought to myself, Wow. We've dated the same girl. "Self-Esteem" from the biggest selling independent album of all time (pretty good for a bunch of kids who though their high-school janitor might make a good guitar player), appropriately titled 'Smash' cut to the quick. Music never seemed more promising than it did at that time.

While they never put another album together that was as awe inspiring as 'Smash' and they definitely gave in to the power of pop success, but there were many bright moments to come - even if they were more fun than inspiring. But they were consistently fun. Mixing equal parts, humour, politics and personal revelation their songs build irresistable hooks around anthemic punk cores. But wait, there's more! Offspring songs always sound like Offspring songs, but they've gone to great lengths to explore a variety of ethnic rhythms in their music as well, from the punk-ubiquitous ska, to Latin varieties & banghra to calypso.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't had a lot in the way of personal insight since I first heard 'Self-Esteem' driving up Mt. Tolmie in Colin's car on our way to class, but I still get plenty of catharsis from chanting "Nah-na why don't you get a job?" from the song of the same name years after the fact.

And it's worth mentioning that the look of the character I play in 'Beast of Bottomless Lake' was based on Offspring lead singer, Dexter Holland.

Okay, this has been short but I gotta go contend with the concussion...

Tom Cruise: Got off the Train One Stop Past Wacko.

A follow up to my latest Enemies post.

Here's a new link to the Tom Cruise video.

I'm not going to walk you through it. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

Defending the music XII: A Sentimental Journey into Sight and Sound

There aren't many bands who you can blame more for emo, than Green Day.

There are precious few bands that have made it further on as much lack of talent as Green Day... but, like the Clash (You knew I couldn't last much longer, could I? C'mon I narrowly avoided mentioning The Clash entirely in the OLP entry.), they honed their understanding of their abilities into increasingly adept incicive songwriting.

I was the demographic to blame for shooting Dookie to the top of the charts in 1994. It was hardly the paradigm setting moment it's since been hailed as when Mike Dirnt had his teeth fed to himself by a security guard at Woodstock '94 - if you actually watched the incident - well, you can't see it happen. Green Day's set was over, and the director cut to long-shots of the stage as the marauding fans rush the stage. However, the preceeding band incited mud-fight was great - harmless fun. The 'band violence' (I repeat: The mud-fight was harmless, and the punching actually had the band on the victim end.) helped catapult Green Day into the stratosphere. Oh yes, we were a disenfranchised lot, us Gen-X'ers. What's new? Every second wave of adolescents gets to be angry at the opulence of the intermediate generations... gawd, can I hardly wait for that phase to swing back around... perhaps kids will start re-fucking-cycling again! But I digress....

Yes, Dookie was a lot of fun. Revitalized punk - with harmonies! Who didn't get off screaming along with 'Basketcase's "Am I just paranoid or UHh-Muh-Glaaaaauuuh!" (Which, for the record, was actually "...or am I stoned?")

But then they had to go and write that fucking song.... You know the one. 'Good Riddance.' (Oh how I wish it appropriately WOULD go away.) Changes are you know the somg by it's refrain - "I hope you had the time of your life." Would someone please kill me if I ever have to hear that song again? And don't you DARE play that song at my funeral - which I think is the real problem with it. It went from release to overplay inside of three days. Okay, realistically, three months. (Okay, so there are occasional exceptions to the 'I will listen to anything they release' rule.) Until their most recent album, this has been the flagship song of their career - fuuuuuuck....

It took me a long time to let Green Day back in. In fact, they had to actually start channeling The Clash in order to do it. I don't really know what happened, but somewhere along the line Billy Joe Armstong quit acting upon kneejerk defiance and started speaking about real problems. "Warning," while just a warm-up to what was coming, is still my favourite Green Day disc. Their next album, "American Idiot" went for the throat. It was great. And somehow the Dixie Chicks took all the heat for pointing out what a mess the USA was.

Perhaps the most complete acknowledgement of their political validity was the release last year of a collaborative effort between Green Day and the band that has best mixed music and politics ever - U2; 'The Saints are Coming.' A pretty kick ass song to boot.

Oh... and final proof: The drummer's name - is Tre Cool. Literally.

Enemies III & Allies II

A quick bit of context for those of you who are now getting my blog entries as notes on Facebook... (actually no one reads the real blog!):

Ages ago I started a series of posts listing people of high profile who are either enemies or allies of my own ideological stand-point. I didn't actually get far before I forgot about the blog. (2 enemies, 1 ally) Now that I'm in the habit again, it's time to get back.

A quick recap: Enemies - Anne Coulter & Ted Nugent. Allies - Dr. David Brin.

I've got one of each for today.

Starting with a new ally:
Technically this is ALLIES. The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. It's a podcast presented by the New England Skeptical Society. I listened to a few recent episodes in early December and was immediately enamoured. I went right back to the beginning of their archive - about three years worth of weekly podcasts.
In essence, the N.E.S.S. are a group of science-minded folk of a variety of political stripes, (Perry DeAngelis demonstrates clear Republican affiliation; Skepchick, Rebecca Watson makes no bones about her leftist standing.) who vigilantly take on any subject where bad science is being practiced. From UFOs to Intelligent Design they take it all on with a hard-line of reason and logic. Psychic phenomenon, homeopathy, sasquatch... it's all in their sights. Through discussion they provide the listener over repeated listening with the tools by which to disect their own cherished beliefs, and like any good group of science-minded folks, they aren't too precious about their claims. They recognize that the flexible fallibility of science is it's greatest socratic strength. Case in point - in one early episode they took on the 'G-spot.' When, only weeks later they were owned (in part by then guest, Rebecca Watson) they were happy to back down. It was awesome to know that they practice what they preach. (The fact that it brought Watson to the show full-time was an added bonus. I laugh a lot listening to Skeptic's Guide, but she makes me laugh the most, next to DeAngelis - who passed away last year, so once I catch up with my listening I won't have his wit to giggle at.)
It's my favourite podcast hands down, and I'm not afraid to admit that a number of things I've taken as fact have been torn apart by them, much to my horror and eventual embrace.

My New Enemy:
Not that he wasn't headed this way before... Tom Cruise. The guy is completely bat-shit crazy. Earlier this afternoon a co-worker forwarded me a link to a YouTube video that had been tagged by muckraker-fabulous Perez Hilton. I'm not a follower of Hilton's blog, for the record.
The clip in question was an edited down version of a Scientology produced video interview with Tom Cruise. The complete and utter nonsense dribbling out of his mouth... "I know. I just KNOW. And I wish I could take a vacation and gallivant, but I can't. It's up to me." (I paraphrase.) Yes, Tom thinks he's Scientology's own personal Jesus. But really he comes off just a bit more like their Manson.
The post had gone up on Hilton's site about five minutes before the video was posted. I watched the ten minutes. Passed it on ONCE. That person watched it with about five extra minutes to spare... and then the video was removed for 'copyright violation.'
Now, you may know that YouTube doesn't make a habit of removing videos unless the copyright holder SPECIFICALLY REQUESTS IT. So... within thirty, forty-five minutes at the outside, of the video being posted on Hilton's excessively well read website, Scientology had very firmly pressured YouTube into removing the video. The Hilton connection is likely incidental, but even so - the video was recently posted - scary!
I should be singling out Scientology as my enemy here - and don't think I won't - but it's far more satisfying to aim at Cruise. The guy is so far off the deep end by now, he's making Britney Spears look like Barak Obama. ZOIKS!

Defending the Music XI: I Must be too Dumb to be Proud

Just past the halfway mark!

I've made a point of doing a few of the shiniest gems, but for the most part I've worked my way through the items I'm least excited about. Looking at what is left over now and deciding what I'm going to tackle next I have committed myself to writing about what in my mind are the three least of the remaining five bands in this and the next two entries.
But don't be mistaken, when I say 'least' we are still talking about the 'least' bands in the list of artists I trust the most.
Though it bears saying that these least artists do kind of hammer home the point that that trust comes from an expectation I put upon their worst music, not their best. Several bands have made the list because I'll put up with their occasional crappy song in order to be there when they put one out of the park, but in many cases it's a simple matter of feeling like even their worst music would get at least three stars on my media player. This is one of those artists.

I discovered Our Lady Peace and Alannis Morrisette (as opposed to Alannis) in one ten minute window. That makes for a reasonably important 10 minutes in my personal history of Canadian rock. Alannis didn't (even come close) make 'the list' though.

I listened to that first OLP disc, "Naveed" throughout the summer of '95 on tour. The ensuing five albums have admittedly sounded very much like that first one. That has been a virtue thus far, but I have to admit that I'm hoping that the new OLP album, due this spring, takes them in a fresh direction.

I figure that a good part of the appeal of OLP is that, being 1) My age; 2) Canadian and 3) Of roughly the same musical aesthetic as me, they represent 'the band I would have been in' if that had ever been a reasonable trajectory for my life. Though I have to think that it would be inevitable that I would have written songs with more humour than Raine Maida. I mean, geez, could one person explore the feeling of being let down from more angles?

Every now and then, OLP had struck a chord running deep in me. Their debut, "Naveed," (both the song and the album) musically hit exactly where I was at at the point in my life that I heard it. But it needs to be said that the lyrics of one of their songs - "Waited" - stand as the only song lyrics that have ever changed my life in a directly quantifiable way. I was in a very toxic relationship, I was in severe denial about the damage it was causing me. But upon hearing the chorus of that song... "I must be too dumb to be proud, 'cause I waited, waited here." ...I saw myself and how pathetic that was. Needless to say I got out. Fast. There has never been any looking back on that one.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone else reading this has ever had a similar experience with any other song? Doesn't have to be a relationship thing, just a point where a song has made you look inside yourself and change a bad pattern.

Defending the Music X: Fear is not the End of this

Now as I begin writing this entry I realise that I am almost as excited to be writing this entry as I was to write about The Clash. In fact the feeling is kind of boosting my awareness of my love for this band. I can tell I'm going to be listening to them a lot this week.

Okay, who are they?
Live.
Who?
Live.
Right, but the Band is...?
Not The Band. Live.
But who is the group?
Not The Who, either.
What is their name!?
Live.
I don't care. What do they call themselves!
Live.
I'm going to punch you right in the mouth...

If there is one thing I don't like about LIVE, the band, it's their name. I've had "Who's on First?" conversations like the above - I don't know how many times. Imagine if they had been a group that was truly obscure. I think that they actually kind of blew it on the name. It has only ever hurt them. There are all kinds of people who know of their two notable hits (one of which was positively enormous) who don't know the name of the band. I'm sure that if they'd had an easier name to deal with that they'd have reached a lot more people.

Back in 1992, when I was on tour with the Juanabees, one of the four of us on tour that year bought Live's first widely released album, "Mental Jewelry," on a whim. Despite being the same year that Nirvana's 'Nevermind' was released - and similarly close on the heels of other seminal albums like "Ten," "Pretty Hate Machine" and (dare I admit it?) "Gordon," "Mental Jewelry" matched and even out-paced those albums for play time. There was something about the big sound of the music that appealed to us. Sure Pearl Jam had a huge sound, but Live wrote songs that sounded vast, like landscaping with guitars. Buddhism never sounded so massive. (Their lyrics are heavily influenced by Buddhism.) At the end of the tour everyone of us bought a copy. And this was the album before they hit it big.

Two years later when "Throwing Copper" spent a year in the top ten (back when that still barely meant something) based largely on the strength of "Lightning Crashes" ("Oooooh! THAT song! Yeah, I love those guys too.") a year after it had been released... well, I've never had more of a "What took you so long to notice?" feeling.

They hit it big briefly once again in 2001 - though not in a way anyone would really want to. You may recall someone flying a plane into a building... they had just released a new album, "V," - one of the songs from it (thank god it wasn't the actual single, that would have been too crass) "Overcome" was used in an early tribute. It was a great song that fit the circumstances hauntingly well. It was used again... and again... and again. It was practically the 9/11 theme song.

I suppose in a way I'm glad that Live have never really maintained commercial success. I feel vindicated in my love for them by the massive success they briefly enjoyed, yet at the same time I get to keep them in that special place that other 'best kept secrets' like U2 and R.E.M. left so far behind that it feels dirty to still be on the band-wagon.

In preparing to write this I had a wonderful discovery... I (shamefully) admit that I had no idea that they released a pair of new songs this fall. But the up-side of that is that I've got something new to dive into, and "Radiant Sea" at first blush is one of the best songs they've released in nearly a decade.

Bonus trivia: The waiter who warns Jack that Marla shouldn't order the soup in 'Fight Club'... Live's lead singer - Ed Kowalczyk.

Baldwin / Basinger & Baby

Okay, Ireland is NOT a baby. She's nearly a teenager.

My take - from what little I know - is as follows, and it seems to me that it ought to be reasonably apparent to anyone who has ever lived in a split family, and probably many others with the wit to think about it.

Did Alec Baldwin verbally abuse his daughter?

Yes. And she probably deserved it.

Does this make him a bad guy? Nope.

Is Kim Basinger turning her daughter against Baldwin? Probably.

Does this mean she's a bad person? Again no.

Is it any of our business? Not in the least.

Let's deal with these questions in order... except for the last one which I'll deal with first...

It's not our business. I shouldn't even be writing about it, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Sorry Alec. Sorry Kim. Ireland, I am VERY sorry. The biggest issue in this whole thing is that you are put in a position where you have to deal with a normal part of growing up in a very public way. The tapes of your father should never have been made public. Whoever did that is the real criminal in all of this - I'm going to blame your Mother's lawyer, Neal Hersh. It was a tactic which deserves to blow up in the face of the perpetrator.

Did Alec Baldwin verbally abuse his daughter? Did she Deserve it? Does this make him a bad guy?
Yes. He did. Hands up everyone whose parents never said a hurtful thing to them...
If there are any hands up, it's either toddlers, people who never met their parents, or in a rare case a newly minted adult who grew up in the era where we treated children too well for their own good.
I'm not in favour of corporal punishment, but there has been a trend over the past few decades towards treating kids like fabrege eggs. Fuck, stop it! We aren't helping them any.
Yes, my parents said some things that hurt my tiny little feelings. I'm 37 years old now. I still love them both and have loved them since any specific incident where they might have said something unkind to me - or at least from thirty minutes after such things were said. Some of those things were more than I deserved at the time. Let's face it, children are willful little egomaniacs and if they aren't shown that actions have consequences and that other people's feelings are just as capable of being hurt as theirs they are being fostered into becoming a generation-army of sociopaths. In otherwords, an occassional heated verbal dressing-down is for their own good!
Whatever she did to hurt Alec's feelings is only nominally relevant. I know I tried my parent's patience. Kids do things - often just to see if they can get away with it. In this case the answer was 'no' and he gave her than message. Should he have waited to give her that message 'til he had cooled his jets a bit? Definitely. But no-one - not anybody - not Dr. Phil - not Gandhi - is flawless on that count. It's human nature. We get steamed and we speak sooner than we should. I've got a wheelbarrow full of stones here for anyone who still has the qualifications to make the inaugural toss.

Is Kim Basinger turning her daughter against Baldwin? Does this mean she's a bad person?
She probably is. That doesn't mean she knows she's doing it. It's ultimately doomed to fail too.
My parents both said things about the other when they separated that weren't very flattering - heck, they still do on occassion, but it's become less and less the case as time has passed. Was it a deliberate attempt to turn me against the other? No - they were just speaking out of pain. Did it work - not really. There were truisms spoken in each case. Things that I would have eventually put together on my own about each of my parent's personal short-comings. But ultimately I began to look upon those comments as being a greater personal liability than the things that they were speaking about were. And here's the thing - even armed with that knowledge, do you think I can (even three years after the split) keep myself from making the same mistake when speaking about Mia? No. I can't. Thank god we didn't have kids. I'd hate to have them be used as a tool in a pointless, but unstoppable, war of nearly dead emotions.

As usual, this comment on current events has become more about myself thant he event - and so it should be. Let these people be. Let Ireland be. Using a child as a pawn, while somewhat inevitable, is elevated to egregious when it becomes a public battle. Trying to vilify Alec Baldwin for acting as any average joe would when pressed hard enough is ridiculous. No doubt he didn't feel good about himself even before the infamous voicemail was heard by Ireland, let alone the public at large.

A LONG long weekend.

I'm still recovering from the past five days.

On Sunday night I drove up to Penticton with David, the producer of Beast of Bottomless Lake. We arrived at the Ranch after 11pm, and pretty much went to sleep.

The morning provided the sole lie-in of the weekend.
When we got up I got to have a bit of a boo around the ranch. It is our location production office in the Okanagan. Nice place. Though once we cram a dozen people in dorm-style, it's going to be a good thing that we have plenty of exterior room to escape each other in. Not that we'll be doing much more than sleep there, but still.

Over the day David and I prepped for the arrival of the others. I also got to watch the world men's curling final - Canada kicked ass.

We bought food (which I prepped for minimum maintenance over the next four days) and did a bit of organizing of space - both for accomodation and shooting.

Shari arrived around 4:30ish with her Grip, Thomas.

Last time Shari and I were up in the Okanagan we were doing some pretty unabashed flirting. We are now each variously attached. Or rather, she is. I am merely feeling overwhelmed by the time pressure of the project to the point of not being able to find the time for romance... though I feel good about a prospect who knows full well I'm heading her way as soon as the film is in the can.
We lightly addressed that and all was well. Though our friendly adversarial relationship continued through this week, just without the innuendo.

Craig arrived abound six-ish with Rob our camera op and Patrick (Location sound).

Between the early work David and I did, and Shari and Thomas did after they arrived, the set (the garage) was practically ready.

We sat down for dinner (I made pasta) and the Craig and Shari started planning the evening shoot. Gabe - an old friend of mine from university who lives in the Okanagan - was our actor for the evening. When he arrived we got him in costume and got to work. It took about three hours to shoot his scene.
It was fun and silly. It's one of two bits that are supposed to be poorly done re-creations. Such an odd thing deliberately making something badly. The trick is to not do anything to consciously make it bad. The trick is to stop yourself from doing the things that would make it good.

After a late night de-brief/production-meeting we went to bed.

Craig and I were sharing a room. We were both too excited to sleep. Add in a few well timed farts (oh the puerile humour) and we were up until dawn. Craig figured he got about 2 hours sleep. I figure I got less than one.

Easter Monday morning we were off to CATO to meet with students and to do some final auditions for the 'Young Paul'.

The turn out of student volunteers was disappointing. (Though we got a number of emails over the next few days.) The auditions were pretty clear cut. Twenty young men, only two really worked for us and even then, one of the two was clearly better suited than the other.

We then went and did a tech-scout of the boat we will be using for the shoot - it went really well. The skipper seems a great guy and seemed to like us. The boat itself is just the right level of functionality, space and just enough things that look like they need repair to give it real character.

We followed up with our biggest location - the Summerland Yacht Club. I was very impressed. It is totally as much as we could expect from a gratis locale.

Back home to the ranch for Barbecue. Mmmmm. Barbecue.

After another evening meeting it was time for an earlier bed.

An even earlier morning followed. We rushed to Kelowna to shoot a few scenes at Shelter Bay marina. It was great. Our 'Buck Rogers' arrived and we shot his main interview scene. Next we moved down to the docks to shoot some play-back footage of a reporter. Our actor, Dorothy Dalba was a bit nervous. Craig and I did what we could to loosen her up. Gradually we made our way towards what we needed. Before take 5 I told her that she was charming and delightful and that the news-item she was presenting was totally silly, and that when she was laughing at it it was sexy.
I got a lot of razzing for flirting with her, but she nailed the next take with a big smile on her face. In the last bit we had her do (which integrated 'Buck') I joked around about the flirting before take three - again she nailed it. I'm thinking it's a tactic that's going to be valuable, even if I do take some flak for it.

Clare & Lainie came down and watched some of the shooting. A few of us stopped at their place on the way back to the ranch and visited for a bit and collected the map that Clare painted for us and their investment in the film.

After a quick lunch we shot Chief Bigsky. Perry Williams nailed it in two takes. Craig was moved to tears. The shots look great.

That night we went out to a Mexican dinner and had another pow-wow including a longer meeting between Craig, David and I. We ran numbers about and looked at everything and despite being cranky as all hell, came out the other end with the promising outlook that we are within spitting distance of being able to pull this sucker off.

Wednesday morning Shari and Thomas (who I might add was awesome - too bad he's not going to be around for principal) headed out really early. Craig and Patrick and I headed back to Kelowna for a number of meetings and David and Rob hung back at the Ranch to clean up before heading back to Vancouver.

Craig and Patrick and I met with a caterer - a very nice lady named Lynn. We hope she comes through for us. We stopped by CATO again to say thanks. We nixed a connection with Rodney... who has been a bit hard to nail down anyhow.
We ran out to Bertram Park for a tech-scout. That was excellent. We met with the guy who will be custodian to us there and got really specific about where we're shooting each of our scenes there.

A few minor stops including lunch and we hit the road home.

I was really wiped out. My plan was to get home, relax and watch Game one of the Canucks playoffs and get to be early. I got in just after the game had started - only missed a little bit of the first period. Well, so much for my relax and go to bed early plan - the game became the sixth longest in NHL history. The Canucks won in the end, thank God. And Roberto Luongo not only won his first playoff game ever, but simultaneously got the record for the most shots a goalie has ever faced in a game ever - at 75.