A SOUND Decision

Hello friendly world.

First of all, I am very sorry for the hiatus. It's hard for me to tell whether anyone's missed the posts, but that hasn't stopped my guilt from mounting.

Unfortunately, I'm doing too much. Of course this will be obvious to everyone who reads this, but for some reason I have trouble remembering that I can't do everything all the time always. There's such a thing as priorities. (Can you spot the grammar mistake? It was on purpose. So there.)

So, I decided to consolidate my online efforts.

As many of you doubtless know, I write movie reviews for an online magazine called SOUND. It's edited by a pretty stellar guy named Chase Larson, and I think the site has a lot of potential. But I sensed, a while ago, that he needed some support. And it turns out I'm pretty good at the kind of thing he most needs, like motivating people to contribute content, and keeping track of progress, goals, and overall vision.

Since this blog is and has been a solo effort, I figured it made a lot more sense for me to pour forth my time and talents and energy into helping SOUND, which is a collaboration between several very smart and talented people.

But don't worry! I'm not abandoning 2190. I'm just taking a step back to re-evaluate, and it may turn out that I only post here once a week, or perhaps less often. I will instead direct the majority of my online energies into SOUND. It's also likely that I will be cannibalizing the strongest aspects of this blog to help build up what the online magazine has to offer (think: a sexier Friday 'Stache...)

We've all heard that you shouldn't put all of your eggs into one basket, but I realized recently that I've been trying to occupy an increasingly unreasonable number of baskets.

Here's the short version of the preceding thoughts: Check out SOUND and "like" it. Because it's awesome, and it'll be publishing my stuff at least once a week from now on.

The Friday 'Stache

Jeremy Warner, everyone:



I'm not sure what this is "teasing," but whatever it turns out to be, I'm pretty stoked. Mr. Warner is one of those people I would pay to see more often.

James Alexander is another one of those people. Here's the latest from a new channel he started based on one of his own personal character creations. I love this, because I think it plays to his best strengths as a comedian. I played it to the class I TA today, and it got some honest laughs.



I love this, because I think it plays to his best strengths as a comedian. I played it to the class I TA today, and it got some honest laughs.

*****

If this next one doesn't make you a little granola, I don't know what will. (Thanks, Courtney.)


honey harvest from tiger in a jar on Vimeo.

And, along those lines, DMS posted this video a week ago, and I've been meaning to share because, well, it makes me miss the West. Chances are good that it'll affect you the same way, even if you've never lived out there.


Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.


*****

Have I introduced you to Vihart, yet? I can't remember. Shame on me if I haven't. She is fantastic. I keep trying to come up with a way to describe what she does, and why it's so awesome, but I guess that's what videos are for. I'll let her work speak for itself:



And here's one that will break your brain into no fewer than six different pieces.

*****

I know I've talked about Julian Smith, many times. A while back, he started...call it a spin-off channel. Based on his character Jeffery Dallas. I've posted some things from that channel here as well. Recently. I'm discovering that I actually like the spin-off a little better, which surprises me. Perhaps it is just that Julian Smith is getting better. In any case, enjoy:



BONUS: click here for the longest 2 minutes ever.

*****

I hope you've enjoyed this week's 'stache. I hope it keeps you going all weekend. "Going where?" Oh shut up.

Dickens

Today is Charles Dickens' 200th Birthday, as anyone who pays close attention to Google's homepage doodles will have realized by now.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine, including the important detail that the man is my favorite author. She's a novelist, and she said, "It's funny, everybody respects him, but not very many people say he's their favorite author." I said I guess that's true. It's because people don't read him.

"Yeah, what what is Mark Twain said about classics...that they're books 'that people praise but don't read.'" That about sums it up. I contended that if more people read Dickens, he'd find his way into more Favorite Author slots.

An aside: I know there are people who legitimately don't like the man's style. To them, I extend my pity, and a pass. If you've read him (and I mean more than one book in high school), I suppose you're allowed to dislike his writing. The sentiment baffles me, and always will, but it's allowed. Just like all bad opinions.

Last semester, one of my professors distributed a collection of basic screenwriting "rules" by James Dalessandro. There were ten of them. Here is number 10:

READ.
I saved the best for last. I know a screenwriter in Los Angeles who has written one successful movie and has yet to find a second commercial idea. He confided in me once that he has not read a book in fifteen years, since he graduated from college. I was speechless. Listen, and listen well. The keys to knowledge are called "books." The province of dreams, the wellspring of wisdom, the storehouse of human drama is books. All things marvelous and terrifying are in black and white on bound pages. From "Les Miserable" to "To Kill A Mockingbird" to "Forrest Gump," the great characters began on the printed page, not the silver screen. To write films, you must love films and read screenplays. But if you do not read books, if you missed Dante and Satre, Chekhov and Faulkner, Steinbeck and Kesey, you are missing cards from your deck. You can not play poker with a short hand.

Why don't people read? Have you asked them? I have. The answer is always the same: "I want to read, but I can never find the time."

OK. Do you eat? How do you find the time, I wonder? Well, you find it because you need to eat. If it wasn't essential, plenty of us wouldn't do it nearly as often as we do.

You won't read until you need to read. The sad truth is that few people are convinced it is actually a need. To the vast majority, reading is a luxury. It is one of the first things to get nixed from the list of to-do's when time gets short, and life gets crunched. If we don't make time to read, then deep down we don't think it's essential, and we are wrong.

It's a spiritual thing. You don't notice what you're missing when you fail to read great literature. But when you really start to dig in, you wonder how you ever survived without it. The fact is, we don't. There is, everywhere, evidence that our culture is perishing in what Mother Teresa called "a famine of the spirit."

It is an inadvertently self-imposed famine, though, for we are surrounded by that which could so easily satisfy, and deeply.

For instance, I have the complete works of Charles Dickens on my iPhone. It was $2.99.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens.

The Friday 'Stache

In honor of today's 'stache:



Ahh... Freddie W.

On an unrelated note, I'm working on a post-apocalyptic feature screenplay right now called "Wine of the Wrath" (it's a working title). I won't say much about it, other than that the story kicks off with a nuclear holocaust. And I've discovered since I began that it's easy to get obsessed with vintage Cold War phobias, and dig up pictures and videos of test explosions. It's fascinating to think that, just a generation ago, pretty much everyone was justifiably convinced that some kind of atomic war might descend upon our unhappy world any day.

Forty years was more than enough time to instill in our collective unconscious the fear of a "the big one," to the point that the image of a mushroom cloud still haunts us. There is something otherworldly, surreal, intuitively impossible about the magnitude of that kind of weapon. Fearful and awe-inspiring. We dread our creation, and rightfully. The unveiling of that technology almost single-handedly inspired the post-apocalyptic genre.

Here's why:



Alright, I won't bore you with my solemn contemplations any longer. I was motivated to spend a little time on it today because I had to pitch my feature idea to my fellow screenwriting students (and professor!) today.



It wasn't anything like that. But I was unprepared. I suppose if the stakes had been higher, I would have been more motivated to come up with a compelling delivery. As it is, my poor introduction didn't keep the class from contributing positively to my ideas, so no harm done. None of them had any money anyway.

*****

Fun facts about the Tsar Bomb: its fireball had a diameter of two and half miles. Read more about that bomb here.

For more information about what the aftermath of a nuclear war might look like, check this out. And this.

Hurray for Wikipedia!

101 Films

A friend recently asked me to make a list of "essential" films everyone should see.

I can't imagine why I agreed to this. But it was impossible to stop once I'd started. It was also virtually impossible to finish. So I set some parameters, and defaulted on some disclaimers, and produced a list of 101 movies.

Parameters: No animated films, and no documentaries, and only "foreign" films that have broadly and thoroughly permeated the American cinema aesthetic. **UPDATE: After several people called me out on this, I realized I should clarify. I have a deep respect for documentary and animation, but felt that I needed to narrow the scope of this "survey" of films. Animation and documentary each deserve their own lists, but I feel even less capable, let alone qualified, to make them.**

Disclaimers: This list is completely subjective. I didn't include films I don't like, though they may be important. It is also totally inadequate. But I did my best, without sinking more than a few hours into the project. It is also alphabetized, because I think it would be unreasonable to try to order these movies in a qualitative way.

Without even blinking, you could probably name a dozen films that, by their absence, prove I'm an absolute idiot. Oh well. Enjoy!

1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. The 400 Blows (1959)
4. Alien (1979)
5. All the President’s Men (1976)
6. Amadeus (1984)
7. Amelie (2001)
8. Avalon (2001)
9. Babette’s Feast (1987)
10. Back to the Future (1985)
11. Ben-Hur (1959)
12. Better Off Dead...(1985)
13. Blade Runner (1982)
14. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
15. Casablanca (1942)
16. Casino Royale (2006)
17. Citizen Kane (1941)
18. City Lights (1931)
19. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
20. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
21. The Dark Knight (2008)
22. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
23. Dead Poets Society (1989)
24. Deep Impact (1998)
25. Die Hard (1988)
26. Double Indemnity (1944)
27. Dr. Strange-love (1964)
28. Dumb and Dumber (1994)
29. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
30. The Elephant Man (1980)
31. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
32. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
33. Field of Dreams (1989)
34. Forrest Gump (1994)
35. The Fall (2006)
36. The Fugitive (1993)
37. Galaxy Quest (1999)
38. Gladiator (2000)
39. Godfathers I & 2 (1972, ’74)
40. Gone with the Wind (1939)
41. Good Will Hunting (1997)
42. The Great Dictator (1940)
43. The Great Escape (1963)
44. Groundhog Day (1993)
45. Harry Potter 
46. Hero (2002)
47. High Noon (1952)
48. The Hurt Locker (2008)
49. Inception (2010)
50. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
51. Jurassic Park (1993)
52. Life Is Beautiful (1997)
53. The Lord of the Rings (2001, ’02, ’03)
54. Malcom X (1992)
55. The Man in the White Suit (1951)
56. The Matrix (1999)
57. Men in Black (1997)
58. Metropolis (1927)
59. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
60. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) 
61. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
62. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
63. On the Waterfront (1954)
64. Ordinary People (1980)
65. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
66. The Patriot (2000)
67. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
68. The Pianist (2002)
69. The Princess Bride (1987)
70. Psycho (1960)
71. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
72. Rashomon (1950)
73. Rear Window (1954)
74. Rocky (1976)
75. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
76. Serendipity (2001)
77. Seven Samurai (1954)
78. The Seventh Seal (1957)
79. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
80. Sherlock Jr. (1924)
81. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
82. The Sixth Sense (1999)
83. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
84. Social Network (2010)
85. Some Like It Hot (1959)
86. The Sound of Music (1965)
87. Spartacus (1960)
88. Star Trek (2009)
89. Star Wars (1977-83)
90. The Sting (1973)
91. Take Shelter (2011)
92. The Terminator (1984)
93. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
94. Thank You for Smoking (2005)
95. The Tree of Life (2011)
96. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
97. V for Vendetta (2005)
98. West Side Story (1961)
99. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
100. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
101. Zombieland (2009)

"Shamed" - A Promotion

In lieu of the standard Friday 'Stache, I feel the need to promote a documentary film my friend Jordan Harker is producing about pornography addiction. Rather than describing what he's trying to do in too much detail, I'll simply link to the Kickstarter account.

Here, also, is the first "trailer" for the film, which is mainly just an illustration of its purpose, since the Kickstarter is in place to try and raise the funds necessary to actually go into production.



As I said, I know Jordan Harker. He is a fine specimen of human, as well as a talented, generous, and hard working filmmaker. I know how hard it must be to try to carry the torch for this kind of project.

I hope that today's post doesn't disappoint too much. I promise that next week I'll deliver a nice long selection of entertaining and absurd videos. Today, though, I feel that the least I can do to support this film, and the people behind it, is to add my voice to theirs in speaking out about the significance of this issue. That said, I also hope you'll take a minute or two and donate to the cause.

Me, in Caricature

My friend Laura illustrated me:

I tell you this because she recently decided to start doing personal illustrations for $15 dollars, and I told her I thought that was a great idea, and requested one immediately. So there I am, in glorious caricature.

If you're interested, feel free to send her a message on Facebook, or leave a comment here, and I'll get you in touch with her. I've known Laura for quite a while, and I can vouch for both her professionalism and her skill.

As with many of my posts, you may be wondering what this has to do with being a film student. Well, nothing, directly. But I was very impressed by Laura's attitude. Why wait until some person tells you that you should be making money at what you do? You might as well start whenever you can. If you have a marketable skill, go market it!

*****

I am also to inform you that if you are willing to advertise her work, she'll drop the price to $10. Aren't you glad you kept reading?