Gun nuts are everywhere. Even in countries where guns are illegal. Consequently, there's a large international market for adult-sized toy guns. Cheap plastic "airsoft" guns are a boon to the extreme low budget filmmaker. That and software to add muzzle flashes and shell casings popping out to your movie. And blood spatter.
Blanks are loud and dangerous. People have been killed by them.
One director told the story. He loaded a blank cartridge into a high powered rifle and handed it to the actor who immediately aimed it at him. The director dived for cover.
"Aw, I wanted to shoot you!" the actor said.
The poor actor had only worked with very low powered blanks on stage. The blank loaded into that rifle would have been deadly at that range. And if the director hadn't dived for cover, the actor would have pulled the trigger.
Today, the only danger we face is that of being humiliated by people spotting us acting out scenes with toy guns.
We live in a golden age! Almost.
I did watch A Fool There Was a while back, the 1915 silent movie, a story of lust and seduction. Theda Bara plays a "vamp" who takes revenge on a snooty bourgeois woman's sleight by taking her husband away from her. He gets weaker and weaker as Theda sucks the life out of him. The wife tries to get him back, but he's unable to pry himself away.
It looked so easy! Anybody could make a movie back then! If only film hadn't cost so much! And average income wasn't so low!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
There's a career Roger Corman should have smothered in its cradle
James Cameron on 60 Minutes
I wish Morley Safer would learn to contain himself. I'm sitting here with the TV on. Safer is gushing like a schoolgirl over James Cameron. But 60 Minutes has been going downhill for years. There was that senile moron Mike Wallace who thought he was really sticking up for the little guy by defending Israel against Palestinian refugees and their anti-Semitic pleas for Israelis to stop killing their children.
Cameron has made a new movie costing $400,000,000.00. I don't know if this formula works for movies with absurdly large budgets, but they used to say a movie had to gross two and half times its cost just to break even. This thing could gross a billion dollars and still lose money.
I wish Morley Safer would learn to contain himself. I'm sitting here with the TV on. Safer is gushing like a schoolgirl over James Cameron. But 60 Minutes has been going downhill for years. There was that senile moron Mike Wallace who thought he was really sticking up for the little guy by defending Israel against Palestinian refugees and their anti-Semitic pleas for Israelis to stop killing their children.
Cameron has made a new movie costing $400,000,000.00. I don't know if this formula works for movies with absurdly large budgets, but they used to say a movie had to gross two and half times its cost just to break even. This thing could gross a billion dollars and still lose money.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Obnoxious insurance geezer
No offense to elderly persons who work in the insurance industry. Unless you're obnoxious.
A couple of years ago, an obnoxious ill-tempered geezer appeared on Community Access TV. I missed the beginning of it. It looked like he was speaking to a class locally.
He was an insurance company guy and he was gloating over his role in the movie industry, threatening to shut down productions that were falling behind schedule. He talked at length about Ben Stiller and the making of Zoolander. It fell behind schedule and this obnoxious geezer started hanging around threatening to shut it down. So Ben caught up and the obnoxious geezer went away. Then he fell behind production again and the geezer came back.
He mimicked Ben Stiller saying, "I can't work this way!" Accused him of "crying".
Maybe it was necessary for the guy to be a jerk when dealing with directors who were falling behind schedule, going over budget and threatening to cost the insurance company vast sums of money. But this geezer was also a jerk while publicly discussing it.
He seemed to take satisfaction with the fact that Stiller hadn't directed another movie since. In fact Stiller has directed several things since then including Tropic Thunder.
I wonder who the old guy was. Maybe he's dead now.
A couple of years ago, an obnoxious ill-tempered geezer appeared on Community Access TV. I missed the beginning of it. It looked like he was speaking to a class locally.
He was an insurance company guy and he was gloating over his role in the movie industry, threatening to shut down productions that were falling behind schedule. He talked at length about Ben Stiller and the making of Zoolander. It fell behind schedule and this obnoxious geezer started hanging around threatening to shut it down. So Ben caught up and the obnoxious geezer went away. Then he fell behind production again and the geezer came back.
He mimicked Ben Stiller saying, "I can't work this way!" Accused him of "crying".
Maybe it was necessary for the guy to be a jerk when dealing with directors who were falling behind schedule, going over budget and threatening to cost the insurance company vast sums of money. But this geezer was also a jerk while publicly discussing it.
He seemed to take satisfaction with the fact that Stiller hadn't directed another movie since. In fact Stiller has directed several things since then including Tropic Thunder.
I wonder who the old guy was. Maybe he's dead now.
Ride the High Country
Okay, westerns weren't so bad
Well, now I feel bad for what I said about westerns. I watched Ride The High Country the other day and it was excellent of course. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. With Eugene, Oregon's, own Edgar Buchanan. But there was no talk about someday living on a ranch, and didn't one guy have a semi-automatic rifle? Someone pointed out that the toilet pictured in one scene was a little too modern, so it did have that anachronism.
Well, now I feel bad for what I said about westerns. I watched Ride The High Country the other day and it was excellent of course. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. With Eugene, Oregon's, own Edgar Buchanan. But there was no talk about someday living on a ranch, and didn't one guy have a semi-automatic rifle? Someone pointed out that the toilet pictured in one scene was a little too modern, so it did have that anachronism.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Soviet westerns available on You Tube
At Home Among Strangers and The White Sun of the Desert
I never liked westerns. They were all about illiterates dressed in ugly clothes, in ugly buildings on an ugly landscape. Their only recreational activity was hanging around in bars and their greatest aspiration was to own a ranch. They had a lot of violence, which should have been appealing, but the fights generally consist of nothing but two men punching each other in the face. The gun fights weren't much better. Everyone had the same gun. Either a Colt revolver or a Winchester rifle. There was no variation. They could at least throw in a Derringer.
But I did kind of like the Osterns I've seen so far----Soviet movies inspired by American westerns, set in Soviet Asia in the 1920s.
In the Soviet film At Home Among Strangers, it was refreshing to see members of the Cheka as heroes. Made in 1974, in color with a few scenes in black & white.
There is a famine in the USSR. The government needs gold to import food. Cheka men transport the gold by train. When the train is robbed by bandits on horseback, a Cheka agent goes undercover to get the gold back.
They wear much more attractive clothes, they have a variety of weapons, although they go heavy on Nagant revolvers, and the architecture is more appealing.
And the whole thing is available on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiAlFkw1EOU
And here is The White Sun of the Desert on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDEpRLPbSGM
I never liked westerns. They were all about illiterates dressed in ugly clothes, in ugly buildings on an ugly landscape. Their only recreational activity was hanging around in bars and their greatest aspiration was to own a ranch. They had a lot of violence, which should have been appealing, but the fights generally consist of nothing but two men punching each other in the face. The gun fights weren't much better. Everyone had the same gun. Either a Colt revolver or a Winchester rifle. There was no variation. They could at least throw in a Derringer.
But I did kind of like the Osterns I've seen so far----Soviet movies inspired by American westerns, set in Soviet Asia in the 1920s.
In the Soviet film At Home Among Strangers, it was refreshing to see members of the Cheka as heroes. Made in 1974, in color with a few scenes in black & white.
There is a famine in the USSR. The government needs gold to import food. Cheka men transport the gold by train. When the train is robbed by bandits on horseback, a Cheka agent goes undercover to get the gold back.
They wear much more attractive clothes, they have a variety of weapons, although they go heavy on Nagant revolvers, and the architecture is more appealing.
And the whole thing is available on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiAlFkw1EOU
And here is The White Sun of the Desert on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDEpRLPbSGM
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Lisa Lampanelli, Lewis Black and Carrot Top, And Rick Schmidt.
How did she know?
Okay...I heard comedienne Lisa Lampanelli interviewed on the radio this morning. She's going to perform here in Eugene. She talked to the DJs on a local radio station.
They mentioned other comedians who've performed here. She noted that people in Eugene sat quietly for Carrot Top, but yelled "You suck!" at Lewis Black.
Now, I wrote about that shameful event in the first entry on this blog. The moron yelling at Lewis Black. But how did Lisa Lampanelli know? As I said at the time, I thought the idiot who did it would be bragging about it to the world, but I couldn't find anything about it on the internet.
At least we were polite to Carrot Top.
Rick Schmidt on Netflix
Would-be and, I suppose, actual filmmakers have been reading Rick Schmidt's book, Feature Film-Making at Used Car Prices for years. The original version talked about making a 16mm feature for $6,000. It went up to $10,000 a few years later. Now the book has been revised and calls for digital video rather than 16mm.
The book mentions Jon Jost and Wayne Wang, whose movies I've seen. But I've never seen a Rick Schmidt movie. He's now produced about 20 of them. Schmidt conducts feature film workshops now. Ten people to get together and collectively write and direct a movie. So it appears from his website that he's making a movie a year or more.
I haven't seen Schmidt's movies in video stores. There's nothing on You Tube. He's selling them for $29.95 on his website.
But now it looks like Netflix is making his 1983 movie, Emerald Cities, available. You can save it but you can't rebt it yet.
Okay...I heard comedienne Lisa Lampanelli interviewed on the radio this morning. She's going to perform here in Eugene. She talked to the DJs on a local radio station.
They mentioned other comedians who've performed here. She noted that people in Eugene sat quietly for Carrot Top, but yelled "You suck!" at Lewis Black.
Now, I wrote about that shameful event in the first entry on this blog. The moron yelling at Lewis Black. But how did Lisa Lampanelli know? As I said at the time, I thought the idiot who did it would be bragging about it to the world, but I couldn't find anything about it on the internet.
At least we were polite to Carrot Top.
Rick Schmidt on Netflix
Would-be and, I suppose, actual filmmakers have been reading Rick Schmidt's book, Feature Film-Making at Used Car Prices for years. The original version talked about making a 16mm feature for $6,000. It went up to $10,000 a few years later. Now the book has been revised and calls for digital video rather than 16mm.
The book mentions Jon Jost and Wayne Wang, whose movies I've seen. But I've never seen a Rick Schmidt movie. He's now produced about 20 of them. Schmidt conducts feature film workshops now. Ten people to get together and collectively write and direct a movie. So it appears from his website that he's making a movie a year or more.
I haven't seen Schmidt's movies in video stores. There's nothing on You Tube. He's selling them for $29.95 on his website.
But now it looks like Netflix is making his 1983 movie, Emerald Cities, available. You can save it but you can't rebt it yet.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Maybe Richard Heene wasn't so bad
In defense of Balloon Boy's father
And why shouldn't a man pretend that his son was carried away in a balloon? Think of the boon it would have been to his family if it had worked. He's a freelance construction worker who can't be doing well these days. He was out to get a TV reality series. This was his chance.
It's a case of "moral luck", where our judgment of a person's actions is based on things beyond his control.
Think of what our judgment of Heene would be if two of the helicopters chasing the balloon had collided. Then crashed into a hospital.
On the other hand, if he had succeeded, gotten his TV show, become a beloved celebrity, provided his family with a lifetime of financial stability, and only then, years later, revealed that it all started with his Balloon Boy hoax....
Look at William Friedkin. He filmed the chase scene in The French Connection by speeding through a busy street with a small light on the roof of the car.
As the New York Times reported in an article about the releasing of a new DVD of the movie:
At that point in his career, Friedkin had directed a couple of documentaries and an episode of Sonny and Cher. How would we judge this scumbag if he had killed somebody?
Friedkin went on to direct The Exorcist which left a 12-year-old girl with a broken back and lifelong medical problems. Ellen Burstyn was also injured. There's a very brief shot in the movie where we see her falling on a hard wood floor. That shot cost her back problems ever since.
Thomas Nagel's 1979 article on "Moral Luck"
In 1979, Thomas Nagel wrote an article entitled "Moral Luck". It written as a response to Bernard William's paper on the same subject. They are a response to the Kantian view that morality is immune from luck.
But Nagel argued there are four kinds of luck that affect moral judgment:
Resultant luck, which I just talked about.
Circumstantial luck, which, I think, Frank Rich seemed to be talking about in his recent column defending Balloon Boy's dad. Heene just happened to live in a time when there are news helicopters and news networks that want to cover this type of thing, an age of reality TV shows, an age when, other than winning the lottery, a reality TV show is a construction worker with a high school diploma's only hope of escape.
Constitutive luck, where genetic or personality traits you have no control over affect your conduct. Balloon Boy's father was a narcissist with an intense interest in what he called "science".
And Balloon Boy's mother was Japanese. I don't know how much that means, but Balloon Boy's father thought it was why she went along with all his nonsense. That and the fact that she had a domineering father.
Causal luck, which I guess is just the sequence of events. The Wife Swap appearance, plus the negotiations for the reality show. I don't know.
In conclusion
I think we can all agree that Richard Heene was a completely innocent victim.
Well, maybe not. But, for God's sake, would-be filmmakers ought to show some of his spunk!
When Victor Mature came to Hollywood, he slept in a pup tent and lived on candy bars. He didn't have to---he could have stayed with friends. But he stayed in the pup tent and got publicity and a movie career out of it.
Here's an exercise:
Think of five harebrained schemes that could be your ticket to quick success!
And why shouldn't a man pretend that his son was carried away in a balloon? Think of the boon it would have been to his family if it had worked. He's a freelance construction worker who can't be doing well these days. He was out to get a TV reality series. This was his chance.
It's a case of "moral luck", where our judgment of a person's actions is based on things beyond his control.
Think of what our judgment of Heene would be if two of the helicopters chasing the balloon had collided. Then crashed into a hospital.
On the other hand, if he had succeeded, gotten his TV show, become a beloved celebrity, provided his family with a lifetime of financial stability, and only then, years later, revealed that it all started with his Balloon Boy hoax....
Look at William Friedkin. He filmed the chase scene in The French Connection by speeding through a busy street with a small light on the roof of the car.
As the New York Times reported in an article about the releasing of a new DVD of the movie:
“We took off, with Billy telling Bill Hickman, ‘Give it to me, come on, you can do it, show me!’ ” Mr. Jurgensen said in an interview. “We had a police siren on top that people could hear, so that those who were able to get out of the way, could.”
There were no permits and no planning — just sheer nerve. “After 26 blocks, from Bay 50th to Bay 24th Street, I ran out of film, but I knew I had enough,” Mr. Friedkin said. “The fact that we never hurt anybody in the chase run, the way it was poised for disaster, this was a gift from the Movie God. Everything happened on the fly. We would never do this again. Nor should it ever be attempted in that way again.”
At that point in his career, Friedkin had directed a couple of documentaries and an episode of Sonny and Cher. How would we judge this scumbag if he had killed somebody?
Friedkin went on to direct The Exorcist which left a 12-year-old girl with a broken back and lifelong medical problems. Ellen Burstyn was also injured. There's a very brief shot in the movie where we see her falling on a hard wood floor. That shot cost her back problems ever since.
Thomas Nagel's 1979 article on "Moral Luck"
In 1979, Thomas Nagel wrote an article entitled "Moral Luck". It written as a response to Bernard William's paper on the same subject. They are a response to the Kantian view that morality is immune from luck.
But Nagel argued there are four kinds of luck that affect moral judgment:
Resultant luck, which I just talked about.
Circumstantial luck, which, I think, Frank Rich seemed to be talking about in his recent column defending Balloon Boy's dad. Heene just happened to live in a time when there are news helicopters and news networks that want to cover this type of thing, an age of reality TV shows, an age when, other than winning the lottery, a reality TV show is a construction worker with a high school diploma's only hope of escape.
Constitutive luck, where genetic or personality traits you have no control over affect your conduct. Balloon Boy's father was a narcissist with an intense interest in what he called "science".
And Balloon Boy's mother was Japanese. I don't know how much that means, but Balloon Boy's father thought it was why she went along with all his nonsense. That and the fact that she had a domineering father.
Causal luck, which I guess is just the sequence of events. The Wife Swap appearance, plus the negotiations for the reality show. I don't know.
In conclusion
I think we can all agree that Richard Heene was a completely innocent victim.
Well, maybe not. But, for God's sake, would-be filmmakers ought to show some of his spunk!
When Victor Mature came to Hollywood, he slept in a pup tent and lived on candy bars. He didn't have to---he could have stayed with friends. But he stayed in the pup tent and got publicity and a movie career out of it.
Here's an exercise:
Think of five harebrained schemes that could be your ticket to quick success!
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