Early Morning Awakening

Sir Knavely has become accustomed to my face. 

He's also decided to act as my alarm clock.

Last night, I wrote until 4:30 AM.  He slept as I did so.  The lazy little SOC.

You'd think he'd understand that since I had worked late, I should get extra sleep, but no. 

No, none of that for me.

9:30 AM, as usual, he awakens me by examining my face with his paws, his tongue, his nose.

He does share certain dog-like qualities.

When that didn't seem to work, he sat beside me in bed, talking to my face in his odd little accent. 

Squinted at me.  Tried to see the subtext of my snores.  Worried.

Finally, he just talked at me:

"Time to get up, Steven. 

"Got a schedule to keep here. 

"Time for me to curl up and take a nap behind your computer screen.

"And I need you to be typing, not snoring here."

                         *     *     *

On the positive side, I'm at 183 pages (and page 28 on the 52-page extended treatment).  You do the math.

Steady Eddie, Even Steven

Sir Knavely has taken over my keyboard.

You have to admit, his face looks intelligent. 

He's a true screen presence. 

You can just see through the screen to the thoughts that lurk beneath that majestic fur-covered brain: 

"What has Steven written today?  This sucks!"

Hey, demolish whatever feelings I have left.

At least we're up to 157 pages now.

Will this ever end?  Not for awhile.  I'm WAY overwriting on this.

Okay, so here's the plan:

I write until I reach the end of the treatment material that my co-writer's written so far.  That should happen tomorrow evening.

Then I edit what I've written as cleanly as possible.  That will take until Friday evening

And then I leave for San Diego on Saturday.

Yeah.

 

Hold all calls

Like our theme?

                          *     *     *

Our screenplay:

111 pages

And counting. 

Looks like the rough draft is going to come in at around 240 pages. 

At which point, we'll cut it ruthlessly ... down to 120 pages.

Did I mention I'm in love with the story I'm writing?

But ... outside of this little world of my apartment ... where I've chained myself to my computer to finish the first draft of this screenplay.  

I wonder ... the people who've written to me lately ... will they wonder if I'm purposefully ignoring them? 

Probably not.  Because I'm really not. 

Well, actually, I am.  I'm not writing them back.

But there's a reason, see.  'Cause I'm writing full blast on The French Inquisitor.  

And I really don't want to lose my focus.

So this is my note to the world right now: "I'll get back to you when I'm done with this writing project?

At the beginning of next week.

To get the job done, sometimes you need to go to the desert.

That's where I am right now.

To keep you company, I've dropped in the lyrics for a song that totally captures how I feel right now.

See you when I get back.

                                                    - Steven

 

Woke up this morning with a funny feeling,

Wasn't really sure what it was all about.

But it felt like I was disappearing,

so I ran to the window to check it out.

I said, "Here I am, here I am, here I am

... but why do I feel like the invisible man?"

 

I stumbled back into the bedroom,

And stared outat the rising sun.

Then I heard myself shout out the window,

nor really talking to anyone,

I yelled, "Here I am, hereI am, here I am

... but why do I feel like the invisible man?"

 

Lights went on, people started yelling,

"Will the crazy man go back to bed."

And there I was, laughing out my window,

feeling much better now, somebody heard what I said.

 

Well it's no big thing, no revelation,

no answer to these lives we lead.

But I think I do know one thing:

Sometimes I think we all need to say,

"Here I am, here I am, here I am

... but why do I feel like the invisible man?"

                 - From the song "Invisible Man" by  Joshua Kadison

Rules for Dialogue

This week, I write.

 

Sir Knavely explores the back of the computer screen.

 

When he's not sleeping.

 

               *     *     *

 

A good week.  Already.

 

I'm productive.

 

Focused.

 

To be exact, I'm 75 pages into the screenplay and moving.

 

               *     *     *

 

I've been thinking a lot about McKee's suggestions for dialogue.

 

I took notes on writing dialogue.  Compressed them into fifteen statements.

 

1. Strive for compression and economy.

 

2. Dialogue should have direction.

 

3. Dialogue should have purpose:  Each line or exchange of dialogue executes a step in design that builds its scene around its Turning Point.

 

4. Build short, simply constructed sentences:  bit by bit the audience gets it.

• Noun ? Verb ? Object
• Noun ? Verb ? Complement

5. Typically, drop the opening article or pronoun.  Speak in phrases.  Grunts.

 

6. Fragment the speech with silent reactions that cause the speaker to change the beat.

 

7. Break up dialogue by inserting parentheticals.  A character can react to himself, to his own thoughts and emotions.

 

8. Use the periodic sentence:  ?If you didn?t want me to do it, why?d you give me that gun/look/kiss?

 

9. Aim for the SILENTSCREENPLAY:

• Choose the visual expression over the line of dialogue:  How could I write this in a purely visual way and not have to resort to a single line of dialogue?
• Obey the Law of Diminishing Returns:  The more dialogue you write, the less effect it has.
• Image is our first choice, dialogue the regretful second choice.  Dialogue is the last layer we add to the screenplay. 
• My note: Krzysztof Kieslowski  is the finest directing model I know of here: The Decalogue is brilliant.

10. Obey the Law of Diminishing Returns:  The more dialogue you write, the less effect it has.

 

10. Recognize exactly what it is we describe:  the sensation of looking at the screen.

• What doI see on the screen?
• What is photographic?

11. Write in the absolute present tense in constant vivid movement.

• Film is on the knife edge of now
• Whether we flash back or forward, we jump to a new now
• The screen expresses relentless action
• Film is vivid

12. Create vivid writing by using the names of things

• Nouns are the names of object
• Verbs are the names of actions
• Avoid generic nouns and verbs with adjectives and adverbs attached and seek the NAME of thing

13. Eliminate the following:  is, are, we see, we hear.

 

14. Eliminate all metaphors and similes that cannot pass this test:  what do I see or hear onscreen?

 

15. Use a powerful imagination and vocabulary.

Dreams

The X Files.

 

Season 4.

 

Paper Hearts.

 

Dream theme.

 

Mulder discovers the remains of a murder victim by following directions he received in a dream …

 

                                                MULDER

But that's what always bugged me about this case.  I always wanted to find those hearts and count them.  See if they really added up to 13. 

 

I guess they didn’t.

 

SCULLY

If nothing else, I think I can at least help explain your dream.

 

She leans back and crosses her arms.

 

I don’t think you ever stopped thinking about this case.  I believe that you may have solved it in your sleep.

 

                                                MULDER

So you think I?ve somehow had this information about a 14th victim all the time and I?ve been processing it unconsciously?

 

                        SCULLY

You said it yourself once.  You said that a dream is an answer to a question we haven?t learned how to ask. 

Thinking about the Passion Again

The Passion of the Christ.  Remember?

In January 2004 I wrote a column on it (previous entry).

I wrote it just as Newmarket Films was gearing up the media juggernaut.  

Gibson and Newmarket created an Us vs. Them battle in the media.  The intrigue it aroused sold millions of tickets.  The Perfect Storm.  

And it was all fake. 

Seriously.  Give me the name of an organization that really tried to stop the release of the film.  Yet, evangelicals turned the film into a Battle of Faith.  Gibson was the Outsider facing down the Hollywood Establishment. 

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching ... to the movie theater ... to ring up millions of dollars ... for Mel Gibson. 

Who was one of Hollywood's Biggest Movie Stars.

What's wrong with this picture?

After I wrote my original reactions, I got some not-so-nice ... okay, kind-of-nasty ... letters from former friends in the Midwest.  They questioned my faith.

 

How could I criticize a film that preaches the salvation story?

 

I shouldn't have problems with the fact that Gibson's publicity hounds were convincing Christians who condemn violent, R-rated films by Hollywood to go to see ... an R-rated film made by one of Hollywood's biggest stars. 

 

                                                            *     *     *

 

Using a Passion play drenched in blood, Gibson did what no evangelical Christian could have done:  changed the rules about going to the movies.

 

How?  Gibson played on the paranoia of the Right.  And he positioned himself outside of the Hollywood mainstream.  Thus, instead of condemning him, the Right made him a Hero of Faith.

 

Made sense.  If he hadn't, he'd have lost his primary audience.

 

                                                      *     *     *

 

The fallout from the faithful's belief in the film was vicious.  Some evangelicals thought you could determine a person's faith by their level of enthusiasm for the fim.

 

If the film moved you to tears ... then your faith was real.  If you didn?t ? well ?

 

It used to be that Protestants burned Catholics like Gibson at the stake.  A year ago, he convinced them to go see one of the most violent mainstream films ever made.

 

Where's the Reformation when you really need it?

 

*     *     *

 

I saw the film a few days before Easter.  It was disturbing.  Not inspiring. 

 

My thoughts wandered.  The lightning that struck the cross with Jim Caviezel on it.  The whip that missed the board and gave Jim Caviezel a little scar.  The missing resurrection at the end.

 

I know.  The traditional passion play doesn't include the resurrection.  And the film is a celluloid version of the European Passion Play.  You know.  The ones in Europe that were often followed by good, old-fashioned pogroms?  Where you beat up some Jews.

 

And I kept thinking about Lethal Weapon.  Gibson was doing his thing again, brushing each scene with just the right amount of gratuitous violence to keep your teeth on edge.  Wait.  Where was Riggs?

 

                                                     *     *     *

 

The Passion was a cultural phenomenon.  No one doubts that.  Most people saw it.  To talk about it at the water fountain. 

 

Some of the faithful felt that the film foreshadowed another Great Awakening.

 

What if Gibson had chosen not to make the film a shocker?  Chosen to take out the controversial aspects?  Allowed a studio to tame it down? 

 

What would there have been to talk about?

 

*     *     *

 

And now comes The Passion Recut.  The cleaned-up version.  Less violence.

 

Too cleaned up.  It can't find an audience.

 

Numbers never lie.  The film opened in 900+ theatres.  Opening weekend, the film averaged 24 seats per theatre.  

 

The cleaner film is a box office stinker.

 

                                                          *     *     *

 

Why did The Passion of the Christ bust open box office records?

 

Because its artist was insane enough to go the distance.  He risked a fortune to direct his personal vision of faith.

 

He's earned every penny he's made. 

 

The film is a dark, violent vision  But it sinks the claws of its anchor deep into the heart of Gibson.  The violence that fuels him.

 

Mel brought his vision of the Crucifixion to life as skillfully as he knew how.  He used his favorite colors, drawn primarily from the familiar palette of violence. 

 

Mel wasn't afraid to shock.  In fact, he planned to.

 

No one can fake passion.  You either have it or you don't.  You can't imitate it, any more than you can turn Aunt Bertha's eggnog into semen.

 

Gibson's spark of passion tapped into the zeitgeist.  The fuse of reaction to his work provided the necessary explosion picked up by the media:  chain emails (fake and real), internet bloggers, and the necessary sermons from the pulpits of the Right. 

 

People lined up on both sides of the fence, and thus, both sides of the fence had to go see the film in order to keep arguing.  Voila.  Box Office Magic.

 

                                                          *     *     *

 

Yeah.  I get the whole zeitgeist thing.  But the questions don?t go away.

 

Did the original film do well because its real audience loves gratuitous violence?  Perhaps its success had little to do with faith.  More with blood-thirst.

 

Are people skipping the new movie because they already have the DVD?  That would make sense.  Why go to the theater and pay for two tickets when you can simply pop in a DVD?

 

Was last year's trip to the theatre similar to the medieval pilgrimage to Rome?  A modern-day faith journey?  One that didn?t need to be repeated this year?

 

Or perhaps there is no "spiritual" explanation.  This is what happens when you re-release any film.   

 

As Linda Hamilton?s character says in The Terminator:  ?You know, you could go crazy thinking about this.?

 

*     *     *

 

I honestly thought that Mel Gibson was going to have a perennial film?like Disney?s masterpieces:  Snow White, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty?that could be pulled out each year and re-screened.  An annual blockbuster from now until Armageddon. 

 

I guess Gibson thought the same.

 

Did he make a mistake?  Should he have re-released the same film, not put it on DVD, maintained the purity of his original vision? 

 

If Gibson had screened the original film instead, would it have once again unlocked the Windows of Manna and rained down Blockbuster Green?

The Passion and the Furor

I wrote the column below in January 2004.  It got a few reactions.

 

Two weeks ago, my Amish-Mennonite father – who doesn’t believe in watching television, going to the movies, or reading Entertainment Weekly – emailed me a set of testimonials about the “life-changing” effects of Gibson’s new film, The Passion of Christ.

 

My father then asked, “Steve, can you tell me who Mel Gibson is?”

 

His email was rapidly followed by another email, sent by another friend.  It contained a different testimonial, written this time by none other than Paul Harvey, who reported about how moved he was by the film during an invited screening. 

 

Harvey’s comments were echoed in the same email by conservative commentator David Limbaugh, copied from a July 9, 2003 edition of his column. 

 

Limbaugh praised Gibson as “a model of faith and courage.? 

 

Limbaugh concluded with this mild remark: ?The moral is that if you want the popular culture to laud your work on Christ, make sure it either depicts Him as a homosexual or as an everyday sinner with no particular redeeming value (literally). In our anti-Christian culture, the blasphemous The Last Temptation of Christ is celebrated and The Passion is condemned.?

 

It took one punch through Google to find out that this chain email was a hoax:

 

eRumor (www.truthorfiction.com) reports that Paul Harvey?s comments were ?actually written by attorney and author Keith Fornier,? and Paul Harvey?s name was substituted afterwards.

 

As I closed out eRumor, something clicked.  The manipulative email I had read moments before suddenly felt very familiar.  And very personal. 

 

For you see, I know the landscape of America?s culture wars, having grown up in a conservative, Christian home.

 

*     *     *

 

I think the press is missing the real story behind Gibson?s Passion.

 

Those of us who grew up listening to preachers condemn the evils of Hollywood have been in awe of Gibson?s real accomplishment: he has sold a film to a core audience of evangelical Christians who up until now have always condemned graphic violence in film ? no matter what the reason.

 

How could they now support an almost X-rated level of violence ? one that Time?s film critic Richard Corliss describes as ?crimson carnage from the moment Jesus is condemned, half an hour into the 127-minute film.?

 

It?s not as if the film needed to use graphic violence ? when creating the classics Jesus and The Greatest Story Ever Told, the directors didn?t use graphic depictions of blood and gore.

 

But this is Mel Gibson, who is known for big sets, gigantic casts, epic themes.  This is the artist who has made excessive violence a primary color in his directing and acting palette. 

 

Gibson?s obsession for strict adherence to the Gospels in this film is matched only by his quest to show the gory details of the Passion.

 

And thus the real problem.

 

Gibson must have feared that if the religious right got wind of the realistic violence and nudity found in the film ? and perceived it as a blasphemous portrayal of the Christ ? many Christians would refuse to see the film.

 

Gibson knew that to sell the film, he was going to have to find a way to market it to an audience of Christian conservatives who have spent the entire 20th century declaiming the very thing they were now going to defend.

 

The Los Angeles Times recently questioned whether or not the film had to be this polarizing.  I think Gibson brought the firestorm on himself. 

 

EW reported that Gibson began his war by entering Bill O?Reilly?s ?No Spin Zone? to defend a movie that ?no one had [yet] publicly attacked.? 

Rejecting the earlier, more reverent treatment of films about Christ, such as The Robe, Gibson chose to do a reality version of the Passion, one much more in line with his own rough-hewn, traditionalist beliefs.

 

Gibson?s vision shows Christ stripped virtually naked and subjected to a violent whipping that leaves his back in ribbons, an excruciating scene detailed in the Gospels.  His film would be edgy and break all previous boundaries.

 

To sell this type of film, Gibson determined that he had to control the media?s discussion.  Otherwise, his graphically realistic directing choices could be perceived as irreverent or sacrilegious, and his target audience would condemn it en masse.

 

In truth, Gibson?s choice wasn?t even a gamble.  Our country?s so-called culture wars have conditioned the evangelical community to fight reactively, rather than thoughtfully. 

 

All Gibson had to do was tap into the explosive hatred that fundamentalist Christians have for the ?liberal media.?

 

If they could see his film as the underdog fighting for conservative Christian values, it would immediately become an icon of everything that is good, and above criticism.

 

Gibson?s strategic success should be the marketing story of the year.  By ensuring that the Christian market would support the film ? and by creating a furor that would pull in the general market as well ? Gibson trumped Martin Scorsese?s publicity campaign for The Last Temptation of Christ.

 

In evangelical Christian circles, Gibson has cast himself as the Courageous Christian fighting against the atheistic, liberal media wolves.  By exploiting the "us against them" feelings of fundamentalists, he has convinced his followers to unquestioningly support him.

 

And thus, a man who belongs to an extreme Catholic sect ? one that has been deemed ?heretical? by the Vatican?has become Christianity?s ultimate evangelical.  This by creating a film whose directing choices would have been condemned by the Right in any other context.

 

The fact that my father would consider going to see this film shocked me deeply.  This is a man who has consistently refused to watch any realistic portrayal of evil, violence, or nudity within the arts, even if it is within the context of a clash between right and wrong.

 

If my father was thinking about buying a movie ticket, then Gibson really has succeeded in promoting his film beyond anyone?s wildest dreams. 

 

The end result of his one-sided War Against the Liberal Media has been a buzz that other publicists can only dream about.

 

And that buzz is going to pay for Gibson?s $25 million investment. 

Will I see the film? I wouldn?t miss it.  I may not be a member of the Christian Right, but I am a Christian, and this is a powerful redemption story, which is central to my faith. 

 

But, just like everyone else, I?ll wait until after I see the film to judge it.

Winds of Creativity

Bon Jovi. 

A good choice anytime, but especially tonight. 

Last night, I met another English teacher and about 30 students at the Taper in downtown LA.  They were there to see Sir Peter Hall's production of As You Like It.   

I suddenly woke up about halfway through the show.  That's when I remembered Much Ado About Nothing. 

I really should have cut that sucker.  By about 2 hours.  Was it really four hours long? 

A high school show.  Did I really make my teen actors perform almost every line? 

Was I really that arrogant?  Tell me it wasn't so.

                                            *     *     * 

North Canton.  Hoover High School.  November 1999.  Intermission.  A moment of epiphany.  I'm standing near the concession stand, drinking a cup of coffee. 

Several kids stop nearby to talk.  They don't recognize me. 

I move closer to eavesdrop.  Perhaps they'll admire my edgy direction.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" the boy with the crewcut asks. 

"No," a brunette says.  "What do you expect?  It's Shakespeare!"

Another girl leans over to suck at the straw in her Coke.  A strand of dirty blond hair falls over her face.  She brushes it back. 

"Two hours.  And we're only halfway through."

"Do we have to stay?"  It's the brunette again.

"If Kendrick wasn't in it, I'd leave."

It's a long way from last year's Shakespeare.  The one that sold out.

                                            *     *     * 

Present day.  I jerk awake.  It's still the middle of the third act of As You Like It.  I'm still in the Taper.  It's a long third act.  And I actually understand the plot. 

The dialogue rambles.  Tangents abound.  Every character gets plenty of time to say whatever he has to say.  Or whatever she has to say.  Maybe even sing about it.  With a group of men.  In the forest. 

Poor kids.  You want to direct Shakespeare for young people, learn to cut him.  Ruthlessly.

The Bard-o-philes in attendance love it all.  They roar with laughter at their favorite line, delivered perfectly by Hall, right in the ear of the arrogant but dimwitted Phoebe: 

"Sell when you can.  You are not for all markets."

                                            *     *     * 

It's half-time at the Taper.  Two girls come up to me.  Worry lines crease their foreheads. 

"I have no idea what's going on," one of them tells me.  She looks ready to cry.  Is this a test?  Will she fail?

"It's okay," I lie.  "I don't understand it either."  Then I tell the truth.

"The play's a mess."

                                            *     *     * 

I know.  Hall wanted the production to be long.  Deliberate.  

The show is directed by a man who has seen the years go by.  He's had time to think.  He wants to have a conversation with his audience.  About life.

So his actors linger lovingly over their speeches.  Jaques enjoys talking about the worth of a life that starts "mewling and puking" and ends "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

An older man is more patient in his stage direction.  I get that.

But the show still put me to sleep. 

                                            *     *     * 

The icons from the world of the Amaru Urn represent forces that cannot be tamed or collected in a museum.  The true curse that struck the museum was the failure to understand that there are powers that should not be disturbed?that some things are better left buried.

                                                                        - ?Teso dos Bichos,? The X Files

                                            *     *     * 

Spring Break.  April 2000.

I'm talking to my ex-girlfriend Laura by phone.  We're arguing again.  She startles me.

"Do you think we knew each other in a previous life?"

"You're kidding."

"No.  The difficulties we're experiencing now?"

"What about them?"

"I think they're a result of something that took place between us back then."

I hang up the phone.  I'm disturbed.

Thought rush in.  I write.  By midnight, the old story for The French Inquisitor is on paper.  It's set in France.  1387 A.D.

It's also the screenplay we're currently writing.

                                            *     *     * 

Here in Brentwood for the past week, I've been spending my evenings scoring essays for the College Board.  It's relatively easy.  Everything works through a special viewer that I downloaded onto my computer last week.

Meanwhile, Steven has been working alone on the extended treatment of The French Inquisitor at his apartment in Los Feliz.  He's been researching, writing, thinking.  Occasionally, we talk.  But not much.  

Steven works well by himself.  Unlike me, he writes out the entire sentence in his head before he writes a single word down.  Sometimes two sentences.

On Thursday, March 24, my Spring Break will begin.  Steven will send me the results of his work in the form of an extremely detailed treatment.  I will chain myself to my computer with a large pot of coffee at my side.  I will write the first draft.  

I've waited a long time for this.

If we're lucky, and if the winds of creativity blow ... I'll finish the first draft by April 5, 2005.  Exactly five years after I first got the idea.  

Small chance.  I know.

Probably too much to hope for.  Of course.

But hey.  Shoot for the moon:  you might get over the barn.

                                            *     *     * 

And in its third year, my annual Oscar party finally got some press.

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/11130942.htm

Reflections on R & J

R & J Homepage. 

Imagine my surprise.  There it was.  The webpage that one of my students created to advertise North Canton's 1998 production of Romeo and Juliet.

You can still locate it on the net.

No kidding.  Hoover High School still has the script, my director's notes and lesson plans, the logo art, and the theme music ... all on their drama club website. 

Talk about a flashback.  That was a great show. 

A great time.

Fun.

                                         *     *     *

Teachers are lucky.  Their job lets them retain memorable experiences that interface directly with powerful emotions. 

The gratitude of my former students is a currency made of gold.  I value it greatly.

As I reflect on where I am headed in the world of entertainment, I find direction from the past. 

In 1994 when I arrived in North Canton, I decided to focus on advising the yearbook staff I had inherited.  I needed a break from directing.  Two years of intense work as Director of Drama at Steubenville Big Red down on the Ohio River had left me exhausted and ready for a break.

My break from directing in North Canton lasted about two years.  Once I started my graduate work in theatre, John Hayward (the choir and drama director at Hoover) asked me if I'd be interested in directing a show. 

Soon I was doing both yearbook AND the drama program.  Smart, huh?  Leave one directing position, merely to take on an even greater degree of hard work and responsibility.  Makes me wonder what's coming up next.

Oddly enough, I've been reflecting a lot on the two years of work I spent in Steubenville.  They were my formative years.  My memories from that inner-city world shape my vision for the television drama that is playing against the screen of my mind right now.  Constantly.

Hopefully, the screenplay Steven and I are writing right now will demonstrate our writing chops to potential producers.

                                         *     *     *

Teaching is a vocation.  For most directors, I think.  It doesn't matter whether I produce a show, write a screenplay, or direct a film ... I'm always going to be using those skills.

Perhaps it's because of my experience as a teacher that my next project seems to make so much sense:  a television series that lets you see life through the eyes of a beginning teacher ... a rough-shod idealist who transforms into a masterful teacher ... who motivates and transforms young people. 

Dead Poets Society meets The West Wing.

It's not really a choice ... I'm going to create this show.  Since the idea coalesced several weeks ago, I've not been able to think of much else in my spare time.  Going to the Sierra Nevada mountains this past week only gave me more free time to think about it. 

Serendipitously, my immediate supervisor actually suggested mid-conversation that I create a show about teachers ... and she didn't seem too surprised to find out that the idea was already on the front burner of my mind.

And then the first draft of the season's bible just sort of spilled out of me after I came home.  I couldn't help it. 

                                         *     *     *

I often wonder how long it will take to come up with an idea that I believe in enough to sell and produce.  

The birth of this series idea feels right now like one of those moments from the past ... when the idea emerged from nowhere.  People believed me when I told them my dream would happen ... somehow the words came to me to convince them ... somehow my words turned into reality. 

Don't ask me how the process works:  as Geoffrey Rush's character says in Shakespeare in Love, "It's a mystery!"

At least things worked that way in the past.  We'll see if it still works that way.

The Scratching Post

The scratching post.  Ah, there's a place beside which a cat can think.

I had a thoroughly inspiring afternoon.  Kendrick Strauch, an actor and former student (he played a bloody good Romeo in my 1998 staging of Romeo and Juliet), was in town with his rock band.  They're recording at a West Hollywood studio, and the two of us spent an hour together talking in a coffee shop on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Kendrick gave me his reactions to The French Inquisitor.  God!  It was startling to hear him evaluate our script treatment through the lens of literary criticism:  the time he's spent working at Yale with professors the likes of Harold Bloom has added real gravitas to his analytical perspective.

The last time I saw him, I think, was when he read for Sydney Carton in our first reading of A Tale of Two Cities back in December 2002.  Then he was just a college student trying to find himself.  He's still trying to find himself, but today when he met me in Venice Beach, he looked like a young George Clooney, albeit with deconstructed blond streaks running through his hair.

His passion for acting and music is even more powerful than it was back in high school, though, if that's possible.  His focus is more intense, too.  He knows what he's about.

We decided during the course of our conversation to work together to develop and create the pilot for a television series I'd like to produce:  Teachers.  We'll start hashing it out over the next few months by email.  I'd love to direct it as a low-budget pilot.  There's a new dream for you.

Meanwhile, my co-writer continues to develop the extended treatment of The French Inquisitor as I write.

A friend and her husband have offered us the run of their house, located in Topanga Canyon, for four days over spring break  A place far from the madding crowd, so to speak, where no one will distract us.  We just lock ourselves down until we churn out the first draft.

Well, enough of that.  I'm off now for Sequoia National Park.

Post-Oscar Thoughts

Sir Knavely had a grand time at the Annual Oscar Party.  Then he then promptly went off food for two days.  I swear, the child is worse than a college student on spring break.

The rest of the guests seemed to enjoy themselves though.  They brought snacks that included shrimp, nachos, tacos, sushi, pasta salad, and pretzels.  I made my own brand of strawberry mikshakes.  Yeah.  Good food.  No highbrow approach for us.  Good food.  That's what it was about.  Oh yeah, good movies, too.  Last year, that is.

Yes, yes.  We avoided merlot in honor of Miles, sticking to pinot noir.  But in spite of our best efforts, Sideways failed to capture the bacon.  Or many little golden men.

Million Dollar Baby?  What's up with that?  How could Clint Eastwood win?  Maybe last year, but this year?  And it's not that I have anything against Dirty Harry:  I admire his directing style, and I love Mystic River.  But Million Dollar Baby?  The film didn't deserve the credit it got.  Want me to prove it?  Okay, think about this.  I was really moved by Million Dollar Baby when I saw the trailer.  Moved to tears, for god's sake.

And then I saw the film.  Didn't much like it. 

Of course, I wasn't on the same mission that Hollywood Steve was the other night.  He would have set up bleachers from which he could boo every time MDB won.  I had to disallow this idea.  So he contented himself with wild, angry cries whenever Million Dollar Baby took home an Oscar. 

This year, with my third annual Oscar Party, I discovered that Sir Knavely has superb taste.  As I sat there in my easy chair watching the Oscars, Sir K joined me, stretching his lanky body out across my legs, watching the screen.  He had opinions.  He liked Chris Rock, for instance, and he watched him with interest.  Otherwise, he just looked around while people talked, or else he napped.

I should mention that Sir K quickly got bored watching Beyonce.  She didn't quite make his rigorous cut.  Too bad the Academy decided to use her for THREE of the four songs.  Now that must have been embarrassing for poor Beyonce.  Imagine.  When Sir Knavely disses you, I imagine can just forget about having a future in showbiz.  At least in Sir Knavely's world, that is.

NOTE:  If you've wondered why it took me this long to review my own Oscar party, you should know that I've been writing grades.  Remember?  I'm a teacher too.  It appears now that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Let's hope it's not just a fast train.