Fall Anti-Classic

After reading my last post, I'm sure that this will not come as a shock to anyone, but I have decided to indefinitely suspend any hope of a film career and teach a few classes at Triton College this Fall. I was hired as an adjunct faculty member and will be teaching two Total Fitness classes and a 7-week Health class. The two fitness classes won't be in a typical classroom setting. They'll be conducted in the fitness center, where I'll show whoever how to use the machines...nothing spectacular. The Health class, though, will involve a textbook, assignments, a syllabus, and all that fun stuff. I think that'll be a blast...fake torturing students like I was fake tortured will be fun.

[feyk tawr-cher] - an act whereby a teacher falsely frightens their students into thinking they will earn a grade worse than what they will actually be given.

Very early in my academic career, I figured out that teachers can't appear compromising or compassionate in any way. They act like total assholes most of the time and scare the students into trying their best. This makes total sense because, speaking as a student, and I tihnk I speak for the majority of them, I put forth the very least effort that would get me either an A or B. Without some kind of fear involved, neither my classmates nor I would ever have gone to class. My teachers knew what they were doing, but scared the shit out of most poeple while doing it. I'll use some of these tactics in class, but I'll be way more accessible to the students teaching at a community college, so I can't be too much of a dick. Maybe I'll show the gruesome drunk driving car crash videos, or maybe I'll create group exercises to inform people about the dangers of drugs, or maybe I'll just throw on I Know What You Did Last Summer and tell them that if you drink and drive you'll be killed by a guy with a hook.

Ummm...

During the two years I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I never joined a fraternity or associated with closed-minded exclusionaries...clonal weekend itineraries...douchebags. I enjoyed the fact that I met a crowd of people with distinct personalities who were not afraid of meeting anyone and everyone willing to enjoy themselves. Those other yahoos most likely graduated and got jobs where they could see the same people over and over, basically mimicking their college careers. This past week, though, I was immersed in a new world of people who operate outside of cliques, stranglehold careerisms, or office bureaucracy.

I began my first job as an Office PA (Produciton Assistant) on a feature length film at a Chicago production company on Thursday. As soon as I arrived at the Production Studio, I felt like I was going ot be hazed by hooded silhouettes wielding studded leather paddles in a basement dungeon rank with incense. This meat packing plant had no sign or distinguishing characteristics. I was greeted at the door by a cold, unforgiving doorbell sporting a horrific electro-metal chime chalkboard nails, but were followed by a soothing bored voice requesting my identity, which I quickly gave. The Wizard, or whoever, buzzed me in. I aimlessly strolled through the empty main floor of this warehouse while admiring the numerous grips, used for microphones and lights I guessed. The warehouse eventually ran into an office setting where I was greeted and immediately instructed to make some copies and read the script of the movie which will remain nameless due to the duet of confidentiality agreements I signed.

After copying, I sat in a room with three other people. While I read the script, I listened to phone calls regarding movie star transportatoin...hotel arrangements...craft service companies...hair stylists...producers...writers...directors...water trucks...film deliveries...etc... I spent the majority of the day, though, stuffed in a room, sorting, stapling, and paper-clipping 200 crew packets detailing payment methods and confidentiality; not an ideal first day.

My coworkers were very personable. They laughed, joked, and discussed as though they were at home goofing around with a computer game and making prank phone calls rather than organizing the produciton of a major motion picture. A few have worked on the production of many movies for several years and give me a window to years of experience, but I don't know if I can stand the lack of creativity involved with office production. Without technical knowledge or schooling, I can't become an Set PA, so the way I see it I have three main options..

1) Continue working as an Office PA, gradually move up the ranks until I become a Production Supervisor.
2) Go back to school and dive into the creative side of filmmaking
3) Spend a few months as an office PA making contacts and gaining understanding, and get a real job, do my own research, and write some great script that would automatically propel me into that other side.

Should I even consider 1 or 2? Is that blurry future and marginal security worth the sacrifice of a Master's Degree? I might enjoy it, but I'd miss those normalcies attached to a bland 9 to 5 job. The hours in production are insane, the work is sporadic, and the success is Pacific. I don't really want the Pacific, the questionable security, the bland 9 to 5 job, or the well planned future. I just wish I could only see three feet in front of me so I didn't have to deal with the constant logic or dissonant dejections abound in every possibility I presently face. For now, I'll work this movie...limit my future to tomorrow...vie for a production credit among a hundred names...deal with a business saturated with more cronyism than Chicago politics...and NOT GET SUCKED INTO THIS FILM WORLD THAT'S EAGER TO EMBRACE ME AT THE EXPENSE OF MY INDIVIDUALITY..

Knocked Up...and Up...and Up

I finally worked up the courage last Friday to see Knocked Up: the critically acclaimed new comedy from the same Judd Apatow who brought us The 40 Year Old Virgin and Freaks and Geeks. For those who have never seen the ingenious character development, mature comedy, and heartwarming performances of Freaks and Geeks, I suggest you NetFlix the hell out of it (It also jumpstarted the career of Spider-Man's James Franco). . For now, let's ignore your shortcomings and discuss Knocked Up.

This film is almost oversaturated with simple- but clever - jokes and pranks that could be developed by a group of friends and a case of beer. Example: the five friends in the movie decide to start a website whose purpose is to notify its visitors how long into certain movies the attractive women take their clothes off. Enough said about that. The film's premise is 40 Year Old Virgin simple: a slovenly guy one-night-stands an attractive woman into pregnancy. The plot is predictable enough not to mention, but honest characters and performances successfully project the anxiety, desperation, and consequences that an unplanned pregnancy can bring to a couple not comparable to those of Dawson's Creek or Beverly Hills 90210.

I will not quote any jokes heard in this movie, because that's basically what the dialogue consists of. The producers probably threw some great friends into a room with beer and marijuana and let them improvise at least 2/3 of this movie, keeping it honest and letting the audience intimately experience the characters. This kind of comedy is what moviegoers deserve after enduring such crap as Deuce Bigalow, Dodgeball, or any Will Ferrel Comedy (minus Stranger than Fiction). Those movies are good for what they are: retarded. I laughed during them, but felt dumber for having done so. The jokes are empty cans and are only funny because they're told through one-dimensional characters and one-dimensional actors like Will Ferrel. Saturday Night Live was great and I'll always ask for more cowbell, but Will, stop making movies about over-the-top buffoons, or soon people won't be able to tell you apart from Ben Stiller.

Seriously, if you and friends wanna get hammered and enjoy something as equally blitzed, Will Ferrel and Ben Stiller are for you, but if you're looking for comedy based in realism and sanity, get Knocked Up. . . whores. . .

Back in Town

I'm finally back in Chicago! That's about all I have ot say at this point. I'm searching for a job or an internship working for a production company in the Chicagoland area. I would like to work with feature films, but I'll take television or commercials as well. It will most likely be a long process, but I've made some good contacts, so keep whatever fingers you have left crossed for me. I'm also working on a writing sample to supplement my resume, so when tht's finished I'll post it and I would like some responses from those poeple who read this blog and never comment. I hope to see whoever out sometime over the summer. Take care all!

Sling Spidey to the Curb

There is no doubt that everyone has been eagerly awaiting the third installment of the Spider-Man series, if not only to see the special effects and intense battle scenes blah blah blah... Richard Roeper called Spider Man 2 the best superhero sequel ever made, and I agree, but I regret to inform whoever reads this that the third attempt was a step above pisspoor to put it mildly. Practically everything that made the first two Spider Man films more than just eye candy was lost in this film. The running time was 2 hours and 20 minutes...of Hell...

***SEMI-SPOILER ALERT***

Where to begin...well let's start with Kirsten Dunst and her singing debut. It was awful...and the audience is subjected it to it twice. It was a little funny to see her fired from her Broadway job because of it, but it was too sharp a fall from the dramatic glory she achieved in Spidey 2 for me to confirm any linear logic.

Of course, Mary Jane's hard times are juxtaposed against the rising citywide fame of Spider-Man, which turns her into a pathetic, jealous, self-pitying basket case who I personally wanted to see die as fast as possible...

But how would she die? She would have to die at the hands of some pretty lame, non-manacing, also self-pitying villains. Let's take Harry/Hobgoblin Jr., who after his brief stint as a decent villain, conveniently gets AMNESIA and rekindles an almost repressed manlove for Peter. Harry then remembers his true calling as a villain and tries to kill Peter. He subsequently has a crisis of conscience and turns good AGAIN to help Peter battle the other two popcorn villains: Sandman and Venom.

Sandman's back story is dumb - he steals money to help his daughter dying of some pretentious disease. Parker has no problem hating him because he was identified as his Uncle Ben's real killer, not the bleach-blonde, spiky haired, chachball that Spider-Man killed in part one. I have no problem hating him because he is played by Thomas Haden Church, who gained very little notoriety on Wings, and a lot of notoriety from his mediocre performance in Sideways. Sandman eventually cries and repents his sins to Spidey after trying to crush him with his gigantic sand-fist...

Sandman is eventually joined by Venom, who is played by none other than Topher Grace...the uber-nerd from That 70's Show. Not only does Venom take over 2 hours to materialize from Eddie Brock, but he's only given about 5 minutes to be scary...and he fails miserably. It's Topher Grace...enough said. Oh...and due to a lost photographic rivalry with Peter Parker at the Daily Bugle, Eddie Brock attends church and prays that Peter Parker dies. Cry me a river.


Finally, let's get to Spidey. I wasn't a huge fan of Tobey Maguire as Spidey in the beginning, but he surprised me when he successfully portrayed both a hopeless nerd and an intimidating, web-slinging crime-fighter. In this film, though, his character adds a third dimension that Tobey cannot pull off - emo child. At one point in the movie, Parker undergoes a personality/fashion makeover and struts and dances like a frigging idiot. He spins, he twirls, he throws high fives at randoms on the street, he does the "Hey beautiful" point at ladies...its a fucking mess.

The only thing I really enjoyed about this movie was the absolutely stunning Bryce Dallas Howard who plays Peter's brief alternate love interest, but eventually that pissed me off too because I couldn't figure out how she came from someone who looks like this...

Oh well. Nice try, Hollywood. I guess I'll have to wait for Transformers.

RECENTIES

So its 4:37 AM and I'm day/early-morning dreaming about how I will be leaving this ominous landscape of calamity in less than two weeks. So what has happened here since then? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY FRIGGING NOTHING. I've seen a few movies that aren't worth discussing... If this paper was written by my own child I'd beat him for it...

I did go on a barcrawl in Champaign and I think I was the big winner for the day....let's recap...

1. Stole a Cubs hat
2. Broke a full beer bnottle on a light post on Green street
3. Squirted rugby dicks with a water gun
4. Threw ice at a friend on a roof
5. Got kicked out of Pita Pit
6. Stole a bottle of wine from some frat dude's apartment
7. Drank the wine in Legend's, then got kicked out and blamed Megan Smith
8. Snuck back in and finished the wine
9. Woke up to some asshole serving me with a paternity suit
10. Found out that I beat up a school full of retarded midgets at the circus
11. Played the card game War with senile shell-shocked veterans
12. Donated blood to Transylvania
13. Stared at a taxidermist
14. Kicked a horse
15. Saved a lemming

Everyone missed the fun I had, So what? I'm sure there was other fun being had without my craziness that was way better than yours. Next time, don't be frigging stupid, pay attention, look around sometime, and see that I'm having a way better time than you.

GRIND ME SO GOOD...

In my recent movie-viewing history, I don't recall any film as vile, disgusting, or utterly grotesque as Grindhouse...and I loved it.

For those who've been living under a friggin rock, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino have teamed up again to bring viewers their unique taste of blood, guts, and sexuality. Their latest success attempts and succeeds at introducing the "Grindhouse" atmosphere to a new generation. A grindhouse is a term for a theater that screened exploitation films, or B movies usually consisting of a double feature dominated by explicit sex, violence, bizarre or perverse plot points, and other taboo content. Exploitation films have been around since the 1930's and 1940's. Perhaps the most famous example of these is Reefer Madness, a sensationalized and notoriously inaccurate attempt to demonize marijuana in conservative 1930s America, but other various sub genres of exploitation films such as black exploitation, cannibal exploitation, and zombie exploitation exist as well.

As for this one, the double feature consists of Planet Terror (written and directed by Rodriguez) and Death Proof (Written/Directed by Tarantino). Planet Terror is hands down the bloodiest funfest I've ever witnessed. To give you an idea without spoiling . . . it made me think of what it would look like if I filled 100 water balloon with blood and threw them into a giant fan all at once. The protagonist, El Wray (Six Feet Under's Freddy Rodriguez) cuts and chops his way to the truth about an evil government conspiracy while winning back the heart of his lost love...who has a peg-leg.

Death Proof is undeniably Tarantino, equipped with long, comedic character discussions/exposition followed by fast paced action sequences. This tail end of the double featch is not bloody or gory, but it has some unbelievable car chases and stuntwork done by one of the main characters herself. Tarantino set out to find a stuntwoman who could act rather than an prototypical actress so the action scenes would not have to be faked in any way. The stuntwoman/actress chosen - New Zealander Zoe Bell - worked as a stunt double for the Bride (Uma Thurman) in Tarantino's 2-volumed Kill Bill, and for Sharon Stone in the excremental Catwoman. Although this movie lacks any martial arts (or feline fight scenes), Bell steals every scene with her energetic personality and complete insanity as she executes a few harrowing and almost unbelievable stunts during a high-speed car chase. Kurt Russell also rekindles his bad-ass alter-ego reminiscent of Snake Plissken from Escape from New York and Escape from L.A. while portraying Stuntman Mike, a homicidal murderer who seduces unsuspecting females into his driver-safe stunt car, then kills them by crashing the hell out of it.

SEE THIS MOVIE!!! The lazies who don't want to spend 3 and a half hours in a theater obviously don;t know about the hilarious fake-trailers during the intermission. This is not just a trip to the movies...it's an experience.