There are certain images that for me are just, well… American. One of them is the image of dogs playing on a beach. From catching frisbees to pulling on the bathing suit of the Coppertone Girl. But like that Coppertone ad, those images have faded into obscurity, no longer part of America as it exists today, but of some bygone era, a more innocent age. And I have to tell you, I miss it. As a dog owner and animal lover, I resent the fact that if I want to jump in my car and head down to the beach here in Los Angeles County with my dog and a frisbee, I can be assured to not only get kicked off the beach, but to take home a ticket with a several hundred dollar price tag. I don’t know what it’s like in other places, but I’ll tell you right now, Los Angeles is not the place to enact that particular aspect of the American Dream.
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that not all dogs are friendly. Nor do all dogs play well with other dogs. And some dog owners simply don’t care enough to control their dog or, worse, clean up after them. And I respect people who are afraid of dogs. I’m sure they have their reasons and who am I to tell them they shouldn’t be afraid? But for the love of God, I just want to let my dog run free on the beach, splash around in the water, catch a frisbee and simply frolic in the sunshine!
Gus & Oliver after a long day at the Huntington Dog Beach
Well, now he can. My dog, Gus, along with our friends Stacey and Oliver (Oliver is the canine half of that team), took a trip down to Huntington Beach to what is officially known as the Huntington Dog Beach. And I’m here to tell you, it’s heaven on Earth. As an east-coaster originally, I have to confess to not being crazy about the public beaches near my home here in L.A.. Santa Monica, Venice… They just don’t do it for me. But the Huntington Dog Beach felt just like the beaches of my youth. And Gus and Oliver and all the other dogs got to do what they do best. Run and play. And anyone who thinks a dog can’t smile just need visit this beach one sunny afternoon to know they can and they do. I’ve known about this beach for a long time and always found one reason or another not to make the trek (it’s almost an hour’s drive), but now that I know this kind of joy awaits us… I have a feeling this is about to become a very familiar routine.
If you own a dog and have been mourning the loss of a more innocent time when dogs and people frolicked together on a soft sandy beach with the waves crashing all around you and the sounds of happy, playful barks mixed with laughing adults and children, then make your way down to Huntington Beach where America is still alive and well.
Check out this little video. It’s a tad saccharine, but accurate.
There was a time when my favorite way to spend a weekend or a day or night off was going to the movies. Though my love of film has in no way diminished, my love of the theater-going experience has. I still believe there is no better way to see a film than projected in 35mm (or better yet, 70mm) on a big screen with great sound. But too often, I find audiences to be loud, obnoxious, distracting and disrespectful. Maybe it’s always been that way. Or maybe it’s just since the advent of home video that people are having a harder time distinguishing that there is (or in my opinion should be) a difference between your living room and a movie theater. Plus, many of the great single-screen theaters are gone. They’ve been cut up, closed down, or simply replaced by the multiplex. That alone greatly diminishes the experience for me. So many movie theaters now require you to plow through throngs of shoppers in malls just to get to your medium size theater to watch slide-shows for local restaurants, play movie-themed word scrambles or answer annoying pop-culture trivia. Almost entirely gone are the days of never showing the screen before there’s a moving image on it. Gone are the giant curtains parting like the red sea to reveal the magic lurking just behind. It used to be that for me, just sitting in a movie theater was exciting. Today, that experience is rare.
I’ve found that I actually prefer watching a movie at home. I’ve put enough time and money into my home theater (however probably less than I would have spent buying high-priced tickets for the same number of movies) that now my home feels closer to honoring the films I watch than most local movie theaters. And though I sometimes show a trailer or two, no one in my home is assaulted by slide-shows, dozens of trailers for films I would never want to see (and that have a bad tendency to give away entire plots to those I would), or numerous fast-paced commercials that may actually induce PTSD on unsuspecting audience members. Yes, a man’s home may indeed be his castle. And a man’s home theater may indeed be his movie palace.
I mourn the loss of the movie-going experience of my youth. And like any old fart, I complain about it and wax poetic as I reminisce about the great days of yesteryear. But God help me, even the FILMS were better back then.
Writers Guild Theater
If I do venture out to see a movie, it’s either at the Arclight in Hollywood or the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. That’s it. The Writers Guild is free of the youthful banter of disinterested delinquents (though the occasional mumbling of an elderly writer with hearing loss can distract from time to time). There are no trailers, no slide-shows and NO commercials. Just the movie. Good or bad. And people watch it. Applaud it. Talk about it. AFTER the film. It’s unfortunate that there’s no stadium seating as it’s one of the few additions to new theaters that I actually like. But the pros far outweigh the cons and so I go.
Arclight Hollywood
The Arclight prides itself in presenting a movie in a respectable atmosphere free of rude interruptions or incompetent projectionists. There’s no curtain, but there’s also no slide-show and no commercials so, again, the pros outweigh the cons. The price is a bit steep, but all movies are these days so what’s an extra buck or two more to guarantee an above-average experience?
And to think, I actually sat down to write about two films I recently saw in theaters. The first was THE WACKNESS. I knew nothing of the film beyond that it starred Ben Kingsley, an actor whose work I greatly enjoy and admire. This small film, deceptively simple at first glance, slyly wormed its way under my skin. Kingsley’s performance walks a fine line between humor and pathos and he ultimately offers us a very moving human portrait. The same should be said for Famke Janssen who plays Kingsley’s distant wife. It’s an amazing piece of acting that translates a world of emotion and history in a relatively small amount of screen time.
And Josh Peck won me over with his mouth-breathing charm and bittersweet journey into first love. Unless you’re dead and buried, this performance is certain to disrupt a couple of swept-under-the-carpet memories from your youthful romantic past. And Olivia Thirlby (of recent JUNO fame) embodies the beauty and danger of first love perfectly (for this guy, anyway).
The other film I saw was HELLBOY II: ELECTRIC BUGALOO. Er… I mean, HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY. I wanted to like this film. I enjoyed the first installment and think Ron Perlman is perfect casting. Really inspired and charismatic. And Guillermo Del Toro’s direction creates an interesting and visually stunning world, but in the end there’s too little character and simply too much “stuff” going on. Simply put, the effects–though extremely well done–take center stage away from the performances and story and bog the film down until there’s very little memorable about the whole experience. Except maybe Perlman, who manages to poke his head slightly above all the effects just long enough to not be entirely forgotten. But just barely. That said, there is a wonderful animated “story” in the beginning of the film that I thought was just great.
Though HELLBOY II felt like more style than substance to me, I did nonetheless walk away sensing that when Del Toro directs THE HOBBIT movies, if he sticks to the scripts written by Jackson, Walsh and Boyens, his visual style may be the perfect match. That is, if he doesn’t get too excited by all the toys at his disposal.
And I already know that I’ll be venturing out to a movie theater to see those 2 films as they do hold the potential for spectacle and excitement I remember from the films of my youth. However, I’ll be choosing which theater to see them in VERY carefully.
Writer/Actor Danny Strong has been nominated for his brilliant script about the 2000 Gore/Bush election debacle which was made into the captivating (and often appropriately frustrating) HBO film RECOUNT. I will say right now, in no uncertain terms, that RECOUNT was the single best experience I’ve ever had reading a script. Though fully aware of the story’s outcome (hello?), I was nonetheless on the edge of my seat the entire time. Danny managed to tell this story in such vivid detail and with such passion, understanding and humanity, that I found myself believing the Gore campaign might actually pull it off!
But alas, that history was already written. Danny just gave it a face, a heart, an emotional center. As a writer myself, I can tell you this is no easy task, but Danny pulls it off and the result far exceeds expectation.
Here’s to Danny and all the other people responsible for turning this fantastic script into a fantastic film. To those nominated and those not. Thank you. You are all winners in my book.
I’ve decided to start writing about my journey getting my next feature film, CLEAN, made. I will try to add to this story as new events unfold. It may be a bit slow at first, but hopefully as things begin to come together, I’ll have more to share.
The story so far…
My production company, Off Leash Films, has teamed with British Production Company, Lock & Loru Productions, headed by producer Amyra Bunyard. At the moment, we are sending the script out to talent and raising finances at the same time. We plan to shoot in England with a largely British cast. We are also looking into other various locations that offer tax incentives, etc.
I am both the writer and director on the film and the script is loosely based on a story idea by myself and Teal Minton. CLEAN will be produced independently and I will be maintaining full creative control throughout to ensure the film we make is the one released. Those familiar with my first feature, THE PLAGUE, will understand.
CLEAN is a psychological thriller dealing with personal, cultural and social identity. It is a series of complex, interconnected stories that move back and forth in time while building steadily toward its climax. I have been told that it’s MEMENTO meets MAGNOLIA (for those in need of a more commercial description). And though I call CLEAN a psychological thriller, I believe that it encompasses many genres and cannot be easily categorized (much like the Writers & Director’s Cut of THE PLAGUE is not really a horror film as most people think of horror today, yet it’s the closest genre description one can apply).
As our filmmaking journey continues, so will these posts. Please stop by and see how we’re doing. I intend to speak openly and honestly as to the events that unfold so that both fans and other filmmakers will have a good idea of what it takes to get a film made and what can happen along the way.
It’s truly amazing to me that this great country has become host to one of the biggest global criminals. The mere fact that he is still in office is something to be ashamed of and, I believe, history will hold the American people accountable. How is it even possible that this man still maintains power?
In his final summit with the group G8, George W. Bush, who has for his entire term as president refused to take a firm stance on global warming–even denying its existence for most of his 2 terms–bid farewell to the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia with these final words:
“Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
According to the Telegraph, “He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown and [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.”
Anyone who follows the news closely– er, maybe that should be “Anyone who seeks out the news that only a few bother to report”, know about Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s “Articles of Impeachment for President George W. Bush” presented to the House on June 9th of this year. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president.
In the always passionate and insightful Mr. Gore Vidal’s most recent article, he observes, “Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the 21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment… It is Le Monde, a French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or, in fact, any other major American media outlet.”
About fifteen years ago, my then writing partner, Teal Minton, said to me, “You know that scene in ALIENS where we see everything that’s happening through the cameras in the guys’ helmets? We should do a whole horror film just like that.”
It was a great idea. We had many great ideas. This is one we should have acted on.
Today, handheld horror films are spreading like the plague. Starting with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and still going strong, these films are a running commentary - whether intentional or not - on our society’s obsession with and technology’s ability to record life as it happens in a way never available to us before. Even “reality” TV is an offspring of this relatively new potential. History will now be recorded and distorted in ways we never imagined before! And stories will be told in ways that are both viscerally exciting and, if done well, almost indistinguishable from real life events and how we experience them. And I’m referring to events that we are not personally a part of, but through the eye of the camera, we become both viewer and participant all at the same time.
Take the Hurricane Katrina disaster, for example. For the billions of people around the world who were not in New Orleans themselves, they experienced those horrific events through - not only the lens of a news camera - but through cell phone cameras, home digital cameras, camcorders, etc. Those events came streaming to us on the web as well as on our televisions. And as a result, the media was no longer able to control what we saw and what we didn’t. And technology has expanded swiftly since then. The current war in Iraq is another prime example as soldiers and other eye-witnesses upload their experiences for all to see. A new language is being written; a new way of sharing; a new way of living; a new way of experiencing.
This year’s CLOVERFIELD was another example of a familiar horror genre being adapted to this new language. A monster movie a la GODZILLA or 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH or, yes, ALIENS. But this time told through the lens of a “witness”, our visual narrator, our third eye.
George Romero, the director who single-handedly defined the rules of the contemporary zombie genre via NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD and many others to follow, has finally found his way to this new form of storytelling. But a little background first. Romero’s early film, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, changed my life. I saw it at a much too early age and was instantly traumatized. And addicted. Not to the blood and guts that became the primary focus of so many horror films to follow, but to the level of true primal horror Romero’s films tapped into. Never one to miss an opportunity for social commentary, Romero knew the strength of the genre and managed to use it to its fullest and most extreme.
Then came his recent Hollywood studio attempt at the genre, which resulted in the very un-scary and at times downright ridiculous LAND OF THE DEAD. With its awful digital zombies and overwrought action, the film drowned under the studio’s heavy hand, which apparently weighed down on Romero like an anchor.
But then he bounced back earlier this year with a super low-budget installment of the franchise titled DIARY OF THE DEAD. The film garnered mixed critical response, but I personally found it a welcome return to form for Romero. DIARY is scary, at times darkly funny (Romero’s wit is hard to suppress) and insightful as to the pros and cons of society’s newfound love of the digital recorder. Granted, Romero’s film is a little lacking in subtlety, but this I can forgive as it still posed interesting questions while scaring the pants off of me. Never before had I thought so much about the future of film and felt I might be witnessing the beginning of the end of storytelling as I’ve grown to know and love it. And then there’s the notion of being the detached voyeur; does witnessing these seemingly real events through a camera’s lens allow us to become part of what’s happening, or does it offer us a newfound detachment (i.e who are the real zombies?)? When we record something in our own lives, are we still experiencing it as people who are present, or are we there, but somehow disconnected as our experience is not through our own eyes, but through the comfortable familiarity of a camera lens?
Then there’s the recent Spanish zombie flick [REC], by directors, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. [REC] is still unavailable in the U.S., but is currently being remade - for American audiences too lazy to read subtitles - under the new name QUARANTINE. I was lucky enough to score a copy of [REC] and, though not the social commentary DIARY was, it’s one hell of a scary film and a new take on Romero’s style of zombie flick. In a “normal” movie, the director is outside the action. We know that we are being told the story by someone who was not actually there, someone who is not himself in any danger, but who can pick and choose what we see and what we don’t so as to allow us the best storytelling experience. While the reality is actually the same in films like DIARY OF THE DEAD, [REC], CLOVERFIELD and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the illusion is that no one is in control, that we are helpless viewers watching events unfold through the eyes of helpless participants.
[REC] had me covering my mouth in fear as I watched (yeah, I’m a big baby). And, just as I’d done only nights before after viewing DIARY, I asked myself what it is about this experience that I keep coming back to. I loved horror films as a kid, but I all but abandoned them as an adult. They ceased to scare me anymore. Slasher pics, torture porn, the last 20 years of horror films had slipped into a void more obsessed with the makeup and effects than with the psychological and social impact these films were capable of having. It’s one of the reasons I made THE PLAGUE, though, as many already know, that film was destroyed by its own producers who were simply not ready to make a horror film that tapped into real primal fears, and instead reverted back to what I think of as their safety zone of harmless, meaningless, ineffectual horror.
But thanks to some other filmmakers and some (oddly enough) less frightened producers, we are starting to see a trend emerge that still has a lot of unknown territory yet to explore. And hopefully I will continue to be moved to ask myself why I - and so many other audience members like me - feel it is somehow cathartic to experience helplessness, panic and terror, while also being artistically, socially and morally stimulated.
In his new article, Mr. Harris discusses the current dangers facing our cinematic heritage on Blu-ray discs via the removal of not only film grain (which is an inherent part of a film and a film’s look), but of important details lost in the removal of high frequency information through the use of DNR (Digital Noise Reduction).
And, as with so many things, this danger exists in large part due to a combination of fear and misinformation. But with a little education, Mr. Harris shows us that we can nip this problem in the bud and have a bright future of films on Blu-Ray disc that look more like the films as they were intended, and less like video games.
As an example of what NOT to do, Mr. Harris uses the most recent Blu-Ray release of the 1970 Academy Award-winning film, Patton.
“When people see things they don’t understand, they become frightened, and the concept of what [a film] is — or was — still eludes some people. We all tend to reduce or expand things to a level we understand, and it can be fatal to a film… if what someone understands is Petticoat Junction.”
There are certain images that for me are just, well… American. One of them is the image of dogs playing on a beach. From catching frisbees to pulling on the bathing suit of the Coppertone Girl. But like that Coppertone ad, those images have faded into obscurity, no longer part of America as it exists today, but of some bygone era, a more innocent age. And I have to tell you, I miss it. As a dog owner and animal lover, I resent the fact that if I want to jump in my car and head down to the beach here in Los Angeles County with my dog and a frisbee, I can be assured to not only get kicked off the beach, but to take home a ticket with a several hundred dollar price tag. I don’t know what it’s like in other places, but I’ll tell you right now, Los Angeles is not the place to enact that particular aspect of the American Dream. 
![[REC]](http://halmasonberg.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/rec.jpg)
