Friday, July 14, 2006

Another Friend Has Hit The Road

It seems like one by one all my friends from my first years in Hollywood are packing it in and heading out of town. Though the story with this one is a little different in that he's kept a job here that he's going to try to wrangle long-distance, the song remains, essentially the same. Worked at it for years, struggling, trying, making an OK living and striving for something greater only to sit back and realize you're getting to that point where you start to worry that if you haven't made it yet, you're never going to make it.

I kind of reel like the old man in "Ran" watching his sons, get swept up in their own ambitions and leave him in that burning tower in the fortress. All right, fine, it's not a perfect parallel, in fact it's a pretty weak one at best, BUT it just shows where my mind is at. Here I am thinking about, pondering about the great beyond (so to speak) and I'm seeing Japanese Films in my head.

Speaking of what a film geek I am, I watched "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and could help feeling that it was a rip off of "Star Wars" (which of course got me thinking about "Hidden Fortress " which is the Akira Kurosawa (who also directed Ran, which is why I thought of this now) movie they say Lucas ripped off for Star Wars, though I've seen it and DON'T know what the fuck THEY are talking about) Harry Potter and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. The irony of course is that the Chronicles of Narnia predate all of those, except for Lord of the Rings which was actually contemporary (CS and JRR were amigos) to it. And really what that got me thinking about was Joseph Campbell (who I was introduced to by another friend who hit the road (and is doing rather well, actually)) and "The Hero With A Thousand Faces," (also another alleged inspiration for Star Wars, though I think this one actually makes a lot of sense.) Which I've decided, given my current script writing pains, I need to read again.

Also - I found out that the Maltese Falcon was a REMAKE. Apparently nothing was ever sacred.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Syd is Dead

Well, this isn't film related but Syd Barrett is dead. Obit here. He was the founder and legendary "Crazy Diamond" of Pink Floyd, a band I was once a huge fan of. I still basicly am, though my fandom pretty much stops with, or really after, "The Final Cut" (other Floyd geeks out there will understand what I'm talking about.) Anyway, Syd pretty much fried his brains with drugs and drifted off into the mist leaving the remaining members (David Gilmour essentially came in to replace him) to go on to become the band that they were before "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" (which was, for all intents and purposes a David Gilmour Solo album.) He's been a kind bizarre, cult figure for years and has inspired legions - well several - mainstream artists.

In other news, being the superstitious moron that I am (or it could just be a mild case of OCD - as I always put my left shoe on first)) I have some things I may (or may not) be working on that I can't talk about yet - which makes it hard to build any kind of suspense into this riveting blog - but I am hoping to be able to reveal soon.

And - well this isn't my news, but I happy about it anyway - my friend - who I wrote about here - has gotten a writing job on a mid-season replacement show with Stanley Tucci. I should be jealous as hell, but oddly I'm not.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Apparently my Asking Price was Too high

Actually - there was no price involved. I was asked to review a film called The Edge of Outside and I said, Sure - love to! but haven't gotten a copy yet. I think it's going to run on TCM fairly soon, so I guess I'm out of luck.

I should have sold out long ago to that fetish porn production company that wanted me to provide good review snippets for their films.

Anyway there was a great article about how Chaos theory applies to Hollywood in the LA Times magazine (otherwise called, in a fit of creative genius, "West.") Read it here.