Geek Supremacy

I've written several blog entries now about the changing face of cinema, but it's worth dedicating an entry to how much the rising technology has affected other forms of pop culture, in particular the rise of the podcast and the way it has replaced talk radio.  If the medium of the podcast serves as a form of talk radio for the Internet-generation, then one podcast I've recently come across that best embodies this is THE GEEK SUPREMACY PROJECT, hosted and produced by Gregory Hall.

THE GEEK SUPREMACY PROJECT, which can be listened to here, is essentially a Comic-Con for the ears, dedicated to a discussion of all comics, movies, TV shows, and web-series, and further indicative of how we live in a society where Nerd has become the new Cool.  The rise of the Internet gave a voice to every single cult fanbase, playing to their niche audiences.  Today, a web-series like NIGHTWING: ESCALATION is just as accessible to audiences as any Hollywood blockbuster is, and this podcast treats both of these forms of media with equal attention.  Indeed, there IS geek supremacy in our culture.

It also helps that Gregory is a very charismatic host.  Whereas many podcasts suffer because they are hosted by celebrity-wannabes who show they know less about their subject of discussion than their audiences, Gregory's passion shines through and is in complete control of his show.  Furthermore, since he develops a chemistry with the guest each week, no two shows are ever the same.

Gregory told me the following:

Most kids bond with there parents with sports...I bonded with my parents with movies and comics.  As a kid I started as a horror geek.  My first horror film was A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET at the age of three and ever since then I was hooked.

I got my love for horror/scifi from my mother she loved Stephen King, STAR WARS, and STAR TREK.  My love for comics came from my dad.  When I was a kid I would go with him go to this sports store where they sold sports memorabilia.  There was a little section where sold comics so I would go over and read them and if I did good in school I could buy one.

I know what it's like to have a love for the arts that stems entirely from my experiences with my family.  I learned about foreign films from my mother, and today I'm a huge consumer of nerd-culture!

This background led Gregory to find himself as an artist, trying his hand at writing his first novel, which was, unsurprisingly, a horror story.  But writer's block got in the way.  And so, lo and behold, he founded a podcast with his sister as a creative outlet to get his juices flowing.  You wouldn't think hosting a talkshow would be a creative endeavor on the same level as creating a work of art, but using the podcast forum, it is.  Because a podcast is, oddly enough, more personal than any other type of show, and its content feels more raw, coming straight from the artist.

If there was ever one show I was a complete nerd for, it was MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000, which was cancelled in 1999.  Then, a decade later, the show came back in the form of a podcast called RIFFTRAX.  While both of these shows have the same basic premise -- voices riffing throughout an entire movie -- I find the concept works infinitely better in podcast form.  Such is the power of this new forum.

In a previous entry, I wrote about James Rolfe and THE ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD going from fun videos on YouTube made by an amateur filmmaker to a full-blown media franchise and the first fan-funded feature film in history.  If there was ever an example of geek supremacy in media, that was it!  How fitting that the newest ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD episode should be released at the same time I write this article.  Watch it here.

Gregory Hall and THE GEEK SUPREMACY PROJECT are emblems of the changing face of our culture's love for story.  The nerdy kids who spent their youths eating pizza while watching BABYLON 5 and dreaming of the big stories they wanted to tell are today's intellectuals, turning Comic-Con into a profitable business and running websites like IMDb, Ain't It Cool News, and Rotten Tomatoes.  I encourage my readers to listen to THE GEEK SUPREMACY PROJECT as the herald of change in our media.  Keep up the good work, Gregory, and may the world supremacy of geeks begin!

Ten Years Later: LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT

With the release of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, I thought it was a good time to write a little post about the legacy of this film franchise.

Young people of today who barely remember a decade ago and think of SPIDER-MAN as an "old movie" may not be able to fully appreciate the full impact THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy had.  It was rightfully labeled as the STAR WARS of our generation, and not only on the obvious level that it was an action/adventure trilogy, but in the way it was a benchmark that sparked imaginations and inspired the emerging group of filmmakers.  If you're a filmmaker and were a child of the 1970's, you remember the release of STAR WARS damned well!  LORD OF THE RINGS served that same purpose for my colleagues.  Recently I've been hearing people refer to Nolan's BATMAN trilogy as their generation's STAR WARS; sorry, but as good as those films may have been, I simply don't think that's true at all; if it is, it may be a few years before it becomes apparent with today's youth.

LORD OF THE RINGS was seen as the answer to THE PHANTOM MENACE and the two Chris Columbus-directed HARRY POTTER films: it showed modern technology could create wonderful vistas never seen before while ALSO making an engaging film and a modern epic.  A few years earlier TITANIC had been a mega-hit sensation, but LORD OF THE RINGS was able to do the same while sustaining it over two sequels.  The remaining HARRY POTTER films would draw heavily on the model LORD OF THE RINGS had set, as would the NARNIA films, THE GOLDEN COMPASS, and AVATAR.  Even PAN'S LABYRINTH, though an entirely original (and in my opinion superior) fantasy film was marketed to remind audiences of LORD OF THE RINGS.

During the release of LORD OF THE RINGS, I was finishing high school and starting college, which I feel was the ideal age to experience this event.  Even more ideal was being in film school and learning the craft of filmmaking in the immediate aftermath of this release, when everyone was talking about these movies.  Furthermore, LORD OF THE RINGS became one of the first movies to really utilize the innovation of the DVD.  DVD's had started to replace VHS tapes around 1997 and were catching on by 2000.  "Collector's Sets" with hours upon hours of making-of material were beginning to emerge, but FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING was one of the first times I saw a movie truly make use of the Extended Edition format.  Perhaps what says the most is that in 2001 DVD's and VHS were still about comparable to one another on the market, while by 2004 VHS was semi-obsolete.  What happened during that interim?  The trilogy happened!

In college, we were all learning what visual effects were from looking at the behind-the-scenes of LORD OF THE RINGS, the DVD's of which I guarantee could be found in at least 65% of the students' dorm rooms.  I learned what color-correction and color-grading are because of LORD OF THE RINGS.  I learned that you do your picture-editing first, then visual effects, then scoring, and finally sound-mixing, in that order, all because of LORD OF THE RINGS.

Now at this point in the blog, you might be rolling your eyes at me and telling me I need to stop "fanboy-ing," so let me be the first to point out that the movies are not perfect at all.  Rewatching the trilogy recently, I noticed how Hollywood they are, and how many cliched action and horror movie tropes Peter Jackson relies on in his storytelling.  Yes, it's dumbed down from Tolkein's writing (by the way, I happen to like Tolkein's books a lot and feel the films compliment the source material well.  There are some elements in the story done better in the film than they were in the book.  But, on the whole, if I had to choose one, then the books are the superior versions).  Merry and Pippin make lame jokes, and the scene where they agree to join the Fellowship only to then reveal they don't even know where they're going completely undermines the integrity of the characters.  Finally, the worst moment in the entire trilogy is Galadriel's weird freak-out when she's offered the ring and her voice gets all fucked up!  I hate that scene; it belongs in a B-movie of lesser quality, and I felt that way when I first saw it eleven years ago.

But all of this aside, the trilogy was still a remarkable achievement in the scale of its production, especially when looked at as one long film.  When I learned how big the set was and all the details of the shooting schedule, there was a time when I considered it the single most ambitious production in all of cinematic history [knowing what I do today, I might say CLEOPATRA (1963, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) or WAR AND PEACE (1966-68, dir. Sergei Bondarchuk) might be more deserving of that distinction].  It also helped that Peter Jackson was an incredibly charismatic person that audiences loved from the start.  Here was a true guerrilla filmmaker with a genuine love for the art-form and immense passion for the material.  As my dad put it: "No wonder these hobbits are all so dirty; the director of these movies looks like a homeless person!"

So now we come to THE HOBBIT, a prequel that has spent the better part of a decade in development hell.  I won't go into all the controversies; anyone who knows me knows that I disapprove of 3D, and while the radical idea to project at 48 frames per second could potentially have made this film just as much of a game-changer as LORD OF THE RINGS was with the DVD format, the public backlash suggests this won't be the case.  But I have now seen AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the first of the new trilogy, and I have to say, Jackson did the impossible.  He has created a film that feels like an organic continuation of the saga, despite the time discrepancy between productions!

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is a very fun and charming film with moments that show a larger scope.  Yes, the tone is much more juvenile and lighthearted than the previous films, but that is fitting of the book.  Is it as good as LORD OF THE RINGS?  Simply-put, I don't think it could possibly have the ground-breaking effect the trilogy had ten years ago; that was just pure lightening in a bottle, whereas this time we all knew what to expect.  This film won't sweep the Oscars as its predecessors did.  But as a continuation that manages to successfully feel like the first new LORD OF THE RINGS film in a decade, it's a success that leaves me wanting to see the sequels, and better yet, it's a fun time at the movies.

LORD OF THE RINGS was certainly not the best movie I saw during my college years, but regardless it was the movie of my college years.  Maybe I'm letting the nostalgia take over, but that was just such an exciting time for movies, and we all sensed they were changing forever.  As 2012 comes to an end, the future looks grim for Hollywood movies.  With indie cinema on the rise and the entire model of distribution being revolutionized, not to mention public dissatisfaction with so many films, the entire Hollywood system might soon be obsolete.  But at least knowing that there are two HOBBIT sequels on the horizon has filled me with some comfort.  And if a film can make you want to come back, continue the story, and be fulfilled, then it is doing what the movies are all about.  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY has opened a new door on a new Hobbit-hole, and that door to Bag End will never be closed again.

Film Review: RETURN TO OZ (1985, dir. Walter Murch)

If you're reading this, you already know about this movie, so I won't waste time telling you what it is, how dark/somber it is, how it isn't for everyone, how some WIZARD OF OZ fans hate it, how unique its backstory was, how its director never directed a single other film, or how strange it is to see electric shock treatment in a film with a talking chicken. All I will say is that I simply adore it.

-I love the haunting look on Fairuza's face as the camera pans to her in the opening shot, and the heartfelt gravity in Piper Laurie's voice when she says "It's past one in the morning."

-I love the way mirrors are a reoccurring symbol throughout the film.

-I love the strange sadness I feel as Fairuza speaks solemnly to the adults that tower over her.

-I love the moment of hesitation Aunt Em shows before she leaves Dorothy at the clinic, and doesn't even turn around.

-I love when Dr. Worley asks Dorothy how she's doing, and she responds "I wish I wasn't tied down."

-I love when Dorothy and Billina first arrive in the Deadly Desert, and as she balances her way on the giant boulders, a claymation eye on the rock pops open.

-I love when she pulls down the lunch pail, the reaction of the strange face floating on the rock, and the face reporting the news to unseen Nome King.

-I love the fun turn-of-the-century music playing during this whole sequence.

-I love the moment when, trapped by the Wheelers, Dorothy finds Tik Tok, and the wonderful moment they share.

-I love the moment when Mombi first removes her head.

-I love that wonderful/creepy Neil Gaiman/Coraline moment when Dorothy reaches for the Powder of Life and wakes up the disembodied head that screams her name.

-I love the flight of the Gump, the feeling of escape, David Shire's wondrous score, and that moment when Dorothy says "I'm awfully sleepy, but I'm glad I have my own head to be sleepy with."

-I love how in that moment when Dorothy cries in the Nome King's lap, in a cold stone hall that seems like it must be infinitely lonely, he pats her shoulder, and strangely, cries himself. Are these crocodile tears? Does he have some second personality that does care? We'll never know.

-I love the scene when Dorothy eats the rock cakes and melted silver, the gravity in her voice when, talking about Jack, says with little hope "Maybe he'll be lucky," and the intimate moment she shares with Tik Tok as she winds his thinking.

-I love the creepy bewilderment felt in the ornament room, Tik Tok's green tears, and the moment she hugs him.

-I love the restoration of Oz, when she tells the crowd they're the best friends anyone could have, and when they say they understand, I love the pure heartbreak in her voice as she asks "Do you?"

-I love and feel infinitely sad for Dorothy as she rushes to say goodbye to her friends, not able to fully do so as the screen turns white, then we see shots of the clouds, and finally the camera pulls back on Fairuza's gorgeous eye, already open, as her voice, filled with melancholy, murmurs a quiet "Goodbye."

-Finally, I love the final scene, as Dorothy sees Ozma in the mirror, her reflection, so she can finally live in both worlds, and finally she runs outside with Toto, and David Shire's score reaches its crescendo.

This is how RETURN TO OZ has touched me, and why it will always be one of my favorite films.

CITIZEN KANE: The Great American Film

Why would I ever write any kind of essay on CITIZEN KANE, a film that’s been analyzed to death and is considered to film what Shakespeare is considered to literature?  I actually have a good reason: in recent years, I’ve noticed more and more people seem to dislike the film, mostly because of its hype.  Supposedly Ingmar Bergman called it boring.  Now I happen to be a Bergman fan, but considering the dude made some pretty slow-paced movies, those are strong words!  I can understand why many might feel let down by the story.  The hype “Greatest Movie of All Time” implies that you are in for a great, sweeping GONE WITH THE WIND-style epic.  Instead it’s a smaller film about an unsavory character.  It also focuses a lot on the newspaper business, which may not seem very relevant to modern audiences.  My friend Zelda summed it up quite well:

“I think that at this point, the film is more appreciated by directors than it is by general audiences.  I know that what Orson Welles was doing with the camera, with angles, lighting, whatnot, was revolutionary - but I know this because I've been told this. As a plebian when it comes to such things, those aspects don't stand out for me as much, and I understand they're big factors in what make that movie a classic. Instead what I have is a puzzle of a story, which, while interesting, is not compelling emotionally enough for me to place it in my top films list.”

This is a fair point, so here is what I propose.  I will write a blog about Kane where I will not ONCE mention the technical breakthroughs of the film.  Forget about the cinematography, score, editing, etc.  I will simply analyze the film’s Story and why I feel that it is actually a very powerful and heartbreaking story.


[I'm not going to waste time summarizing the film.  I assume you know the story if you're reading this]
 
CITIZEN KANE can be summed up easily: it’s the story of a man who can never get over having been rejected by his mother and is incapable of feeling love. 

This point might only be fully clear on repeat viewings.  Mrs. Kane only has one scene in the movie, but we linger on her a bit, allowing her to dominate the scene.  After that she is only mentioned in passing.  Kane talks about her death on the same night that he meets Susan for the first time.  We never know exactly how Kane feels about her, and what exactly he is thinking when he tears the room apart is left to our imaginations, but we feel the weight of it.  We observe him cheat on one wife with the next and we’re not told why.  Yet when analyzing the facts, we do know why.  We also see him observe him alienate his friends.  On the surface this may seem to just be a petty drama, but only after we get the full story are we able to understand why this man so desperately needed to be loved.

Kane remains elusive; he is ultimately the protagonist of the Story, but he is always a mystery to us, and he is portrayed both positively and negatively.  This moral ambiguity applies to most of the supporting the characters as well.  If you notice, we remain on a last-name basis with almost every character in the film: Kane, Leland, Bernstein, Thatcher, and Thompson.  With Thompson it is taken a step further in that we never even see his face properly, making it clear that although we are following this reporter around, he is more a symbol than a character, and it is Kane’s story that should be our focus.  Developing the characters in this way makes them seem like regular people, occupying a story rather than starring in it.
 
Finally, there’s the issue of the ending.  Rosebud is obviously a MacGuffin and perhaps people were expecting some sort of big reveal.  The film has the confidence to end on a puzzle; Rosebud is revealed not in the style of a detective solving the case with a big “Aha!“ gimmick, but as a subtle artifact that rewards us for paying attention and makes us think about how it fits in.  Had the film ended in a different way, perhaps we wouldn’t be talking about it today, but the fact that only moments after Rosebud is revealed it is then destroyed are perhaps the saddest moments of the story and what have caused the tale to resonate.

I don’t think any film deserves the title “greatest ever made” because that’s obviously going to be subjective.  Here it is has perhaps done more harm than good.  If CITIZEN KANE were a novel, it would not be a great sweeping epic like War and Peace, which is perhaps what too many people expect.  It would be a very short and quiet novel.  It is about a person’s life, but it only observes it rather than embellishes it.  It is not a melodrama but a voyeuristic study.  At the end of the film, we see Kane’s entire lifetime reduced to boxes and boxes of scrap, and we are asked whether or not a man’s life can be summed up so simply.  Or maybe we know that such a collection of junk is all any of us will ever have.

"And That's For My Old Gaffer!"

Have you ever noticed how, in a film’s credits, the cinematographer is given a major billing while a gaffer is listed all the way near the bottom?  It made me realize that while most any cinematography-enthusiast in the world can easily tell you that the DP on APOCALYPSE NOW, one of the most visually interesting films ever made, was Vittorio Storaro, I don’t think any of them would know the name of the film’s gaffer!!  (Incidentally, it‘s Luciano Galli, who also gaffed LAST TANGO IN PARIS, and was a chief electrician on NOVECENTO).

I bring this up because in working on my new film HAVANA IN BUSHWICK, I’ve come to see the role a gaffer plays in a film‘s overall cinematography.  The use (or, in some cases, absence) of lighting plays such a key role in the shot composition and image clarity that, in truth, I feel that a camera operator and gaffer share equal importance in the role of Cinematographer.  And one thing a gaffer needs is breathing space to be his own artist!

I’ve always been open about the fact that I’m a writer more than I am a director and not really a visual stylist.  My first film, FIGHTING NIRVANA, is a very visually boring film.  Of course I want to improve and learn how to do everything, but I'm not there yet.  I just automatically tend to think of a script in terms of the story, not how to make it visually interesting.  My advice to any novice filmmaker out there is to give your crew semi-complete creative freedom in order for you to learn.  Of course, there are exceptions: your DP may not have talent worth shit and, without being given direction, will give you a film that looks like a badly-shot reality show (I‘ve been there).  But, assuming you have a crew with talent, as I would say for my team, give them room to shoot interestingly, make their own decisions, and experiment.  In a sense, they are actors too, and they are doing a little bit of improvising.

Both CITIZEN KANE and THE GODFATHER, two indisputable masterpieces, are notable in that their respective directors gave their cinematographers complete carte-blanche to do whatever they wanted.  Gordon Willis has claimed full authorship for the visual structure of THE GODFATHER TRILOGY, and Coppola confirmed this, saying the only creative input he had on the cinematography was just hiring Willis.  And Welles of course has cited his own ignorance in filmmaking as being what allowed him to discard conventions and do new things with Gregg Toland. 

In my own experience, you can have a film shoot where the director doesn’t get along with the cast, or with the producers, or with the composer, and still they somehow forge a masterpiece.  But the relationship between the director and the cinematographer MUST be good or a film will suffer.  And having a DP who will give you amazing shots, and a gaffer who’ll say “Hey, you know what, let me use a different color gel than I’ve used before” will strengthen your masterpiece all the more.  In the end, the quality of a film’s look is a reflection on its direction.

The Work of Jack Feldstein

For over a year now, I’ve been good friends with filmmaker Jack Feldstein, who I consider a true artist with integrity.  I first met Jack at a film festival where he mentioned he had a film playing that was a “neon animation.”  I had no idea what that meant, and so as I sat through the block of short films featuring his work.  Every time an animated film came on, I wondered if this was the “neon animation.”  Then, finally, when his film started, I had zero doubt in my mind that this was it.  You could not mistake the neon look!  The film was THE ECSTASY OF GARY GREEN, which tells a story about a young man who finds himself in the world.  The visuals of the film consisted of pre-existing bits of animation that had been manipulated and “diluted” to have a neon-sign look, and been put together to form a new narrative, narrated to us by a Woody Allen-esque stream-of-conscious voice (Jack himself) that gives the whole film a “free-flowing” feel.  I interpreted the film as being a celebration of life, but underneath all that, a celebration of animation.  Since then, I have seen several of Jack’s films and I recommend them to everyone. 

Of the ones that are narrated by Jack himself, these are the essentials:
    -THE ECSTASY OF GARY GREEN
    -A WONDROUS FILM ABOUT EMMA BROOKS
    -THE LOSER WHO WON
    -RESCUING OEDIPUS REX
    -THE FANTASTICAL WORLD OF SCRIPTWRITING

Of those featuring voice-work by other actors, these are my favorite
    -HOW TO BE ROMANTIC IN NEW YORK
    -MANAHATTA

Jack doesn’t need me to promote his work; he has played in festivals all over the world, especially in his native Australia, and here in New York he’s been screened at different film forums at the Bowery Poetry Club, Millennium Workshop, and FilmWax.  He’s also a playwright and does a lot of videos for the fashion world.

It was Jack who helped develop The Subway Film Series and brought it to my attention.  While I made Q TO THE 6 TRAIN, based on a poem by Cheryl Dumesnil, he made SUBWAY SERVICES, based on a poem by Philip Dacey.  What an honor that one year after we meet, we are standing on stage together, having our films play side-by-side!  There are so many short films out there, but I find the collective neon animations of Jack Feldstein to be among my favorites.  Jack has invented a new language of cinema, and that takes talent!

Looking At Cinema As Art

Most of us have an art that we connect the most to.  For example, while I may enjoy listening to poetry and looking at paintings, I have to admit I’m not someone who spends his free time going to poetry readings or new museum exhibits.  Now I know a lot of people who love going to museums and make it a regular hobby.  That’s fine; I’m just not someone who connects with that art-form as much or can explain what I like or dislike about it.  On the other hand, I absolutely love to go to a block of short films!  Living in New York and knowing of different film forums, I am happy to spend two hours just sitting back and watching eight short films, followed by Q&A’s given by the filmmakers.  And I realize this doesn’t appeal to everyone.  Some people just go to the movies as simple distraction and have no interest in this artistic element.  But to me, film was always my dominant interest. 

It really is amazing to think how young this art is and how it came about.  Prior to the birth of Cinema, you had the art of Photography and the art of Theatre, which were two very separate art forms, but had both existed for centuries.  And suddenly, they were fused together.  And by editing images together, you could manipulate the impression of sequences occurring in a narrative.  Audiences were initially just satisfied to see anything be filmed, but before long, Cinema became a storytelling device, which says a lot about the human condition.  Consider the fact that cinema is a combination of several other art forms, in particular:

    -Storytelling, which has obviously existed for centuries,

    -Cinematography, which follows the principals of Photography

    -Acting, which overlaps with the theatre, but is slightly different.

    -Musical Score, a humongous part of experience, which sadly many amateur filmmakers ignore.

    -Costumes, Set Design, etc

    -Editing, which is an original creation and only exists within the greater art of Cinema.

Of course now we begin to split hairs over what art is.  Does Sound Mixing count as an art?  You might not think so, yet it’s one of the most vital things in the film; a movie that looks great but has horrible sound will be a failure, while a film that’s shot horribly but has clear audio will still hold an audience’s attention.  So perhaps the answer is that the art is only in the final product and what the film itself has to say.  And in that case, I do believe that it all comes down to Story. 

Consider the television production I, CLAUDIUS, which is generally regarded as a masterpiece and the single finest of BBC productions.  The low budget shows as the scenes are cheaply shot and almost every single scene is just dialog.  There’s not a single sweeping shot of Rome.  Yet the story still feels epic, because our minds are engrossed in the sweep of the story and fill in the gaps on their own.  The bottom-line is this: no one may ever talk about the shot composition, sound mixing, or even the directing of I, CLAUDIUS, but you can bet they talk about the writing and the acting!  Because when film conveys a story properly, then it succeeds!

That’s why all that really matters is what’s up on the screen.  THERE WILL BE BLOOD, for example, is a great movie not because of what went on on set, what time the call sheets went out, what kind of catering they had for the crew, if the gaffer was union or not, how much the actors were paid, or how many production assistants got up at 5AM.  It’s a great movie because of what we see on the screen.  The combination of visuals, performances, music, and, of course, writing, all come together to offer a Storytelling experience that is very effective.

And sometimes, only at special screenings or film forums do you see filmmaking at its most raw and get that experience of art!