December 31, 2021

My husband's parents have a hot tub, and it's snowed here in Gig Harbor. So hot tubbing feels like some kind of winter alpine resort. And the tub has little roving rainbow lights under the water that light up the bubbles in blue, green, and turquoise. What a nice time. 

I remembered that I wanted to talk about how we went to a Christmas Eve service at my husband's parents' church. It's one of those big-ish churches, used to be Presbyterian but split from that denomination because it felt that the Presbyterians had gotten too liberal. Toooooo liberal. It has gotten rid of a choir in favor of a worship band. With LED spotlights of changeable colors.  Middle-aged musicians singing with their hands raised. It's Christmas, though, and I was excited about the various bangers: O! Holy Night!, Silent Night, the Hallelujah Chorus, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.  We've been drinking all week, so we all had beers before we went. I had a weed gummy. The congregation was packed. Barely anyone had masks on. I sang my face off and enjoyed the whole thing thoroughly. Although, I expect the fact that church no longer rankles me the way it used to is a sign of me being further from that culture, not closer. I don't feel so threatened anymore by what they expect from people inside of Christianity. Instead, it feels like I get to be a tourist in an eccentric environment. One where you get to sing badly and around other people -- delightful. Where people talk about a fantasy land where you go after you die. Of a creator who's got great plans for your life but suffers from some kind of communication problem when it comes to relaying those plans. Mysterious. Where they teach that men need to run households, but half the congregation is definitely run by women, and no one bats an eye. Where you can get drunk and high and end up looking passionate and pious, singing mangled contemporized versions of classic Christmas songs that -- being perfect -- have lasted hundreds of years and will last hundreds of years more, no matter how silly we've rendered them in 2021. 

December 30, 2021

The other night, my husband and I went over to our friends Jay and Bella's house. He works at a cabinet factory that employs mainly ex-cons, and she's a professional pianist. She talked about how, when they first moved to Gig Harbor from Minnesota, she was so desperate to make friends that she looked up the pianists she could find in the area. Professors at Universities and things like that. She cold emailed them, introducing herself and asking if they wanted to be friends. Four out of four coffee dates went well. One of the people is now like her best friend, and the other three all got her jobs. She also went into a board game store on the day it was going out of business. She exchanged phone numbers with the owner of the store and told him she and her husband would be down on any given game night. A couple of weeks later, the owner's wife texted her back and invited them. Now they all four hang out all the time. 

Yesterday, my husband, sister-in-law, and her husband all drove around trying to find a covid test. Annie, who I'm spending new years eve with, wanted me to get tested first. A reasonable request. However, places are like out of tests. No walk-ups available. Only by appointment. No appointments available. Also it's snowed here, and it almost never snows here. So places are shut because of the snow as well. We drove all over town looking for a place. We finally went to a med clinic that gave out take-home tests. (Similar to a pregnancy test.) We all four took our tests in the car. I'm not sure we fully appreciated the gravity and lack of privacy of the situation. What if someone's came back positive? But they all came back negative. Only a solitary blue line. We all burst into cheers and song as we revealed our results together. Bumping the car up and down with our dancing. Weird. 

Blog Time! 

**SPOLERS**

Keefe, Patrick Radden – EMPIRE OF PAIN

Published: 2021

Read: 12/2021

This was a family history of the Sackler family, the owners of the private company Purdue Pharma who made and marketed Oxycontin. Unlike other wealthy business families (Ford, JP Morgan, etc.), the Sacklers have always gone out of their way to distance the family name from the family business. They use the business – an aggressive marketing campaign convincing doctors of the safety and necessity of OxyContin – as a cash cow, and then donate lots of money to art galleries and universities, insisting on various naming rights. When Purdue Pharma eventually caught some public flack for their part in the opioid epidemic, the Sacklers put three non-Sacklers forward to plead guilty. The sentences were lessened based on the family’s connections at the FDA and the justice department.  By the end of the book (and pretty close to present day), Purdue Pharma had filed for bankruptcy and found themselves a sympathetic judge. The family has taken billions of dollars out of the company, and it looks like they’re going to be able to keep it all. Activitists, including photographer Nan Goldin, have been on the forefront of exposing the Sackler name. Getting museums and universities to stop taking money from them. To, where they can, remove the Sackler name from their walls. It seems like the Sacklers will leave the situation with their money in tact, but they will lose their good name. 

I wasn’t totally in the zone for this book. It was well reported and written, and it’s about a scandal of way bigger proportion than the college admissions scandal. But I didn’t feel all the way in it. A lot of distractions going on in the couple of weeks I was listening to the audio book. (Patrick Radden Keefe himself reads it, which is nice.) It’s odd to be learning about a societal/historical trend that has personally impacted people I know. Two of my cousins got hooked on opioids because of OxyContin. (At least one of them still is.) My cousin Ben had it prescribed after an elbow surgery he got as a college-level pitcher. I think/hope he’s doing better now, but there was a time when my aunt said, “We’re preparing ourselves for the call that says he’s wound up dead. We just can’t assume that’s not going to happen.” He was stealing money from my grandpa to buy… I’m not sure – pills? Heroin? The whole shebang. My other cousin won’t play sports anymore because he can’t afford the injury, and the pain killers, that might come along with that. Both cousins are basically super athletes. Sports have more or less defined their whole lives. 

I talked to my mom about the book, and she rattled off a whole list of people in her community who are hooked to opioids. People who’ve had multiple back surgeries or experience chronic pain. It’s terrifying. It seems like quicksand in the boardgame of life. Like in the real boardgame there are all these potential highs and lows you can role – and there are a lot a lot of possible lows. This company, Purdue Pharma – this family, the Sacklers, -- plopped a big sink of quicksand right in the middle of the board. Close to: injury, loneliness, pain. And a shit ton of people fell into it. Are still falling into it. Will fall into it in the future. 

Rating: ★★★

 

December 26, 2021

Trying to get back into writing a little post everyday. This next year I'm going to need to up/maintain my writing game. Let's make this a career, baby! Today, I have a MLog. 

**SPOILERS**

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
2021
Directed by: Lana Wachowski
Written by: Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, Aleksander Hemon
Watched: 12/23/21
Matrix Resurrections came out almost twenty years after the original Matrix trilogy. Neo and Trinity are back in the Matrix, contained in special pods. Neo – Thomas Anderson – is a game writer/developer for “The Matrix.” Agent Smith (now played by Jonathan Groff) is Neo’s business partner. We find out that Morpheus (now played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) was originally an agent who can appear in the real world by using a swarm of nanobots. Trinity’s got a husband and children. Her name in this new Matrix is Tiffany. Neo and Trinity see each other in a coffee shop they both frequent. They’re drawn to each other, but Tiffany’s life – her husband and sons – get in the way. (Although honestly not that much.) Zion is gone, but the humans have established a new home with the help of sentients called Io. They’ve been growing real strawberries by reverse engineering the Matrix to create actual DNA. Niobe, the leader, doesn’t want the team rescuing Trinity (after they’ve gotten Neo out) because she doesn’t want to risk Io, to risk her strawberries. They go anyway, and they get Trinity out. Smith comes to help them, for some reason. And Trinity picks the blue pill. Together, Neo and Trinity can fly – whereas Neo couldn’t on his own. The One is really the Two. 
I liked early on in the film, when the game designers of The Matrix were discussing what was needed for “The Matrix 4.” There were also all these sequences that were layered over the previous three movies, either by cutting back to previous footage or, at one point, projecting the footage from the previous movies over the action taking place by the current actors. As soon as the actual storyline kicked in – them having to save Trinity – it got less interesting. That part felt perfunctory, like somebody had said – well, we need an actual story here somewhere. But the story wasn’t very good, and the analyst – the big bad – didn’t really do anything bad that I can remember, and Smith switches sides for no discernable reason. There’s a quote I liked: “The key to it all? You and her. Quietly yearning for what you don’t have…while dreading losing what you do.” The analyst is explaining, there, how he’s kept Neo and Trinity contained (stuck) in the Matrix. I thought it was a good description of how I feel a lot of the time. An equally powerful yearning and fear, creating a deadlock. 
There’s a good article about it in the Hidustan Times: “In a fabulous scene (the film’s best scenes revolve around ideas and dialogue; the action is lacklustre), the Analyst tells Neo how in the latest matrix, the machines deliberately trigger human minds to keep them in a perpetual loop of fear and desire so as to make them produce more energy.” Social media. Here it is again, “He says that “zero resistance” is the best part and that for 99% of humanity, the definition of reality is “quietly yearning for what you don't have, while dreading losing what you do”. And a little bit more (I really like this article ) “The Analyst is talking about our continuous desire to escape power structures (capitalism, patriarchy, caste system, so on) while benefitting from the same structures.” 
The interesting parts were interesting! The parts that were trying to make it a big sci-fi blockbuster like people want and expect fell flat. Giving it a score in the middle. 
 Rating: ★★★

December 18, 2021

I'm writing this several days after the fact, so I don't remember the last day I was on production as well as I would have. The line producer had Asher and all the actors sign the title page of my script for me in kind of yearbook-y way. Tyrese Gibson misunderstood the assignment, as it were, and thought it was my birthday. So everybody wished me a happy birthday. 

I got to say bye and thanks to the actors and all the people on the crew. When I left, Asher called a wrap on me and everybody clapped. It was sad driving the hour from Santa Fe to Albuquerque, during sunset. I know there's no guarantee that I'll get to do something like that again. I think the best thing is to just work for a follow-up opportunity. Try to take the SMC Film series to maybe shoot my own short film. Maybe do an MFA in filmmaking. Just keep writing scripts and asking to be on set. Maybe doing a play in my living room with friends. 

Here are some photos: 

December 17, 2021

Yesterday was better. I'm not pissed at that crew member anymore. I can't remember if I already said this, but in my experience, fights and agitations run way higher in production crews than in other jobs, but the agitations are forgotten and worked through really quickly. Lots of times it's forgotten by the next day. You spend all this time together, everybody's tired, but in the end you still have to work closely together to get the project done, so you move past it. I don't mind that at all. 

We shot the action set piece yesterday. It took nearly the whole time. I've started hanging out with the two guys in the sound department, because they don't have to spend much time setting up (as opposed to camera and electric, which takes ages). My strategy was to hold very still, paying attention in case I could help with anything, and try to exude moral support. 

I'm leaving on the evening of the 19th, so yesterday was going to be my second-to-last production day, but this "morning" (2:30pm when I woke up) we found out that today is our day off. So I'm chilling, trying to run around and see stuff before they close. I'll get to go to some/most of Day 6 of shooting, but I'll leave to go to Albuquerque part-way through. It would be nice to stay for the whole shoot (although, it's really really long hours), but I'm glad I'll be going home to help Mitch drive to Seattle. 

December 16, 2021

Some thoughts on Santa Fe. The water tastes good. Everything is ten minutes away from everything else. The buildings have these cool exposed logs holding up the ceiling. Everybody seems pretty nice. A tenth of the people drive really slow. It's fantastic. 

I went straight to bed after coming back to the hotel last night (I called it "home" at first), and it was 5AM when I got into bed. I've been trying to keep myself in the best shape possible, health- and emotion-wise. I've been making a point of eating fruit and fiber, trying to keep regular. That can be such a hang up when traveling to a new place. I've been writing about my experience, here, kind of like a diary. I've been -- crucially, crucially -- using the elliptical machine in the hotel for thirty minuets each "morning." The first time I did it, I felt great afterwards. I was like "I pity the soul who's not doing a half hour of elliptical every morning on this shoot." Two things: 1) I am able to leave earlier than most of the crew (who has to pack up gear). Plus there's people in the production department who have to figure out things like call sheets and stuff for the next day who are working way past when we wrap. And 2) Sorry to say the half hour on the elliptical is not the silver bullet I hoped it would be. I am tired. 

I've been bopping back and forth between seeing everyone on the crew as supremely attractive, talented, and amazing -- a marvel to behold! -- and seeing everyone as annoyingly egoistic, inefficient, insufficiently committed to the project.  On day four of shooting it was a lot more of the latter. (Of course, ideally I just start seeing everyone as regular coworkers, i.e. mostly boring, but there's something intense and fizzy about being on set. Like we're all going on a study-abroad trip together or joining a cult.) In general in my life, I feel like I'm more interested in people than ever and also more annoyed by them. 

Yesterday, one of the crew members threatened to walk off set in the middle of a take. They slammed their laptop lid shut and walked right through the shot. They have been shit talking the director the whole time, and actually said they were going to walk off set within hours of the first day. I've been around this crew member the most so far on the set. We're friends-ish, or as much as you can be having only met each other this week. They know that this project means a lot to me. They walked off because they want the director to be nicer to them, to listen more to their suggestions. Fair. Fine. The director has been treating this person with the same manic directness as he has with everyone else, including the DP and AD, so it's not a hierarchy thing. Anyway, when the crew member walked off like that, I felt instant rage. The AD went to talk to them, then the director. They came back after a couple of shots. But I couldn't look at them. I went outside in the cold and paced. When I talked to the director, ironically he was more blasé about their behavior. Defending them, telling me not to worry, that he had sorted things out. I'm trying to goldfish it today, start fresh. But like, how do you make the whole production about you? (I'm saying to that person in my head.) I'm probably not giving them a fair enough shake. The complexities are not really fitting in my head at this point. But I'm curious to see whether this person shows up to set today. If they do, I'm going really try to let it go. If the director can, then I should be able to. If this person doesn't, then fuck them forever. Probably. 

Okay yikes Amy. Pull it together. 

Oh, post script -- we've got enough in the can that I'm starting to feel more confident about the project. The scenes yesterday looked really good. The camera and electric department people are champs, and the actors -- especially Emile -- have been putting in great work. I'm impressed by them. 

December 15, 2021

I was relieved yesterday to hear that one of the actors had notes. He's the black actor in our cast, and he's playing Henry, who arrives with lots of weaponry and causes chaos. He's like the 60 minute substitution in soccer, only in the story his job is to make everything lots worse. The director wanted to Sam L Jackson-ify him in a Tarantino way. Anyhow, it's a negative stereotype -- the big black scary criminal -- and now we need to remedy that somehow. The issue is that his whole raison d'etre is to be a big scary guy -- I always wanted him to be white. The casting is the trouble. Of course it's too late to change that now. But anyway, I'm sure I'll be working on that more today. (12/16) 

Yesterday, we did our random other locations around town. I sat in a fancy hotel lobby and worked on rewrites. The director told me in the morning that I'd be playing the fan (Cheryl) in the flashback scene. I don't think he remembered how many lines she has. Anyways, whenever I try to act in stuff I'm always pretty wooden/frozen/bad. But I wanted to take a run at it anyways. I memorized the lines during the day. I got hair and makeup done -- wow! I didn't tell Ricky, the makeup assistant, but it was the first time I had ever worn liquid eye liner. 

The scene itself, which we did over and over again for hours, felt like it went well. The nice thing about doing it with real actors was it was easy to feel like it was really happening. I didn't feel self conscious about the camera or about the people watching. I felt in the moment. It was kind of like how I can slip into a zone when I'm playing with my nephew. There's a way to dial into the make-believe of whatever's going on and just role with it. I hope I don't feel too embarrassed when I watch it on screen. Maybe it'll get cut and I won't have to worry about it. 

Oh, adding -- my scene had a stunt-ish component. Leila comes at me and pushes me out of frame. It was super fun to do. Annabelle is smaller than me by enough that I always felt in control. I also had the stunt coordinator behind me, steadying me when I finished. It was exciting but still felt safe. Great fun, and Annabelle is a queen. She's awesome. 

December 14, 2021

Yesterday was Day 2 of production. We shot some of the big dinner scenes with all six main cast members. The day didn't feel as good as Day 1. Part of it probably was that video village, where I sit, was farther away from set. (Too far, really.) And they only have headphones for the dialogue for the director and script supervisor, so I was watching it but couldn't hear what was going on. But it seemed like the scenes weren't really clicking. And the shots all looked flatter than Day 1, not as well produced. It was day 2 out of a 10 day shoot in New Mexico, so we're having to go really fast. Details, continuity stuff, is being brushed off. It's probably necessary to get our shots, but it's disheartening and also frustrating some of the crew. I'm not having a lot of obvious work to do on set, but I was thinking about how I'm the person who this movie means the most to. The Director and the DP have shot at least two other movies this year. For the rest of the crew, this is at some level just a job. I think my role going forward might be to try to smooth relationships, to thank crew if the director doesn't seem to be acknowledging their work, and to just be the person on set who this really matters to. Maybe that will help the work feel more meaningful for everybody, even when it seems like we're rushing. 

I'm nervous how it will turn out. They cast a black man in the role of Henry, which I would have avoided, because he's a character with a criminal past and comes in with a gun etc etc.  It had always seemed pretty important to me that that character be played by a big scary white guy. But then again, the guy playing Adam keeps making his character more and more slimy, just more and more awful. To the point where I think everyone in this movie is going to look good compared to him. (Bless Emile, really.) 

I want the movie to be coherent. I want it to be fun. I want it to feel like the people who made it cared about what they were doing. I don't have much pull at all on set and yet I have as much pull -- in some ways -- as the director does. I'm the writer flown in from LA, and so far people seem to respect that more than I expected. I need them, and I appreciate them, and I hope I'm able to communicate that to them in a way that's not too cringey. 

December 13, 2021

Yesterday was the first day of production for Helen's Dead. I hung out with the script supervisor and the director all day. The shots looked surprisingly good. Surprising in how tonally dark and moody they are. The night shots are beautiful. They pumped the house full of atmosphere for no reason (story-wise), but it looked really really cool. Asher's been letting me be super involved and has been giving me a lot of credit. I really appreciate it. And I feel extreme gratitude towards everyone there. It's amazing to be on a team where everyone has an essential and different job. The actors have been really friendly and chill too. I'm so impressed with what they're able to do. 

This is @AngryBrownCarvr i found her script on @franklinleonard blcklist data base five months ago and now we are on set for day one of “Helen’s Dead.” We will announce all our amazing actors and distributor soon. In 2007 you launched my career and now you launched Amy’s! pic.twitter.com/CeVu6jQETf

— ASHER_LEVIN (@asherlevin) December 13, 2021

December 12, 2021

 I ran out of steam and didn’t write a log last night after my day 3. The big event was that most of the actors arrived for rehearsals. Everyone is more beautiful in person. It was kind of excruciating to hear them read what I wrote. They were great at it, but it was the most exposed I’ve felt in this whole process. The director and I met with a couple of them for line changes/suggestions. The process was fun but mind-numbing. A lot to take in. It seems like the general strategy is to tell the actors they’re right and brilliant all the time. It’s… fine? But not really my style. I get that doing what they do takes a lot of confidence and vulnerability. It might be kind of like receiving notes on an idea when it’s early on. It only hurts even though the person might be right. 

Another day has passed. I haven’t gotten in a rhythm with blogging and being on set. I wanted to add about this day that I have been updating the script to match the actual locations in the house. I’ve been sending the drafts to production, but of course they’re getting one million emails. The sides – from my script – that they sent out didn’t match the schedule. (Scenes numbers had changed because locations in the house had changed.) I went from feeling really great to really awful. I apologized to the AD the next morning and she said it was all good. (She was convincing about it.) I felt a bit better. I guess I’m just saying my feelings are precarious. It’s been like the best experience ever, but when I feel like I mess up it’s devastating. 

December 11, 2021

First full day in Santa Fe! I got myself out of bed around 9am. Went downtown to get a breakfast burrito, walked around old Santa Fe, went to a coffee shop, bought a book, worked on my SMC Film 31 Final, went to Sprouts for tea, apples, and lotion, went back to the hotel and got a call from our first AD. From then until a couple of minutes ago (10:30pm), I was at the main location. I was worried about not having enough to do, just being a useless awkward bystander, but I got the lowdown from the director on which scenes we were shooting in which rooms. I did an updated version of the script -- to reflect the actual locations in the scene names and other changes -- and then I pulled a map of the location and put in the names from the script and sent it around. Everyone acted very impressed and said it was very helpful. My biggest concern yesterday was that I wouldn't fit in and I wouldn't be helpful. I was able to warm up to everybody a lot more today, and I've already been able to help. I'm feeling much more confident that that will continue! Fingers crossed. 

December 10, 2021

Man, it's felt like forever since I blogged, but it turns out it was just the other day. Well, October I mean. 

I'm in Santa Fe for production on Helen's Dead! I'm staying by myself in a hotel room for ten days -- a first, I don't think I've stayed in the same hotel for ten straight days period -- so to keep me company, I'm going to keep a production blog. 

I got flown out here by production this morning. It was a tiny little plane from LAX to Albuquerque. The two leads from the movie were on my flight (although I only recognized one of them). Production also got my rental car. It was under Hertz gold members, and my name was just on a board next to the car number. The paperwork and everything was already inside, so I just got in and drove it away. They never checked my drivers license or anything. The two leads got picked up by a man with a sign with their names on it who then drove them to the COVID testing place and Santa Fe. I was grateful to get my own car, to have my own autonomy, to drive myself, to not have the pressure to talk to someone else. 

I got on set and talked through the script with the first AD. She seems great, although I'm worried about being too clingy with her. I should have introduced myself to people right away... I think there's still time... but I went in kind of shy. It's important for me to keep mostly out of the way, so shyness isn't the biggest sin, but I do want to meet people and learn things. Anyway, seeing all these people together to actually make the thing I wrote was like a mental orgasm. They had read my script! They were talking about the various characters! I think I'll get used to that pretty fast though. The script will just become the script, the thing we're working on, the reference point. It won't register as having much to do with me. Maybe. 

October 12, 2021

Thinking about how it's still tempting, from time to time, to throw a toddler tantrum in Target, by which I mean just emotionally throwing myself on the floor and making people deal with me. Refusing to walk anymore, to go to work, to try to keep myself stable and happy, to feel good about things. I want to let things absolutely go to hell. To be a terrible flaming spectacle. Unfortunately and fortunately, the destructive passion doesn't last long enough to forever stave off its after effects: consequences, embarrassment, shame,  the bewildering sensation of wonder what I had been so worked up about. Didn't I know it was all going to be fine? 

It's tempting to still want a parent/child relationship. A person in my life to be my mother, like my mother was when I was a baby: totally in charge of me, responsible for me, consumed by me. Obviously, no one's actually going to do this for me, and it would be unhealthy (and ridiculous) if they did. My own mother loves me and I'm sure thinks about me some of the time, but I am far from her daily most pressing concern. She's got projects to do. She's moved on. 

Oh boy. 

Mlog Time! 

TITANE

2021

Directed by: Julia Ducournau

Written by: Julia Ducournau

Watched: 10/7/21

Alexia as a child doesn’t get along with her father. She hums to the sound of the car while he drives and listens to music. He turns up the volume to drown her out. She gets louder and then starts kicking the back of his seat. When she unbuckles her seatbelt and starts climbing around, she causes a car crash. She has to get a titanium plate in her skull. As an adult, she dances at car shows and is a serial killer. She kills people who are attracted to her and meet up for sex or romance. She has a tattoo between her breasts that says “Love is a dog from hell.” She locks her parents in their room and sets the house on fire. On the run, she disguises her appearance – breaking her nose and cutting her hair, wearing an oversized sweatshirt so she looks like a boy. She’s picked up at the train station by a man who’s been missing his son since he was little. The man says he recognizes Alexia as his son. Oh! I forgot. Alexia has sex with a car and is now pregnant. Anyway, the man takes Alexia back with him to live at the fire station where he lives and works. We slowly realize that the man’s son died as a child. There’s no way he can continue to misidentify Alexia – with her pregnant belly barely concealed and the huge scar above her ear. But instead of killing him, or anybody, she stays. She takes on the role of his son. They both find the love they’re looking for. In the end, he delivers her car baby. She dies, having told him her name, but the child survives. 

I liked this movie. Saw it in theaters as a matinee along with three other people (one of whom walked out thirty minutes in). I had high expectations because of how thoroughly Raw blew me away. This movie was extreme, but it didn’t have the same tightness and narrative coherency that Raw had. The serial killer thing is the part that threw me off. That plus how suddenly we shifted into this other thing – this her being mistaken for a boy. It was jarring and then we left the serial killing behind (which had also been jarring). Plus the car sex/baby thing, which I was on board with. But it’s a lot to take on board all together. Plus the car accident/plate in her head thing. It didn’t seem to really connect to the other stuff, other than head injuries being common in people who end up being serial killers, and maybe the connection that since she’s part metal, she can make a baby with a car? The actors who played Alexia and Vincent (the man who’s lost his son) were fantastic. 

I’m glad to have watched it. Rooting hard for Ducournau in general. 

Rating: ★★★

October 11, 2021

Drank too much this weekend, meaning a few alcoholic beverages a day. My body doesn't like it after awhile. It's made me a little irritable today. Also, if I've had a few drinks, I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and have a hard time getting back to sleep. 

Things have been getting away from me a little bit. It was easier, during quarantine, to stick to a schedule. With more of the full craziness of life kicking back in, it's gotten harder to manage. I want things to be better regulated for myself, but I also want things to tilt into full chaos mode. Newness. Adventures every day. Living by the seat of my pants. I don't think it's burnout exactly. I still want to write my scripts. Make things. Stay on top of it. But I also want to... not. 

Mlog time! 

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

2015

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Written by: Quentin Tarantino

Watched: 10/3/21

Two bounty hunters meet up ahead of a blizzard in rural Wyoming. Major Marquis Warren’s horse has died and he’s trying to take his three dead bounties into town. John Ruth has hired a private stagecoach and is taking his bounty, Daisy Domergue, into town alive. They plan on stopping at Minnie’s Lodge on the way in, as they won’t make it all the way to town before the blizzard. They also pick up Chris Mannix, a south-supporter, who will die if he doesn’t get a ride. When the four arrive at Minnie’s, Minnie and her husband Sweet Dave aren’t there. A Mexican is running the place for them while they’re gone, which Major Marquis finds suspicious. There’s an old southern general there, a man who claims he’s on his way to see his mother, and the hangman for the nearest town. There’s strife over the north/south divide, this being very near the Civil War. (1877 says Wikipedia) Marquis, a black man, manages to rile the General enough to get him to pull a trigger on him, so Marquis can kill him. This particular general killed a lot of black soldiers instead of taking them as prisoners of war. 

Then somebody poisons the coffee. John Ruth and the stage coach driver both die. Marquis and Mannix have to work together (both of them nearly drank the coffee) to figure out who the poisoner is. They figure whoever that is is working with Daisy to try to free her. It turns out everybody is working with Daisy. They’re all part of her gang, and they killed Minnie and sweet Dave and set everything up. They didn’t figure on the two extra men arriving with John Ruth. Marquis and Mannix prevail in the end. Sort of. They’ve both been shot and are going to die, but they manage to kill all the gang members and hang Daisy. 

The movie was pretty good. The n word is in it a lot, which was tough. But it was nice that, for all the times Daisy got hit in the face (or her toe shot off), there wasn’t once where sexual violence was threatened or insinuated. That was straight up refreshing. The wide snowy vistas were incredible. When the poisoning of the coffee happens, it’s not shown (the general/Marquis shooting is going on instead). Quentin Tarantino himself just comes on in voice over, explaining that someone poisoned the coffee and only Daisy saw whoever it was. This interjection works like a charm. It’s exciting, probably more exciting than if we were to see a mysterious hand poison the coffee. But also – for fuck sake. All these screenwriting books and classes giving people all these rules. “Show not tell” etc. When you look at actual movies, there are elements that are all over the place. I won’t write and expository VO for the director anytime soon, but it underscores for me how you can get away with a lot as long as you just do it with confidence. 

Rating: ★★★

October 7, 2021

I'm taking Intro to Filmmaking at SMC. I love SMC. So cheap. Such quality instruction. Such good access to resources and equipment. It's likely the youngest class I've been a part of (especially compared to my age). The students seem really sweet and friendly. I think several might be on their first semester at SMC and are looking to meet friends. We had a long protracted break during this week's class. (It had to do with an assessment situation.) And I ended up talking with a group of my classmates for an hour. It was enjoyable, but I felt vaguely dissociated. Like I was there but not in the normal way I am when I hang out with a group. I'm conscious that everyone else is at a different place in their lives, and I feel like I can watch on from a far in addition to being a part of the conversation. I hope it's not making me sad. 

BLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

Vedantam, Shankar – THE HIDDEN BRAIN

Published: 2010

Read: 09/2021

I thought this book was published more recently. There was a que for it at the library. It being published in 2010 might explain why they didn’t have Vedantam himself read it. Instead, Steve West narrates. He’s a white English guy, and it’s weird when he gets to parts saying things like, “As someone born in India....” Vedantam has a great voice – I’ve heard it on the podcast! Hopefully, he reads his own book next time. 

Hidden Brain is about the work our unconscious brains are doing without our rational/cognitive brains being aware of it. Examples include, racial and gender bias, the tendency to form consensus in large groups in times of emergency, plus some other ones. I probably waited too long between finishing the book and writing this post, to be honest. All of the content was interesting, but I started to think of it as The Book of Bad News. The Undoing Project also covers a lot of this stuff—the stuff we’re missing because our cognitive mind doesn’t catch it. It’s depressing to think that our attitude towards certain people – our biases – are out of reach of our general intentions. The Hidden Brain, the unconscious mind, learns through experience and repetition. That’s somewhat manageable. I think Vedantam’s point across the board isn’t that we should all be depressed, but that we should acknowledge the influence of the hidden brain and work to find solutions that encompass it. 

Rating: ★★★

Rooney, Sally – NORMAL PEOPLE

Published: 2018

Read: 10/2021

Normal People is about Connell and Marianne, high schoolers at the beginning of the novel and just out of college by the end. They’re from a predominantly working-class part of Ireland, although Marianne’s family is rich. Connell’s mom cleans Marianne’s house. Connell’s athletic and popular at school, even though he’s laconic. Marianne is an outcast because she’s weird, overly intelligent, and doesn’t care what people think. The two start sleeping together, but they keep it a secret because Connell, especially, is worried what his friends might think. They both go to Trinity College in Dublin on scholarship. (They’re both highly intelligent and good students.) This time, Marianne is in her element and Connell is out of it. Connell has never really thought about his personality. At home, everyone knows who he is and his personality seems outside of himself, something assigned to him by other people. Now he has the challenge of making friends and fitting in with a much more urbane and well-off group of people. He doesn’t feel he can fit in and feels he doesn’t fit in with his old school friends either. He falls into a depression. Marianne deals with familial trauma by getting into sexually abusive relationships. Marianne and Connell occupy different rolls in one another’s lives, sometimes intimate and sometimes not. 

This book was literature. Insightful descriptions capturing the stuff of life. A close look into two characters. Compelling without needing to add any zombies. I kept thinking of Anna Karenina at the end. It’s a much shorter, less complicated, novel than Tolstoy, but it has the same vibrancy. In tone and topic, it also reminded me of Lena Dunham’s Girls. Although obviously that’s a TV show. In the reviews I’m reading of it, it’s often tagged as a millennial novel. That’s fair, I guess. It’s lovely and a little odd to have something that seems resonant with my own time and experience presented so beautifully. 

Good stuff. 

Rating: ★★★★

October 6, 2021

I've found lately that there's a benefit in listening. It's worrying to leave that realization to this late in my life. (34 isn't so old but it also is a lot of years for me to be bloviating on and on.) I'm a decent listener in one-to-one conversation if the other person has my same verbal inclination. What I'm realizing is that in both group and one-to-one settings, you can get a lot more out of people if you sustain listening and allow pauses/silences. Some people are just a bit slower or shyer in formulating their thoughts, but they will speak up if you just listen and wait. Louis Theroux takes advantage of that in his interviews. He'll leave a big gap, a big silence, and people's instinct is to fill it. 

I don't know what the impulse is inside me to get the thoughts from the inside of my head to outside in the world, but it seems to be a bit quieter lately. I've got a counter impulse going that says, "Hold on. Wait. See what happens." It feels powerful, nice. 

I think it's fairly good experiential evidence that when you act differently towards the world, your experience of the world changes. It seems worthwhile to switch up one's behavior from time to time just to see what happens. 

Blog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

 Margolyes, Miriam – THIS MUCH IS TRUE

Published: 2021

Read: 9/2021

I know Miriam Margolyes as Aunt Prudence from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, but she’s also the nurse in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliette and Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films. She came on radar as a personality when I listened to her episode of Louis Theroux’s Grounded podcast. She’s energetic, filthy, honest. This Much Is True is her memoir. I listened to the audiobook, which I highly recommend. Margolyes is a voice actor and has about a hundred different accents she can do. She talks about her Jewish parents, her social-climbing mother and her reserved Scottish father. She talks about her skilled ability at sucking people off. She’s a lesbian and says she doesn’t feel groinally about men, but she likes making people feel good. Several of her stories – like being stuck on a fishing boat and having the fisherman pull his dick out – would have scared me for life, I think. But she seems to get through them with her willingness to give out a hand job and a kind of determined naivety. She says of that occasion, “Well, I didn’t want to get raped.” A decent survival technique to be sure, but still kind of awful. I’m glad she doesn’t seem to feel too weighed down by it. 

She also talks about her partner, Heather, and the time she had an affair with a professor at Colorado College. (“I won’t fuck anyone without a PhD.”) About the houses she owns. About the life she’s built for herself. I will say, that the only drawback for me in reading this kind of book is I can get sad that I don’t have a bunch of famous friends, that I haven’t worked on projects with international success. There’s no point in comparing myself to other people; it takes a toll on the ol’ mental health. And the lives of career entertainers can be a little bit of a trap that way. I like Miriam’s force of character, her panache, her willingness to be up front about things, her bad language, her shocking stories. It was delightful to sit on the tour bus of her life. 

Rating: ★★★

October 1, 2021

 Alice Fraser posted an entry on her Patreon that I liked. She talked about the discussion over whether or not to have a female James Bond. Her thought being that the behavior and flaws of the character are linked to being a straight white man, i.e. the dominant cultural identity. If Bond were a women, he'd be a different character. So why not create a totally different character? From a business point of view, it's definitely that creating a new character is much more risky. There's security in a known quantity, a guarantee of making at least some of your money back. 

Alice goes on: 

"I don’t think people want a female Bond or a black Bond, they just want the authority and status and legitimacy conferred by the 007 legacy. They want someone who is as famous and beloved as Bond, but isn’t that character. Which is fair enough. The weight of history and the benefit of the doubt that comes with the repeated success of a franchise is a huge deal. Which is an understandable thing to want, but to get it by just … superimposing X on the template is not a big step forward. It’s trickle down cultural economics. You can’t overturn patriarchal mores by insisting on being accepted and applauded by the patriarchy. It feels like a shortcut up the ladder, but is ultimately self defeating, because isn’t the goal to build more ladders, and stairs, and general upward-helping structures?"

And: 

"What happens when people of oppressed groups can’t conceive of a model for success that doesn’t involve cosplaying as the oppressors is the same oppression in a different hat. It doesn’t really matter if it has a new face, or if it is being done unwillingly or ironically or sarcastically."

These are good questions. It reminds me of James Tiptree Jr.'s "Houston, Houston, do you read?" She's come up with a society that's been summarily composed of women for hundreds of years, and it's not just that women are in charge -- the whole society is different. It values different things. Other examples: Herland, The Dispossessed. Notably, all three of these stories are science-fiction, which makes sense as the job of science fiction is to think about societal overhauls. Not just to mimic variations on examples we already have. 

MLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

MCCABE & MRS. MILLER

1971

Directed by: Robert Altman

Written by: Robert Altman, Brian McKay

Based on: McCabe by Edmund Naughton

Watched: 9/30/21

Set during the American frontier days in Washington state, John McCabe (a rumored gunfighter) is building a saloon in a new mining town. He sets up a makeshift whorehouse – three unsightly woman in their own tents – and gets to work. Mrs. Miller, a formidable woman with a cockney accent, arrives and makes a deal with him: she’ll set up and run a proper brothel if he puts up the money for the building. She’ll pay him back and they’ll split profits 50/50. He agrees, and Mrs. Miller brings women down from Seattle. They build a bathhouse (which the men are required to use before they partake of the brothel’s services) and a nice structure for the girls to live and work in. They’re making plenty of money before long. Too much money. Representatives from a business come down and try to buy McCabe out. (They successfully buy out the other man in town who owns the restaurant and hotel.) McCabe bargains with them, trying to push up the price. He continues to do so even after Mrs. Miller warns him that the company will resort to violence. The men leave and send three hitmen in their stead. McCabe tries to make a deal, but it’s too late. (Upon meeting McCabe, the lead hitman concludes that McCabe has never killed a man in his life, a far cry from the dangerous gunslinger he was rumored to be.) As McCabe tries to kill and not be killed by the hitmen, the church catches on fire and everyone scrambles to put it out. McCabe kills the would-be assassins by hiding in various buildings. The last man he kills by pretending to have gotten shot and then firing at the man at close range. Unfortunately, McCabe had been shot in the stomach, and he dies outside in the snow while Mrs. Miller lies sedated in an opium den. (Thank you Wikipedia for that last phrase.) I should add that McCabe and Mrs. Miller had been sleeping together, but Mrs. Miller always charged him her usual fee. 

This movie is beautiful. It feels real and immersive and like it’s getting at how frontier towns at that time really might have been. The whorehouse looked positively cozy. Warren Beatty played McCabe. He plays him awkward, antsy, almost ADD, bumbling but with plenty of ego and projected confidence. Definitely not your John Wayne type cowboy. I should have liked the performance – I like it on paper. But I felt like Beatty was self-satisfied in the role. Like Look at me act! I’m really acting! I’m sure that’s a projection on my part. I’m reading Miriam Margolyes’ memoir right now, and she describes the first time she met Beatty. First thing he said was, “Do you fuck?” I just really get creepy uncle vibes from him, and it’s distracting. 

I also had trouble paying attention. I would have enjoyed the movie more if I saw it in a theater, I think. Distractions eliminated. The beauty full size. Some of it’s my fault, but I definitely didn’t like this one as much as I would have wanted to. 

Rating: ★★1/2

  

September 27, 2021

It was a busy weekend! Saw St. Vincent and James Blake at the Hollywood Bowl (two different nights). Then went to the zoo yesterday to take movies of the animals. It's Monday, and I'm back at work. Going to see Wicked Woman (an aerialist show set to Princess Bride) tonight.  

Something I'm wrestling with is empathy. During the last few years, people have been using empathy as a blanket prescription for all of society's ills. Here's the definition: "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another." Actually, as an ability it's totally great. Framing it like that suggests that whoever has empathy can deploy it at will. When it's appropriate, useful, etc. 

My problem with it is that it places the importance on reception instead of communication. On feeling instead of action. Reception and feeling are definitely important. But it's clearly a mistake to think empathy is going to fix everything. The primacy of empathy negates taking responsibility for our own feelings and responses. Saying empathy is the be-all-end-all means we're not on the hook for problem solving and practical action. To some extent, we've made feeling bad an accomplishment, as long as you're feeling bad on behalf of other people. That's silly. It's a tool, but it's only one tool. 

Under the definition of empathy are these further search terms: 

Somehow, I feel like that strengthens my point. 

MLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

THE INVITATION

2015

Directed by: Karyn Kusama

Written by: Phil Hay, Matt Manfredi

Watched: 9/24/21

Will and his girlfriend Kira drive up to the Hollywood Hills for a dinner party at the house of Will’s ex-wife, Eden. Eden and her new husband, David, have been MIA for the past two years. Will and Eden split up after the sudden death of their son. We see in flashbacks that Will stopped Eden from slitting her wrists, as a result. The two are still in intense grief. Eden met and connected with David because David was also grieving. He had lost his wife in a traumatic way. Eden has gathered all their old friends for this dinner party. Will is on edge. He’s creeped out by things like how the house has bars on all the windows now, and how David has locked the doors and removed the key. Will feels unsafe. It turns out that Eden and David have joined a grief cult. They show a video from the founder of the cult, it contains footage of a young healthy-looking person peacefully dying. It’s creepy, but some of the friends try not to be judgmental. They want to support Eden and David in whatever’s working for them. Will is suspicious that one of their friends hasn’t shown up. He got a voicemail that the man, Choi, arrived early. Will thinks that Choi has been harmed. He accuses David and Eden, but then Choi does show up. He had been called back into work, hence his delayed arrival. Oh! Also, there’s two other creepy cult people in the house. Will sees David hang a red lantern in the backyard and finds barbiturates in Eden’s bedside table. They all eat an elaborate dinner. Afterwards they make a toast, Will hits the glasses of wine out of people’s hands. One of the cult guests attacks him, and in their struggle, she hits her head. The group tries to administer to her wounds, when they realize that Gina, who drank the wine, is dead. 

David and the cult members try to kill everyone. They believe that they’ll all be together in the afterlife. Eden is overwhelmed. She wanted them to all die together peacefully. She shoots herself in the stomach. Will, Kira, and one other friend end up fighting the cult members off – although all of their other friends have died. They realize that dogs are barking and police sirens are sounding. A ton of red lanterns are hanging throughout the Hollywood Hills. 

I feel like you can tell I liked this movie based on my lengthy plot summary. It was a slow burn. Definitely creepy. Beautifully lit. And so so Los Angeles. The makeup of the friend group, their clothes, their looks, their reactions, and their concerns fit LA to a T. They want to be open minded and supportive. They feel it’s imperative to be polite. They see pain as a thing to be irradiated. (I went to the Hollywood Bowl after seeing the movie and felt like I was surrounded by possible Invitation casts.) I felt this whole movie worked really well – and it was shot for a budget of $1 million. Crazy. Directed by the same person who did Jennifer’s Body. Someone to watch for sure. 

Rating: ★★★★

September 24, 2021

I sent my screenplay to the director yesterday and immediately slept for three hours. I had semi-waking dreams about RHLSTP and lyra. 

Going to take the day off from script writing and instead catch up on my Mlog/Blog. 

Blog time! 

**SPOILERS**

Scalzi, John – OLD MAN’S WAR

Published: 2005

Read: 9/2021

Americans on Earth are kept mostly in the dark about the universe, its numerous aliens, and the technology developed (read: stolen) by the Colonial Defense Forces. The only way to see the universe is to join up on your 75th birthday and spend two to ten years defending the colonies. Due to quarantining issues, people who have joined can never return to Earth. These old people join the military because the CDF can make them young again. They transfer your consciousness into a modified young clone of yourself. The battles are brutal and imperial. The main character, John Perry, finds himself naturally capable at being a soldier. He survives a particularly bad ambush, meets the Ghost Brigade, including his dead wife, and is promoted to Captain. 

I keep reading Scalzi because his concepts are interesting and his work is fast and accessible. I like it but I definitely don’t love it. After the recruits get their young new bodies, there’s a detailed sex scene that made me gag. Like Rocky Flintstone-level bad. There’s also a jocular humor throughout that I don’t connect with. The tone is a little too pleased with itself. No harm in reading Scalzi’s stuff, but I should remind myself that, although it takes limited investment, it also offers me limited reward. 

Rating: ★★★

Before I go on to the Mlog part. My neighbor who talks a lot came over the other day. He was saying how the definition of being clutch, in sports, is basically the ability to work as you always work under pressure. To be yourself, to bring your game, no matter the circumstances. I think there's a way to be like that in writing too. And I think I accomplished it with my screenplay. I don't know if it's ultimately going to be good enough to sell and be made into a movie, but I was able to bring to it all of my abilities. I was clutch in that sense. It also reminds me that my neighbor can have some insights some of the time. An infinite number of chimps typing on typewriters and all. :) 

MLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

NASHVILLE

1975

Directed by: Robert Altman

Written by: Joan Tewkesbury 

Watched: 9/23/21

This film is largely about people making it, or trying to make it, in the music business in Nashville. There are a bunch of different characters and storylines. A man’s wife is in the hospital. His niece from California is staying with them, but she can’t be bothered to visit her aunt. (We also learn later that this couple lost a son in WWII.) On the same floor as them is a country music star who’s had mental breakdowns. Her manager/husband deals with her somewhat roughly and pushes her to get back out on stage. We learn that she’s been singing professionally since she was ten years old. There’s a rock trio made up of a husband and wife and another man. The wife is sleeping with the other man and is in love with him. That other man is sleeping with a lot more women including the soloist in a black Baptist choir, who’s married and has two deaf sons. He seems to love her. A woman who works at a diner wants to be a professional singer but she can’t carry a beat and is tone deaf. She’s very sexy though, so she manages to get gigs. A woman from the BBC is running around trying to interview people and make a documentary. A soldier is trying to see the sick singer as much as he can because his mother loved her music. A woman is running away from her husband, trying to make it as a singing star. A populist political candidate is running for election on a replacement ticket. His van drives around broadcasting recorded speeches via megaphone throughout the whole movie. The movie culminates with a rally for the political candidate. The sick singer gets shot onstage. The soldier who’s there to watch her steps in. As she’s carried off, one of the other famous singers (who’s been shot in the arm) insists that everybody keep singing. “This isn’t Dallas. This is Nashville.” The woman who’s been running from her husband takes the mic, and she’s actually really good. The black gospel choir backs her up and the crowd all sings along.  

The movie is long and all over the place. I was a bit fatigued after the first hour or so, but somewhere in the second half I was able to settle into it. A lot of the musical performances are actually very good, and I think that helped. It reminded me of seeing shows in Branson, Missouri on family vacations growing up. My dad especially has always loved lived country western music. The shooting came out of nowhere – except earlier one of the characters goes on and on about how much she loved JFK, and she describes her reaction to the assassination in detail – but the response to the shooting was perfectly set up. A lot of it reminded me of being in Hollywood. People are desperate to make it. Talent. No talent. Delusion. Exploitation. Adulation. Transcendence. 

Rating: ★★★1/2 

September 23, 2021

It's been almost 20 days since I posted last. I rewrote my screenplay for that director in the meantime. I hope it's good enough. I can't tell if it is. The characterization to me still feels weak. But I did the best I could on it. I wrote 96 pages in 16 days. I've written 19 of the past 23 days. If diligence can make a good screenplay, I will eventually have a good screenplay. 

I wonder if a step away for a little bit would help. I don't want to lose any momentum, though. 

It's smokey outside today. Wildfires in Northern and Central California. It makes it cooler here, though. Helps block out the sun. 

I signed up for another SMC course. This one is Film 31: Intro to Digital Filmmaking. I took the first class of it years ago... 2016? With the same professor. I dropped the class. Oddly, considering that, it's been hitting the spot this time around. I feel like I'm picking up what the professor is laying down. 

Here's an example: we were learning how to set up the tripod for the cameras. The tripod is probably the simplest piece of equipment, right? Not very exciting. My professor interrupted the equipment guy at one point. He put one of the groups on blast, saying they were barely touching the tripod they were setting up, keeping it at arm's distance. He showed them how he wanted them to interact with the tripod, said that he wanted to see some desire. He's Italian, I'm not sure "desire" is the word a native English speaker might have used, but I felt it was the right one. 

It reminded me of playing basketball in high school under Coach O'Connor. She stressed that your integrity was in the way you approached the small things, the details. Take every part of the game seriously. Bring your best no matter if it's a drill or a championship game. I agree. I agree. What other way is there? 

For one of our Film 31 assignments, we had to tell one story in nine pictures. I wanted to use my idea about the messages left on the sidewalk. 

My husband was my subject and my neighbor volunteered to be my assistant. (He held the bounce.) I was pleased with how it turned out, but I think some changes could have made it better. Finding a spot not next to that Range Rover, for example. Shooting more closeups. Getting my neighbor to angle the light more directly on the subject's face. 

I probably should have re-shot it, given those considerations. But I didn't want to use any more of my husband or neighbor's time. The assignment got a good grade, and it was a hit when I put it on Instagram. But I think if I want to be great at this stuff, I probably need to be fastidious. Do as well as I possibly can, now, so that if I ever get the chance to do something more, I'm able to nail it. 

September 4, 2021

 I've been struggling on this rewrite for my script. The weaknesses of the original seem to be characterization. I want the people in the story to feel more real and to be the ones really driving the story forward. There's also the difference between writing a good script -- one that might do well in contests or get noticed on the black list -- and writing a script that will turn into a movie. Like a real actual movie with all the additional people that requires. I had an epiphany about it after watching Free Guy. I asked myself, what about a character attracts and actor? What makes an actor want to play a particular character? I answered myself: the character is interesting. 

Okay, that's it. The character doesn't need a whole life's story. They don't need a broad sweeping trait plus a flaw plus a want. I think in order to be interesting, the character needs to be 1) relatable/connectable -- real enough that the audience can understand or identify with some part of that character. The actor needs a way in. And 2) you know, just interesting. This could mean a very flawed character, an extreme character in some way (ambition, talent, laziness, love, violence), a conflicted character (opposing layers or desires), a complex character that shows the real depths of humanity (like one Meryl Streep might play). The character could even just be a regular person put in unusual, historic, or extreme circumstances. Not all characters are going to be interesting to all actors, either. And that's okay. 

Thinking along these lines helped me get more generative on my rewrite. I think I might be getting out of the woods. 

MLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

FREE GUY

2021

Directed by: Shawn Levy

Written by: Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn

Watched: 9/2/2021

Guy (Ryan Reynolds) lives in Free City. He has the same daily routine – gets the same coffee, works the same job, gets his face stepped on the same way…. Everything is great except that he’s lovelorn. He’s waiting for that one special woman to come into his life and change everything. There are regular people like him and then there are the people with the sunglasses. They have powers and guns and commit all sorts of violent acts. It’s basically Grand Theft Auto. Guy is a background character in a video game. But one day he sees the player Molotov Girl (Jodie Comer), and he breaks out of his routine. He tries to talk to her by stealing someone else’s sunglasses. And then he sees what the players see. As he advances, the game developers try to boot him, thinking that he’s a hacker who stole a NPC’s skin. He levels up to help Molotov Girl, who’s a game developer trying to prove that the Free City company stole her and her partner’s IP. They realize that Guy is an AI, who’s grown out of Molotov Girl/Millie’s original code. While the world watches, they set out to prove it, and to save the growing AI’s from destruction with the launch of a completely overhauled Free City 2. 

This movie was really fun. It made me laugh and feel good. I related to the NPCs. It feels like I live in a world where the rich/powerful/famous can do whatever they want, and I have to just go to work on a loop with life never changing or expanding. There’s also a nice little self aware bit about sequels (in reference to Free City 2). It’s nice to watch a movie that’s an original property. Also! Genuinely exciting action sequences. The one I’m thinking of in particular is when Guy is driving a motorcycle and Millie sits in front of him, facing him. She grabs to glocks (?) from his pockets and shoots radially while the motorcycle donuts. It’s exciting and sexy and I liked it. 

I saw this movie at 1:30pm at the Bruin theater in Westwood. I was one of like four people in the entire theater. I snuck in my starbucks drip coffee and ate my small bag of popcorn. The darkness of the theater felt like it physically descended on me. The theater was air conditioned in the heat of the day. The sound was perfect. I felt totally transported. Totally in the movie. The good feeling it gave me lasted for days. 

I’d go ahead and give the movie four stars except that the end of the movie felt bloated – which happens in a lot of recent action movies. Half way to 60% of the way through it was a definite four stars. 

Rating: ★★★1/2

 

September 2, 2021

BLog Time! 

**SPOILERS**

Hanff Korelitz, Jean – THE PLOT

Published: 2021

Read: 8/2021

Jacob Finch Bonner is a dedicated writer and novelist. He has early success with his first novel, winning various awards, but selling relatively few copies. His subsequent books, however, fall flat. He loses ground, doesn’t get picked up by the same publishers, and ends up teaching at a low-residency MFA program. During this time he meets an arrogant asshole (Evan Parker) who boasts that he has a blockbuster plot. A plot so good that even a bad author couldn’t mess it up. To Bonner’s dismay, the student is a competent one, and when the student finally tells him the plot, Bonner has to hand it to him – it’s a plot that’s bound to succeed. Several years later, Bonner has fallen even farther from grace. He then turns to The Plot. It turns out that Parker died only months after his MFA program ended. Bonner, having only ever seen the first 12 pages of Parker’s manuscript, writes a book using Parker’s plot. Hey presto – the novel is a massive success. Book tours. Money. Interest in his next work. A new girlfriend he meets at a radio interview. Then, somebody starts emailing Bonner, calling him a thief. Bonner starts to crumble, and he eventually investigates. He finds out about Evan Parker. He finds out that Evan Parker’s story is based on what happened in his family. He finds out that Parker’s sister got pregnant, was forced to drop out and raise the baby, that she kills her daughter when the girl is off to leave for college, and then takes her place. This same sister seems to be a serial killer, there being suspicious circumstances around her parents’ and brother’s death. It turns out this woman is Bonner’s new girlfriend – now wife – and she kills him too, taking over his estate. 

I enjoyed the look into the literary world, in this book. I liked the arrogant Evan Parker. I liked the idea of a plot that’s so good it will automatically rocket a book to the tops of the charts. I don’t think an idea in itself is ever good enough to do that – I think it always is dependent on particular execution – but it’s a fun idea to entertain. It’s like The Entertainment in Infinite Jest or that Monty Python sketch about the joke that kills people because once they hear it they can never stop laughing. I saw the twist in the end coming, as I noticed that Bonner has a photo of the girl who dies but not of the mother. Why not have any idea what the mother looks like? Oh, because that would give away the fact that it’s the same person as his girlfriend. 

Good enough! Is what I think of this book. 

Rating: ★★★

September 1, 2021

Yesterday, I started another class at SMC. It was in person, and the regulations around COVID were baroque. For example, there was yellow and black striped tape on the ground around the area the teacher was allowed to stand. No one was to cross over into that square and he was not to leave it. 

It's the same class with the same teacher that I went to five years ago. Last time, I dropped it after the first class because it felt pointless. This time, I got a lot out of it even though I'm pretty sure it was the same lecture. I was devastatingly insightful. It may have helped that I'd seen the material before, albeit a kind of staggeringly long time ago. 

I was a newb in that I forgot to bring a sweatshirt. I was in pants and a t-shirt, and I rode my bike there. So when I arrived I was hot and sweaty, but of course that turns into cold clamminess as the night wears on. (It's a four-hour class.) To keep warm, I'd buy coffee out of a vending machine. My dinner was black vending machine coffee and a stale bag of Funions. Not totally unlike the kind of meal one might eat in a hospital emergency room. But I have to say, it helped a lot. It got me through that first class: improved my focus, warmed my hands. Best dinner in a minute.