In the Shadows of Hell

So, I’ve been absent for a few months. New job and the process of getting my movie done have caused a lack of updating. Speaking of the film, In the Shadows of Hell is now complete, post-production will be done this week, and there will be a viewing on April 30. It came in a little longer than expected at 18 1/2 minutes, but I’ll take that. Hopefully I will have some footage or a trailer to post up sometime this week. Going to start getting it ready to submit to festivals. Excited, stoked, all that jazz. I will keep the interwebz posted.

Stephen

Top 50 Films of the Decade

1. (500) Days of Summer
2. There Will be Blood
3. Pan’s Labyrinth
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. 28 Days Later
6. Amelie
7. Requiem for a Dream
8. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
9. No Country for Old Men
10. Sunshine
11. Revolutionary Road
12. Gangs of New York
13. City of God
14. The Wrestler
15. House of Flying Daggers
16. In Bruges
17. Pirates of the Caribbean  Trilogy
18. The Incredibles
19. Children of Men
20. Slumdog Millionaire
21. The Dark Knight
22. Moulin Rouge!
23. Burn After Reading
24. Catch Me If You Can
25. Finding Neverland
26. Cashback
27. Sin City
28. Moon
29. 3:10 to Yuma
30. UP
31. Synecdoche, NY
32. The Departed
33. Speed Racer
34. Stardust
35. Batman Begins
36. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
37. Kill Bill
38. Road to Perdition
39. Wall-E
40. A Beautiful Mind
41. Shaun of the Dead
42. Coraline
43. Corpse Bride
44. Capote
45. Grindhouse
46. Hot Fuzz
47. 2046
48. American Psycho
49. Milk
50. Donnie Darko

La Platica

So, this is a sort of self-congratulatory post, and a rant of a post. I’ve been a writer for a good portion of my life (nearly 10 years). I’ve been writing short stories, poetry, and the beginnings of a novel or two; now, I’ve finally decided to venture into scriptwriting. A few months ago, an old friend of mine and I started working on a pilot and a few subsequent episodes in script form for a TV show. That’s still in the workings, but in the meantime I decided to start a couple of short films writing and directing.

Just tonight I finished the first shooting schedule in my life for the first short. I knew that there was a lot of hard work to making movies, even shorts, but I didn’t realize that in larger cities, the filmmaking community was so tightly-knit. Everyone knows everyone and there’s no way to do anything without the participation of certain people. I also learned that since everyone knows everything happening in such a community, you have people wanting to get involved that it’s sometimes hard to avoid not involving them. Not to say that I’m the new “somebody” or other, but I feel I’ve got a fairly competent script, and a good vision for it, that doing my first film is fun, and I don’t want it ruined by a weak link.

That being said, as in any filmmaking community, everyone has their place. A director may be an awful writer, and a writer may be a terrible actor. Enough complaining, though, that is a rant really for myself and anyone else feeling my pain. There’s no solution, it just happens that some things you can’t avoid. I will be using this to update the progress. As I said, I finished the shooting schedule. It’s a nine page script that is one scene. One scene with 63 shots. Sixty-three shots coming out at an early estimate to six hours and forty-five minutes. Obviously since some will just be small quick shots, it will be less, it’s still going to be a tough shoot piecing it all together in the end. We’ll get to that in due time; for now, I will celebrate being done this far.

I’ll keep some updates coming, and hopefully some early footage, but that will be over a month away.

Godspeed.

-Stephen

Breathless

Here’s another of those wonderful French New Wave films I never had the opportunity to see until recently. Godard’s Breathless is now one of my favorite films of all time.

There’s much that’s been talked about Godard’s first film that is said better than I can do it justice here, but there’s so much wonderful innovation throughout, not the least of which is the unique use of jump cuts. Conversations that jump between sentences are just simply, “cool” for the lack of a better word, and with the character of Michel attempting to embody, and doing a fairly good job, the idea of cool as he tries to impersonate Humphrey Bogart. As far as the story, it’s simple enough: Michel steals a car, accidentally kills a cop, and tries to hide out with one of his fling’s, an American girl selling The New York Herald in the middle of Paris. They’re conversations of their relationship, and her reluctance to rekindle, the scene in her apartment is written perfectly. It almost reaches a dualistic stream-of-consciousness where each character talks about their feelings while changing subjects in rapid fire never losing a beat.

I won’t stay on this review for long, because I feel I can’t justify the beauty of this film in words, but from the beginning, as we meet Michel, to the cryptic eternally memorable ending, I can’t believe it took me this long to see this movie, and I encourage everyone who has the ability find it and watch it.

Stephen

The 400 Blows

Recently, I picked up the Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray release of Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows.” Not knowing anything about French New Wave, I’ve loved the actual films of the French New Wave, and subsequently, the New Hollywood movement it inspired.

To summarize the film, it’s essentially the story of Truffaut’s childhood growing up in Paris. A negligent mother, a strict stepfather, teachers who show no interest in the child; it seems like typical coming-of-age fair, but the way the story is told, and the beautiful shooting techniques elevate the story to something brilliant. The actor, Jean-Pierre Léaud, would go on to reprise his role in this film in other of Truffaut’s films, and he played the child flawlessly. No matter how hard life hit him, he never lost his cool, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy his childhood, and find comedy in his misfortunes. The last scene, a freeze frame of Antoine on the beach, shows with remarkable, personal conviction the happiness of his escape and his renewal of life on his own.

It is, however, Truffaut’s first film. It was also made in 1959, so the only possible qualm you could have with it, is some of the choices made in editing. Some of the fades between scenes seem rather abrupt. Other than that one minor issue of personal taste, the film is flawless, especially on blu-ray. The transfer is clear and pristine.

I’ve always heard of Criterion’s wonderful releases, and seen a few but this is the first for me to own, and I have to say, they are still the premium company releasing movies like this, and I would not trust anyone more to make this film as perfect as it is on the home market.

The 400 Blows Trailer

-Stephen

At the Mountains of Madness

H.P. Lovecraft is one of my biggest influences as a writer, and simply one of the best writers, if not the best science fiction writer of all time. At the Mountains of Madness, is his longest and one of his deeper Cthulhu Mythos stories. It’s the story of an expedition to Antarctica that finds an ancient civilization that came to Earth shortly after the moon broke from the planet and this civilization created life. It references many other Lovecraft stories, as do most of his stories reference each other. I could go on and on about how good this novella is, but the reason I bring this up is to bring more people to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but mostly, to bring more attention to the fact that this story will finally be made into a film in the next few years.

John Carpenter originally wanted to make this movie part of a trilogy with The Thing and another film. Due to the box office disappointment of The Thing, he never got any funding to make it and he moved on. For the past few years, the man who is probably my favorite director on this generation, Guillermo del Toro, wrote a script a few years ago, and part of his four picture contract with Universal (Frankenstein, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Drood) includes continuing to develop the basis for the monsters of At the Mountains of Madness. Now, with all the movie projects he has coming up, especially The Hobbit films, his slate is full until 2017, but we’ve already seen the Elder Things from Mountains in Hellboy II in the background of the Troll Market scenes. This hopefully means sooner rather than later we’ll finally get to see this movie made. If you’ve never seen any of his films, I highly recommend checking them out, especially Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II. Two of the most beautifully fairy-tale inspired stories ever put to film. With those films mentioned before and Dr. Strange this is going to be a wonderful next few years.

He is a director that I trust more than anything to bring the full vision of this story to the screen, and it may be a few years, but check his films out and by all means read the story and any other stories of H.P. Lovecraft you can find out there, they’re beautifully written and equally terrifying.

Pan’s Labyrinth Trailer

-Stephen

Quick Hit – Doctor Who

So having recently picked up the Easter special Planet of the Dead, I figured I’d forego my Inglourious Basterds review to talk about one of my new favorite shows: Doctor Who.

Obvious to anyone who has heard of the show, it’s not really anywhere near a new show, but to inform most of the U.S. Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi show of all time having been on television on and off since the early 1960s. The character of the Doctor has been played as of the beginning of next year 11 actors. In Great Britain, it is one of the most watched shows on television.

The seasons are kind of pricey here in the states, but they are fairly cheap on iTunes and the first 3 seasons can be streamed on Netflix and you can sometimes catch marathons on SyFy, so I highly recommend checking it out this fun, intelligent, campy sci-fi masterpiece!

-Stephen

Classic: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

I’m sure more people than I know listen to Godspeed these days, but it’s always worth mentioning to get more people to check them out, not a casual band, unless you want to take a 20-25 minute song in 5 minute increments. Ambient to bombastic, they aren’t for everyone, but at least give them a chance. Yell at me if you wind up absolutely hating them.

-Stephen

Religion

Ok, I really don’t want to create huge waves here, just want to talk about some ideas, because when it boils down, that’s what religion’s founding principle is: ideas. Full discretion: I am a Christian, but I hold ideals in multiple religions. We all know the similarities between Judaism and Islam with Christianity, but why do we discount all the ideas within other religions that seem to fit the life we should live?

Take for instance, Buddhism. Is not the “Golden Rule” nothing more than a simplified ideal for karma? Every bad thing we do to another person can and will lead to negative being done upon us. It all comes down to semantics, whether you belief that it will affect you now or in another life, living by this principle can lead to a better quality of life for everyone, why label them under different religious taxonomy? Yet, stretching a little, Buddhism believes in no definite soul but rebirth. In other major religions a everlasting soul is perceived but not directly mentioned in major historical writings (if I am wrong on that feel free to correct me). In the Torah, all that is mentioned is ultimate justice. How is karma leading to a positive or negative rebirth any different from dying and receiving ultimate justice from God any different? Who’s to say we don’t die and live everlasting through new avatars achieving and losing depending on our previous sins. Isn’t that the basis behind heaven and hell? God does not determine our worth by the body we live in, he refers to it only as the temple housing the true self, thus our mind and our heart is what concerns Him, not what body we inhabit. If we live forever cursing and shying away, will we not lead less richly in life and life after life? The End Times of Revelation is something I can’t answer, because we know not to what extent they are symbolic and literal. That’s a discussion left for another day. We don’t have definitive proof of what the afterlife really is or what it will hold, these are just ideas to consider, but we must concern ourselves with living life altruistically now and worry about the “end times” later.

These same ideals are held with Hinduism. karma, death and rebirth. Not to say they have some vastly different views to other major religions including some polytheism, but they’re beliefs are as ours in that different areas and cultures have different dogmas, but there some overall ideals to be held. They seek awareness of God and practice to experience divinity in their everyday lives. How is that so different? Taoism is another polytheistic religious movement, yet we still see similarities there. They believe man is a microcosm of the universe and I may be twisting to my own means that idea, but God is the universe and man is literally a microcosm of that idea. We seek knowledge of God and His plans for us, and what he wants out of us for our lives, and the Tao believe that knowledge can be gained though understand one’s self. If we understand the mentality of man, we can work closer to finding God in our everyday lives.

Yes, I am taking many other religions rituals and believes and making them work under one God, but most every major religion believes in one Supreme Being, or god, is vernacular, so once again it’s semantics, God means God, Supreme Being not only to Christians, but to all who believe in something higher than us. He may have different names, but it’s still understood who we mean. All I mean by all of this is, why can we not use what science has used for centuries and taken information and data gathered from multiple sources, put them together and find a new truth for ourselves. Not everyone will agree, and maybe all of this is just nonsense, but it’s ideas, and we can all discuss ideas, what we perceive as their faults and their pros, because that was a tenet of religion before churches existed and organized and tore idea apart and created set Dogma. That’s another discussion for another day, but yes, I believe in Christ, I believe in some degree to everything else I mentioned, I still need to research myself, but that’s what the experience of life is for, to discover and learn. I believe God uses the science of the earth to work miracles and that creation and all wonders on the earth that science has determined to be caused by wonders of science, are exactly that, yet with God uses them to his advantage. I believe violence is wrong under every circumstance, no matter what, or for what reason, and most if not all have this same belief, except for a few occasions when major religions use it as a crutch. Such as some of our American wars, the radical Islam, and of course the Crusades. I’m sure others from other religions, but doesn’t that seem wrong that we have a tenet set out by the man embodying God in the Christian religion of non-violence, that some just see as a novelty now? Sure, there will still be violence, but one person at a time, there is less.

Sorry for such a long-winded, possibly incoherent, conversation, with so many jumbled ideas, but this topic was spur of the moment and full of things I’ve wanted to have a springboard to bounce them from for a long time. Thanks to anyone who makes it this far, to everyone else, if you don’t agree, let’s talk, who knows maybe we can’t enlighten one another, and the exchange of ideas is one of the most brilliant things we can do as humans.

-Stephen

(500) Days of Summer

Let’s get something out of the way first: I am biased toward this movie because I absolutely adore Zooey Deschanel. I will and have watched all of her movies (minus The Happening..sorry) and because of that I had the highest expectations for this movie, and it did nothing but live up to them.

Such a simple concept, the film flips between the 500 relationship of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel). She doesn’t believe in love, he believes whole-heartedly in destiny and “the one”. He even believes she is “the one” the moment he sees her. The movie begins with the story of their breakup, leading into their meeting, their romance, and eventually the split and his attempts to win her back.

I won’t divulge anymore plot, because it would give it all away, and it’s all that simple. There’s nothing cliche, there’s nothing hokey or superficial–it’s all just reality. Situations we’ve all been in portrayed as we all know them. Complexities of “I don’t really want a relationship right now..” but feeling led on, to expecting the intimate continuity that comes with an open-ended relationship and having that one day torn apart, to only be left wondering: what in the hell is going on? In the end, though, we’re left with what we are often left with in real life: bittersweet optimism.

I grew up on romance movies from the ’40s ’50s and ’60s, so I’ve experienced watching expectations tail-spin. This movie is a microcosm of what ‘love’ is today–fast-paced and all too fleeting. Although, the ideas behind this film are priceless and sometimes downright adorable (an impromtu dance number in the park) and heartbreaking, some of the script and technical aspects are just as beautiful.

Look at the segue from day to day. Each with a sketch of the city skyline, a lone tree standing to the side. When leading to a day in the beginning of the relationship the tree is thriving and the skyline bright and warm. The adverse toward the latter days of the relationship, culminating with the arrival of autumn and a new beginning. Each flip from a previous day to a future day holds subtextual connections and one sees a disjointed, yet cohesive and never boring progression of a relationship. The actors are brilliant, the sparse voiceover works, the crew behind the camera captures everything perfectly, and I have nothing negative to say about this film.

For the longest time, Breakfast at Tiffany’s has been my all-time favorite movie. I could spend hours and hours typing what I love about that movie, but, biting my tongue and begging forgiveness from Audrey, this film may take the spot for me. Obviously, I’m bias and everything tagged ‘favorite’ is subjective, but isn’t that what makes everyone different? I love this movie, I would recommend this movie to anyone I know, and I will go see this film more times as the next few weeks pass. It may not be for you, but give it a chance, at least, it’s worth checking out at least once. It may make you question the destiny of life and love, if you believe in such things, but it may make you believe in such things.

Stephen