Mark Harris, over at GQ.com's Entertianment page, has written a fascinating article about how 2011 is already set to be a year of endless sequels, with 2012 following closely in it's footsteps. Where has all the creativity gone? As Harris puts it: Hollywood has become an institution that is more interested in launching the next rubberized action figure than in making the next interesting movie.
Check out his article here.
Perhaps the most interesting (or horrifying) note is that Harris missed quite a few movies in his article. In fact, the amount of sequels (and third and fourth and fifth and even beyond) will break the record for most in a single year. For a compiled list of the uncreative mass of Hollywood flicks to be released in 2011, look below:
So in the end, the world will see 27 sequels total next year.Nine second movies (that's up from eight in 2010), five third movies, five fourth movies, five fifth movies, two seventh movies and one eighth movie.
The Sequels: Cars 2, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules, The Hangover Part II, Harrpy Feet 2, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, Johnny English Reborn, Kung Fu Panda 2, Piranha 3DD, and Sherlock Holmes: The Book of Shadows.
The Thirds: Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, Madea's Big Happy family, Paranormal Activity 3, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
The Fourths: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Scream 4: All the Time in the World and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part One.)
The Fifths: Fast Five, Final Destination 5, Puss in Boots, X-Men: First Class, and Winnie the Pooh.
The Sevenths: The Muppets and Rise of the Apes.
And Finally, the Eights: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two.
This list doesn't include New Year's Eve (which is sort of a sequel) and The Thing (a prequel.)
Ever heard of this? Today I discovered actor Joseph Gordon Levitt's website www.hitrecord.org.
HitRECord started five years ago as an online community for artists from around the world to collaborate on homemade projects; different individuals provide the writing, the visuals, and the audio which are combined in various ways including to make short films.
As of 2010, Joe's website evolved into a full fledged professional production company which has since screened at the Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest. Profits of any successful project are distributed among it's online collaborators! How cool is this? Below is a video with Joe explaining the concept of the site in his own words:
You can follow Joseph Gordon Levitt on twitter @hitRECordJoe and click here to see the company's site!
I'm not sure if any of you have seen this video before but I think it is hilarious and actually really well edited. It combines the inspirational speeches from films like Braveheart, King Henry V, Miracle, Animal House, Old School, Newsies, Bring It On, Network, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington just to name a few!
It's a celebration of movies and makes me feel like a giddy kid! Enjoy!
The moment when Matt Damon's character Will Hunting uses his intelligence to defend his pal. It's the first time in the film that the audience hears the extent of Will's genius (as does his romantic lead played by Minnie Driver) and we finally believe that maybe this Southie kid can do something important with his abounding knowledge.
I stumbled upon two clips that present a fairly odd, but intriguing comparison. Let's go chronologically in reverse.
Subject Number One: The Club Scene in Robert Zemeckis's 1988 live action/cartoon crossover Who Framed Roger Rabbit. More specifically, the dueling piano players. The pianists donning tuxes are manic versions of Donald Duck and Daffy Duck. Take a look below:
Now onto Subject Number Two: A Performance scene from Charlie Chaplin's very own 1952 feature Limelight. Written and Directed by the Tramp, Chaplin has also cast another famous silent film comedian as his musical partner: Mr. Buster Keaton. See their, much slower-paced, bumbling performance below:
So what do you think? A coincidence? Or might Zemeckis and his producing partner Steven Spielberg be making a nod toward the great physical comedians of the past?
Who knows, but looking at the two clips side by side is a lot of fun!
***Side Note***
It has been said that Friz Frelen admittedly based his cartoon character Bugs Bunny on Clark Gable's performance as the fast-talking reporter Peter Werne in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1939.) Check out the clip below where Gable is even munching on a carrot!
Alright, so technically these aren't films, they are a set of television series following actor Ewan McGregor and his pal Charley Boorman (son of famed director John Boorman) as they ride their motorcycles around the globe. They are mesmerizing and humorous travelogues that happen to be a blast to watch!
The first of the documentary series was titled Long Way Down and consisted of seven episodes, tracing Ewan and Charley as they journeyed from London to New York. They rode their highly-specialized BMW motorbikes through twelve countries including England, France, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Alaska, Canada, and the US all while followed by a small crew in a two-car caravan. The trip totals some 20,000 miles.
The duo's adventure is much more than an elongated vacation, though. Both Ewan and Charley work with UNICEF, making stops in hospitals and care centers around the world. The stories, of Eastern European hospitals for example, are touching and a humbling break from this extravagant trip we get to take vicariously through the actors.
After successfully traversing the globe via motorcycle, Ewan and Charley planned another trip, this time from the northern tip of Scotland, through Europe and Africa, all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa. This second documentary series was entitled Long Way Down.
The second course included a total of eighteen countries: Scotland, England, France, Italy, Tunisia, Lybia, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. The excursion spanned 15,000 miles and took the crew 85 days to complete.
In Africa the men face harsh weather conditions including sandstorms and monsoon rains, while managing their heavy bikes in unpaved, sandy roads. Ewan and Charley visit the pyramids, go on safari, meet the President of Rwanda, and again visit with UNICEF organizations.
These shows feature incredible views into worlds we may never get to see and adventurous tour guides in Ewan and Charley. The landscapes are interchangeably lush and coarse and the journey is a feat of endurance. It's a pleasure to watch.
I highly recommend finding copies of these corresponding series. You can learn more details on the show and the motorbike excursions themselves on the series' website Long Way Round and you can rent the programs from Netflix (though they are not, currently, available for streaming/play now.)
Here is a very interesting featurette on how Director Christopher Nolan and his crew created and filmed the corridor sequence (and zero gravity effects) for his Academy Award Nominated film Inception. Enjoy!
Roger Ebert's latest blog post "Goodbye to All That" details his decision to no longer attend the Cinema Interruptus event in Boulder, CO where he has been an annual speaker for forty years. He tried it only once after his battle with thyroid cancer left him famously muted, but in the dark he couldn't type his thoughts. He was, without a voice, invisible. "When you can't run, you can't be in the race" Ebert writes.
But the most poignant line in his piece recalls a time in High School. An old teacher asked Roger why he wrote about so much death. He claims it was because he had an appreciation for the fullness of life. Ebert eloquently writes: "Even in high school I was keenly aware of floating on the river of time. I was placed in the current at birth, and given the opportunity to experience consciousness for an undetermined number of years as I drifted on the river out of Eden."
Humanity as drift wood or runaway leaves. Fragile, fast paced, unpredictable. A journey that we experience rather than control, at least for as long as we're allowed the chance.
A romantic perspective of life, for a romantic holiday. Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!
It might be hard for the modern screenwriter to imagine what the pages of a Hollywood script circa 1920 might have looked like. After all, this was the era of Silent Film, which meant the story was not expressed through dialogue. The hero didn't speak to the villain. Only occasionally, in the middle column of the script, were type-print lines of "narration" or titles squeezed between the rows of action description. Below is an example from Anita Loos's 1916 script "Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages" directed by D.W. Griffith:
If these scripts only had the titles to set the stage and action was the only means of propelling their stories forward, how was the audience meant to become involved? The obvious, though not-so-obvious, answer is this: characters.
That's right Marilyn (as seen in the adaptation of Loos' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.) Characters are the key.
Well not that kind exactly. Think of it like this. Professors repeat one screenwriting motto above all others: It's not what the characters of the film say that counts, it's what they do. Less dialogue can be more. Sounds easy enough.
But students of screenwriting (myself included) almost universally indulge in unnecessary dialogue. Frankly, it's a waste of script space. Writers of the early Hollywood Era, like Loos, implemented select adjectives and subtle behaviors to build the properties of their characters. Let's take a look:
The lead, Mrs. Jenkins, is an aging woman at a ball who loses a proposition to dance when a handsome man chooses a young girl over her.
Note "bitterly" and "sadly," but also the premise. Competition, especially romantic competition, inherently produces joy or sadness, victory or defeat. The writer needs to clarify which character falls into which category.
Now, how does one individual react to a particular scenario? Not everyone will respond the same and that's what will make the character unique. If Loos went on to write "Miss Jenkins tilts up her chin and proudly exits the ballroom," that would obviously be a very different woman.
So we have premise and response. Let's look at two silent films and how they create tone with their characters, remembering that every action on screen was born from a word on the page.
First up, 1928's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc starring Renee Jeanne Falconetti. The film, chronicling the conviction and execution of Joan of Arc, is regarded as pioneering for film production, directing, and acting. Though there are translated copies of the screenplay online, let's imagine, for our own sakes as writers, what adjectives these images might have corresponded to.
Stunned, Overcome, Aghast.
Pensive, Absorbed, Sober.
Accusatory, Disparaging, Critical.
Fearful, Disturbed, Emotional.
Accepting, Resigned, Enduring.
Joan doesn't need to say a thing for the audience to understand her torturous predicament. The screenwriter simply defines the character's narrative arc with sharp, dramatic vocabulary.
On the other end of the spectrum is the choice of humorous language. Charlie Chaplin's 1921 comedy (or dramedy as we might refer to it now-a-days) The Kid is the story of an orphan boy whom the Tramp adopts and enrolls as his partner-in-crime. No script is available online but one can imagine that little Jackie Coogan's orphan is described as "confident," "mischievous," and "precocious." Chaplin's Tramp is usually a victim of circumstance or coincidence, but in the instance of The Kid he might be scripted as "scheming," "restless," and "agitated."
The combination of neurotic adult and assured child lead to the naturally comedic climax in the scene below.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a screening of the documentary Marwencol on the campus of Boston University. I had never heard of the film before or of its subject Mark, a man who suffered brain damage after being attacked outside a bar and subsequently created a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. This film is bizarre, unexpected, and entirely affecting. Marwencol won the Grand Jury Prize at the South by Southwest Film Festival, the Boston Society of Film Critics gave it Best Documentary, and Rotten Tomatoes awarded it the Golden Tomato-Best Documentary of 2010 (among many other awards.) The film is in very limited release but it is worth checking to see if it is playing in a town near you! Below I have posted the Theatrical Trailer as well as a list of where Marwencol is currently (and soon-to-be) screening.
NOW PLAYING
Portland, OR - Living Room Theaters - January 7th - February 10th
Bloomington, IN - The Ryder - February 3rd-12th
Milwaukee, WI - Times Cinema - February 7th-10th
Ithaca, NY - Cornell Cinema - February 8th & 10th
San Diego, CA - Reading Gaslamp - February 11th-17th
COMING SOON
Gloucester, MA - Cape Ann Community Cinema - February 12th-17th
Honolulu, HI - Interisland Terminal - February 15th & 17th
Pleasantville, NY - Jacob Burns Film Center - February 18th only
St. Louis, MO - Webster Film Series - February 18th-20th
Cleveland, OH - Cleveland Museum of Art - February 25th-27th
Maitland, FL - Enzian Theater - February 25th - March 3rd
Quebec City, Quebec - Le Cinephobe - February 26th only
Worcester, MA - Cinema 320 - March 1st-6th
Phoenix, AZ - FilmBar - March 3rd-16th
Dallas, TX - Angelika Film Center - Starting March 4th
Nelson, British Columbia - Capitol Theatre - March 9th only
Boulder, CO - International Film Series - March 10th only
Detroit, MI - Detroit Film Theatre - March 11th & 13th
Rochester, NY - George Eastman House - March 25th & 27th
New York, NY - Museum of Modern Art - April 1st only
Notre Dame, IN - Browning Cinema - April 28th only
Asheville, NC - Asheville Art Museum - May 19th only
One of the most fascinating and well-made films I saw this past year was Disney's Waking Sleeping Beauty, a documentary chronicling the decade known as the Second Golden Age of Disney. It is now available on DVD (and Netflix) and I can't recommend it enough.
Below are the film's trailer and my review from last fall. Enjoy!
Part of Your World
Waking Sleeping Beauty
Review by Cate Hahneman
I am a child of Disney. Films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King defined my youth in many ways; the songs rolled constantly through my cassette player, my closets were filled with the movies’ Happy Meal figurines, and my birthday cakes were iced with Disney princesses. My younger years are a testament to the ways in which the company has capitalized on its brand; over several decades, Disney erected theme parks across the globe, plastered their logo on lunchboxes, and infiltrated the imaginations of children everywhere. But in the years before I was born, the corporation had lost its way. The animation department, which gave Walt Disney’s company clout with 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was all but demolished. As Roy Disney, the master’s nephew, delicately stated, mass marketing the characters without creating new animation is like “running a museum.” That just would not do.
Director Don Hahn’s intimate documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty details the company’s decade-long recovery between 1984 and 1994, championed by three executives from Paramount: Michael Eisner, Frank Wells, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. The trio could not be more different; Eisner is the doughy-faced CEO, Wells the daring man behind the curtain, and Katzenberg plays the self-promoting, tyrant boss. The movie is about what show business does to the egos of ambitious men, but it’s also about the universality of animated features, especially those with music as a core ingredient. It’s a refreshingly honest amalgam of film clips, corporate stock footage, amateur home video, and photographs that reanimate (pun intended) this revolutionary period. There are no talking-head interview shots, only voices echoing over caricatured versions of the company’s leaders, likely sketched by amused employees. We don’t need to see who these executives are now, because this is a story about who they were back then, when everything changed.
The lowest point at Disney came when the studio’s feature The Black Cauldron, which had exceeded its budget by millions, lost at the box office to The Care Bears Movie. The company’s dominant legacy was swiftly fading. Soon after, the bustling animation department received a memo evicting them from the historic building in which the earliest versions of Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty appeared in graphite strokes. The artists were moved to a shabby fort in Glendale, where they willfully surrendered their jobs in a mock reenactment of Apocalypse Now. The film cherishes the hidden animators of Disney, likening them to Walt himself; they’re children at heart. The craftsmen wear wrinkled t-shirts to the office and throw impromptu margarita parties. You can even spot a recognizably sullen Tim Burton hiding beneath his bushy hair. On the surface their jobs look like a lot of fun, tinkering with models and flipping frame after frame to make sketches come alive. But a closer look reveals that the animators are slaves to their drafting tables, sometimes seven days a week. Their eyes look wearily on as Katzenberg leads a meeting early enough to beat the sunrise. Making magic is a lot of work; many of the artists felt a strain on their marriages and, ironically, a distance from their children. The second Golden Age of Disney animation left a bittersweet toll.
The grown-up in me is a bit disillusioned at the chance to peek inside the magician’s hat; beneath the drawings is a jumble of creative tug-o-wars and public jealousies. After Frank Wells is killed in a helicopter crash, Katzenberg offers himself as a replacement, something both Eisner and Roy Disney disdain. They retaliate at a crew screening by announcing a new multi-million dollar headquarters for the animators. Katzenberg is scorned, knowing nothing about it. It’s strange to watch adult men act like petty boys, but this is the crux of the documentary. The kid in all of us is why these movies are successful in the first place.
Don Hahn discretely narrates from a screenplay (yes a screenplay) written by Patrick Pacheco. After all, this is a movie, released in a surprising twist by the studio itself. Waking Sleeping Beauty is a film as triumphant and tragic as any of Disney’s animated tales. Eisner, Roy, and the artists are a bumbling bunch of heroes and Katzenberg, fairly or unfairly, is the villain. There is tangible drama when members of the Disney family are lost; in addition to Wells, composer Howard Asher succumbs to AIDS before ever seeing Beauty and the Beast completed. In the film’s most heart-breaking moment, it’s revealed that Asher died wearing his purple “Beauty and the Beast” sweatshirt. Even as I write this, I feel a crushing ache in my chest because I realize these men, who I’d never known or even considered before viewing this documentary, loved the Disney movies as much as I did. This leads us to the joy of the film. Floating in the wake of money and business are stories that have saturated our pop culture from vaulted VHS tapes to Broadway shows. Twenty years later, the impact of these films on feature-length animation is still felt in the box office (hello Pixar). As the credits roll, Ariel belts out The Little Mermaid’s anthem “Part of Your World,” a song that was nearly scrapped after a poor test screening. Every lyric remains stamped somewhere deep in the folds of my brain, recalled with a nostalgic ease. In a strange way, I’m grateful for the chance to be part of their world too.
Nominated for Best Animated Short Film in this year's Academy Awards, Pixar's Day and Night played before their other Oscar-nominated film Toy Story 3. Take a peek!
Aaron Sorkin for his adapted screenplay The Social Network and Christopher Nolan for his original script Inception!
Popular scripts of the season including The King's Speech by David Seidler, Another Year by Mike Leigh, Winter's Bone by Debra Granik and Anne Rossellini, and Toy Story 3 by Michael Arndt were ineligible under guild rules.
This was a particularly exciting recognition for Nolan who has only been nominated for a WGA award for his writing of The Dark Knight but has never won before. "Nothing is more important than recognition from my peers. There were some notables left off the list this year." Nolan said. "I'm not going to name them, for fear that it boosts their chances at the other show. (the Oscars) I hope next year the person who stands up here can give thanks without qualification."
Sorkin has been recognized by the Guild many times for his television writing, and even won once for his contribution to The West Wing. "You can imagine how I feel to get recognition like this," Sorkin said. "I wrote a good screenplay, but David Fincher made a great movie."
Today is February 2nd, more famously known as Groundhog Day, a holiday centered on a critter named Phil who emerges once a year to look for his shadow. Luckily this year, after a tormenting winter, Phil saw his silhouetted self on the frosty earth and predicted an early Spring.
It's during this same time a year when we recall the film Groundhog Day, directed by Harold Ramis and released in 1993 (has it been that long?). Many people, including myself, think Bill Murray gives his best performance as a conceited local weatherman sent to Punxsutawney, PA to record the holiday event.
Murray's character begins to inexplicably relive the day over and over again. His only escape is to genuinely learn to be honest and selfless. The movie might be a comedy but it's also one of Murray's more dramatic roles, confronting issues of immortality and living a purposeful life.
Despite several attempts over the years to keep track of just how many days Murray's character Phil spends in the revolving world of Groundhog Day, I have always come up short. With keen eyes, a handful of extended fingers, and a yellow pad of tally marks, the result may end with a grand total of 38 days. That we see on screen. But director Harold Ramis has stated in the past he thinks the time line is upwards of 10 years.
Well, today I have stumbled on the solution or at least a solution.
That's right Bill. According to obsessedwithfilm.com Groundhog Day's protagonist probably survived far more than five weeks in the chilly February backdrop. More like 12, 403 days. So nearly 34 years!
For an exact and detailed account of just how Phil spent his time in Punxsutawney, click here.
