Just Like Joe Eszterhas

Once upon an evening encounter, two individuals brought me in to review my abilities (or possible lack thereof) when it came to my literary aspirations and rhetorical competency. They said, basically, I had very little talent to display -- I immediately turned the table before them over and left in a huff.

A few moments later, I was approached by one of them who made a confession: "Sorry about that, we were just trying to make you angry." Their reasoning was that I was in a somewhat dry period, and fresh water (not to mention furious blood) needed to flow through me because, in essence, I "write better" when I'm angry.

I told them to never do that again, and I hold that over their heads every so often. They haven't tried such tactics again.

Another infusion of fresh blood has been coming, as recently I've been so worn down from the factory experience, not to mention other forces going on within and without. I've been pushed to the very edge of the desert and sank my fangs into the sands to try to get some nourishment from it, which displays the lengths I've found myself going to as of the last few years.

Normally I turn to music (usually fresh, new music) to refill the gray matter in my head. I respond much more easily to music, so I headed to Best Buy and bought Euro-pop sensation Mika's albums: "Life in Cartoon Motion" and "The Boy Who Knew Too Much."

Wow.

I'm totally envious of this guy -- his manic energy and sugary pop persona is precisely what I was like in high school. I'm considering finding him and marrying him because I, like a vampire, need to feed off such energy to sustain myself.

So, until I can claim him as my own (apparently homosexuality is a requirement in Hollywood -- you're about to get the proof of it), another source of madness needed to be uncovered. Then along comes a book I found -- "The Devil's Guide To Hollywood" by Joe Eszterhas.

It's brilliant.

And here's a few helpful selections I love from my constant skimming of this volume:

You'll need to ward off evil spirits. - pg 69
When he was a young director, Marty Scorsese wore a gold talisman to keep evil spirits at bay, as well as an American Indian pouch filled with holy objects.

You don't want to get in a creative disagreement with a Scientologist. - pg 77

(and)

You don't want to mess with that E-meter either. - pg 77 - 78

(and)

Or you can join the Church of Scientology. - pg 186

Just pick up the book to read those entries. They're great...and long.

Get in touch with your feminine side. - pg 71
"The only good artists are feminine," said Orson Welles. "I don't believe an artist exists whose dominant characteristic is not feminine. It's nothing to do with homosexuality, but intellectually an artist must be a man with feminine aptitudes."

(Note - Maybe this explains why I've had the "brilliant" label thrown upon me several times. It might also explain why I understand "Twilight," and why I'm sometimes confused for...well...not being male. Or maybe I'm just a whore and will take anything I can get.)

You might want to try gay porn. - pg. 358
Screenwriter/novelist Gigi Grazer: "Writers, or any artists, should constantly be reinventing themselves, whatever that means --plays to screenplays to novels and back again, or second wife to mistress to third wife to gay porn, whatever works. Life feeds us. If we stagnate, there is no material."

(Note - I've tried it all -- even porn. Yes, even the type that didn't feature those of the female persuasion. You don't have to write the specifics, just the dialogue and they will either make up the "positions" and such on set or see what happens.

So, why did I try such an career path? My reasoning was "even the adult industry needs writers, even if its actors are playing knock knock, boom boom." That was the most recent WGA strike.

True to form, I was turned down, or flat out ignored, by pretty much everyone. Everyone, that is, except a lone male performer who recently started his own little studio devoted to himself and other male performers. The response was great...and then nothing came of it, no pun intended.

At least I can say, professionally, the girls at Digital Playground,. Jenna Jameson and Tera Patrick all turned me down.)

Just say the fucking words! - pg. 326
Faye Dunaway asked Roman Polanski about her character's motivation in Chinatown. Roman said, "say the fucking words! Your salary is your motivation."

Who the hell is Hedy Lamarr? - pg . 327
Hedy Lamarr: "I enjoyed the location trips to desert towns in Arizona. The nights were mellow and romantic. Making love out of doors is so much more thrilling. Add a cowboy who never heard of Hedy Lamarr and the situation is ideal."

Swimming pool scenes are fine. - pg. 1 42
Louis B. Mayer: "You'd be surprised how tits figure in a hit movie."

Cover your own ass. - pg. 144
Cover yourself. Before each sex scene write, "It is dark; you can't see clearly" -- just in case the director wants to shoot your script as an NC-17 or "a deep R"...and blames you for pornography if the movie fails.

You're asking for trouble if you write a scene with male frontal nudity. - pg. 144
Director Jean - Jacques Annaud: "The penis is a terrible, terrible actor. It is an actor who overacts."

But you can go absolutely apeshit on the violence. - pg. 145
Director Phillip Noyce, discussing Sliver: "The MPAA have a phobia about seeing people joined together in lovemaking. So they wanted us to cut down on the amount of material where Sharon and Billy seemed to truly be coupling. I would cut it and they would say, 'No, no, no still too much.' I would try cutting it again. 'No. no, no still too much' -- and this went on endlessly. Yet in any film that I have made in the U.S., there has never been any discussion with censors about violence.

Directors are feminists. - pg. 248
Sam Peckinpah: "Women have very complicated plumbing that I'm fascinated with."

Another romantic director... - pg. 248
Director Blake Edwards said about his wife, Julie Andrews, "She has lilacs for pubic hairs.

Murder is always an option. - pg. 275
At 3:30 AM, screenwriter Budd Schulberg's wife awoke, to find him not in bed.
He was in the bathroom, shaving.
She said, "why are you shaving so early?"
He said, "because I'm driving to New York to kill the producer."

But he (David Geffen) obviously wanted to fuck Tom Cruise. - pg. 276
After he read the script of Risky Business, producer David Geffen told the director, " I want you to cast someone in the role of Joel that I would want to fuck."

All Hail Doug Kenney! - pg. 284
Doug Kenney, the screenwriter of Caddyshack, hated the poster for the movie so much that he confronted studio head Mike Medavoy outside his office and the two wound up grappling on the ground.
The poster was changed.

Actors are so very sensitive. - pg. 306
Sharon (Stone) went up to the Basic Instinct cinematographer with a gun in hand and waved it in his face.
"If I see one ounce of cellulite on-screen," she said, "you're a dead mother fucker."

Actors will do anything to upstage one another. - pg 307
Zero Mostel always ate a big dish of black beans and onions before the premier of a play he was appearing in. He did that so he could fart easier (and louder and smellier) to distract the other actors.

Don't write any John Wayne-type parts. - pg. 139
With the exception of Russell Crow and Mel Gibson, there are few stars able to play supermacho parts today. Many of Hollywood's top male movie stars are either bisexual or gay. If they're not bisexual or gay, their feminine sides overpower their manhood. Look at how Orlando Bloom and Colin Farrell and Brad Pitt failed, respectively, in Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander, and Troy.

A Final Thought -- Hanso, meet me behind the Wal-Mart Supercenter. A man's gotta learn these skills somewhere, and preferably before entering California's film industry.

Why?

Because as the book states, the fucking you want isn't going to be the fucking you get.

PS - What was I like in high school? Here, see for yourself --

Mika - "We Are Golden"

That, in essence, was me. Only geekier. And not nearly as visually pleasing to the feminine eye.

The Heart Of The Problem

The general definition of insanity is that a person will continue the exact same actions and expect different results from after every action.

Well...maybe on the quantum level. But neither that nor work properly in the matters of Hollywood.

You gotta love it when the Editor In Chief at a genre news website posts on his Facebook and Twitter accounts how he's laughing at how a studio's press release now openly compares the movie they're comparing to other past blockbusters.

Now this A + B = C formula plays out in, as far as I can tell, two different fashions: the first is for promotional means, but it's never before been this bad when they're flat out admitting to the population at large this new project is just two movies (or more) shoved into a blender to produce this new concoction.

Behind the scenes, this "It's This Meets That" means of pandering is the secret means of promoting a project to jaded Hollywood execs who only understand "This Is Popular, That Was Popular, Together They'll Be Three Times As Popular" reasoning.

Did I just refer to that line of thinking as "reasoning?" Hell, it's spreading faster than H1N1.

It's not reasoning, it's marketing which, of course, is the opposite of reasoning.

I once was writing a script called "Dip Your Wings," a fantasy about a guardian angel who was made half mortal...and so on. I was about 25 pages into it, and told a female friend about it.

"Oh," she said, "that sounds like 'City of Angels,' and 'What Dreams May Come.'"

The second movie I'd heard of, but the first I had not. So I wrote it down on a piece of paper, headed to Best Buy, and started searching the aisles.

I found it, picked it up, read its synopsis, and became disgusted. I sat it back down, left, and never touched that screenplay again. Saying it was "this" plus "that" killed my project, because I absolutely detest the comparisons.

This Plus That stifles creativity. It strangles originality and free thinking. Recycling of movies and storylines is not an effective means of green production (as in greenbacks.)

The other place this formula comes into play is in the audience, who is (sometimes) smarter than the studios think they are. "Twilight" debuts in theaters and the howling of emasculated fanboys cried out into the night about how it was a ripoff of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Yeah...no, not seeing it.

As a rip off of "Romeo And Juliet," well that's a more feasible argument. Shakespeare's story of star crossed lovers has been raped and left for dead as many times as "A Christmas Carol."

Everyone's got a remake of "Christmas Carol," even that god awful "Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past." Michael Douglas should know better.

If given the chance, Hollywood would continue to feed off itself until it's all homogenized and it's an equal shade of gray across the color spectrum.

Some would argue that is precisely how it looks now. The need to snap the spectrum back into differing wavelengths isn't fast approaching, it's here.

When everyone is doing exactly the same thing, and remixing the exact same shades together to get a fresh coat of gray, then someone needs to come from left field with a palette of pastels and primary colors to put the zing back into creativity.

The Moral Of The Story -- If everyone is doing (or redoing) the exact same thing, do something wildly different. Streaks of red, green, and violet will get the attention of the population who was forced into color blindness.

They Do Have Movie Theaters In Arkansas, Don't They?

This is something I deal with constantly -- "Arkansas, really?"

It is a generic question that seems to apply for just about anything, it seems. The most the "outside world" knows of Arkansas is limited to Bill Clinton, Wal-Mart, tornado damage, and a vast stretch of land no one really cares about.

So we had some nut job a few years back who listened to some hellfire and brimstone sermon who got off her duff and demanded my former high school hide all copies of
"Harry Potter" behind the librarian's desk, as if it was offensive or pornographic.

(No, I'm not making this up.)

I think Arkansas is also known for the Arkansas Razorback's athletics department up in Fayetteville, and that's probably the last on the very short list of what people know and recognize about my state.

Oh yeah, and Billy Bob Thornton. And there the list ends.

But you know what? I'm here too. I may endure dial-up internet connections and the big business of discount prices, but I'm very glad to say I'm not one of them.

I don't have a Southern accent. My former Humanities instructor, mentor, and friend once asked me "did you learn how to speak watching the national news?"

No, I've always had this verbal style. I also have my degrees, and a healthy interest in storytelling. If you'd make a comparison to my literary style, you'd possible argue I'm comparable to those wizards out at Pixar, mixed in with the honesty and style Peter Jackson and his cohorts put forth in "Lord of the Rings."

I'm not saying I'm as good as them, but then again I'm also not trying to compete with them. Although I'd would like the chance to prove such a comparison correct.

I don't try to recreate this, emulate that, or follow X trend. In fact, I do the exact opposite. If vampires are popular, I will avoid them like the plague. (I do have a vampire movie, but I refuse to promote it now in an effort to "cash in" on said trend.)

I've cut my teeth for several years in and out of the classroom, plus I'm also the man that was called upon twice to put together short promotional films for my former college. I was also brought in once (unofficially, of course) to help shake out the structure of a scripted presentation my former mentor was giving concerning the gardens of Versailles.

If anyone doubts my abilities, please do so only after you've read one of my actual spec scripts. Just because I prefer to live here amongst the rolling hills and the vast green lands of a state the Weather Channel barely acknowledges doesn't mean that I'm not here with my own unique voice or something wonderful to contribute to the "outside world" as well.

I hope (and expect) to surprise you. After all, it's the things that come out of nowhere that literally take you by surprise. And, let's face it, there is no place that is more commonly ignored than rural Arkansas in this modern world.

PS - Yes, they do have movie theaters here. There's a state of the art cinema just fifteen miles away from where I currently sit.

Blame It On "Unskinny Bop"

Those that have followed me for any length of time via Mania, Myspace, etc., knows of the elasticity following my project "The Life and Times of Igor."

(If you haven't, just click the tab down and to the right to see past postings on the subject.)

The guys at Mania love it...they love it more than anything else I've ever come up with. They also know I'm always knocked over by some random development in Hollywood with somewhat similar projects that get pushed forward while I just shelf the project for X amount of time, yet something always stands me back up.

Well I'm looking North this time.

Besides, we're constantly being inundated with remakes, reboots, and re-envisionings which ultimately lead to our regurgitation.

The population wants something new and different, and we keep getting handed the same thing over and over again.

There are no mavericks in Hollywood. No one is capable (or willing) to rock the collective boats of Los Angeles. Even Steven Spielberg has fallen victim to the notion of remakes with "Harvey."

Plus the fact trends are more important than original thinking as well: reboots are a trend, vampires are the trend again. And then they collided with Robert Downey Jr. being thrust into the role of Lestat in yet another reboot, this time of "Interview With The Vampire."

I don't want (or intend) to cash in on trends. I give trends the finger. I also avoid following the crowd, which is why my "Igor" project has been shelved time after time, no matter how much the people have enjoyed it.

It really is annoying -- the one project everyone likes the most is the same one half a dozen agents here in America have nibbled at, yet passed over but then, a month later, someone whose "in the biz" gets his project pushed forward because he's in those "Underworld" movies.

It's never been what you know or what you can do, it's who you know.

Well I know what the agents have likely been "afraid" of: it's quirkiness; its British sense of humor mixed in with American slapstick sensibilities, and its originality.

I came THIS CLOSE to having the comic book version made...with one major flaw: I didn't have (or know) an illustrator. That was upsetting, but it was also a relief, as this is meant to be seen, not read. Igor and Frankenstein singing "Unskinny Bop" in prison is something that can't be captured with dialogue bubbles, it has to be SEEN and HEARD. Think Zaphod Beeblebrox and a hunchback pretending to be Bret Michaels and you've got a formula for inspired craziness.

And that formula fell flat on people who really didn't get it. They all wanted to read it, and once it even disappeared in the bowels of a New York agency for over a year (I had to call to get it back from them, even though I'd provided the standard SASE.)

But they didn't get it. But then Hollywood doesn't understand anything new, original, or inspired these days. It's become a machine, just wash, rinse, and repeat until the fabric has worn through.

But I still continue with promotions for "Sweet Dreams" and "Summertime Blues."

I think it's because I'm a masochist.

Warm up the accordion, Igor, I feel the need to sing.

And Then There Was Silence...

Okay, so it's not actually silence that'll be appearing here in the coming days, but the comparison is fair.

I continue to promote both "Sweet Dreams: A Sandman's Story" and "Summertime Blues." (If you're new to this blog, just scroll down and click the appropriate tabs on the right hand side to learn more about those stories, etc.)

Maintaining four distinct means of communication (i.e. this blog, Myspace, Facebook, and all the rants at Mania) seems to be cutting into my creative spark. Temporarily, this well is being declared dry until the next rains come.

Hey, it happens. It's happened before, it'll happen again. Just accept the dry spells because, when they end, the mind is fresh and fertile again. "Sweet Dreams" was written after one of those dry spells.

So I'm taking it upon myself to try different things. I'm picking up the novels I swore I'd read, and finishing the ones I bought a few years back but had to put them down for one reason or another.

Thank heaven for bookmarks.

I'll continue being an active commentator at Mania, but we'll just have to see how active I am.

So here's a backlog of (hopefully) interesting rambling thoughts on movies, writing, and Hollywood in general. There's also my Mania profile and 150 or so blog entries there to be examined.

I feel I should leave you with an interesting (and a bit graphic, but necessarily so) entry a fellow commentator over at Mania posted. He's a good friend of mine, and manages to cut through to the heart of the matters with naughty language and savvy observations whereas I try to use the more diplomatic and philosophical aspects of debating (read: arguing) over the state of our entertainment options in this day and age.

Please note that, as Mania is still recovering in some fashions, embedded images and other forms of coding aren't fully functional still. Our profiles aren't back to normal, and certainly the number of our profile views are wildly inaccurate. (I was nearing 14,000, Maelstrom had crossed the 19,000 mark.)

And so on...

See you in the nearest Malco Theater, kiddies. And please, don't spill your watered down drinks in my lap again.

Hollywood 451

In the previous entry, I posed the question "has Hollywood officially lost its collective mind?"

This go around, I'm hoping I haven't gotten an answer to that question.

Frank Darabont, the man with the plan where Stephen King is concerned, is the latest in a long line of those trying to get Fahrenheit 451 made for a modern audience, and he's
facing a problem. Here's his quote as found on both Mania and Shock Til You Drop.

I actually had a studio head read that script and say: "Wow, that's the best and smartest script that I've read since running this studio but I can't possibly greenlight it." I asked why and he says "How am I going to get 13-year-olds to show up at the theater?" And I said "Well, lets make a good movie and I bet that will take care of itself." But that argument cut absolutely no ice. The movie was basically too smart for this person, too metaphorical, etc., etc. It's a bit of a battle you've got to fight.

Is this a common problem in Hollywood? I sure as hell hope not, even though I worry its more prevalent than it seems, especially when I consider all the popcorn movie fluff that really gets executives all hot and bothered.

Now I'm not stupid enough to believe that Hollywood should just drop all the fluff and focus on "art movies" or serious dramas. Hell the latest movie I bought on DVD was "Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius." I wouldn't call that a hard hitting expose on the lives of children.

But I also don't want every executive thinking "how can I get 13 year olds in to see this movie?"

All those that are joining in the conversation at Mania, myself included, are laughing at the apparent idiocy of a guy more concerned with getting 13 year olds into a movie they'd have no appreciation of.

Is this really the golden rule of Hollywood? You can't go forward without the approval of a PG-13 MPAA rating?

Screw that.

And does every movie have to be friendly to as many people as possible to get little Johnny away from his Wii to have more CGI monsters and robots thrown at him just to get him to buy more toys?

Absolutely not.

We're heavily into the PG-13 generation: it's too naughty to be PG, it's not naughty enough to be R, and we can get as many heads to be numbed down as possible in theaters across the country.

I sure as hell can't imagine American Pie being watered down to a PG-13 rating. We're getting horror\thriller movies that have the look of R movies yet are safe enough to take little Billy too.

And the notion of it being "too smart" really pisses me off, as I've encountered quite a number of people that don't want to be talked down to, that need more of a competent story than the ones we're getting more and more of these days.

We are smarter than this. We are better than this. We're all for pure entertaining fluff, but you can only have fast food movies so often. There are feasts out there to be had as well, and we want to dine upon them just as much.

We also want to be engaged. We're not all suffering from ADD, and in fact we can fight off those symptoms quite easily when needed.

Let's face it - executives both underestimate and overestimate us at the same time. Abram's Trek reboot was highly successful while also having the shoddiest story ever to come out of a word processor. Transformers is all spectacle and is nothing more than an over priced commercial for a line of toys. Up remains the best example of storytelling I've seen this year so far.

I simply don't want to be presented with the notion of "too smart" when I make it out west. I also don't want to be defined by the limitations of not having 13 year olds in the theaters. What's the point of telling stories, any stories at all, if you can't make it as it should be and not have it defined by it's imagined limitations?

Has Hollywood (Officially) Lost Its Mind?

My friend Jarrod, the big shot news editor over at Mania, has posted an article saying a new Roy Rogers trilogy of films are in the pipeline.

And some of us are wondering why.

Hollywood is now no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel, they've broken through and started digging down into the barren earth below the barrel.

Come on guys, it's time for some fresh blood and ideas. And I don't simply mean me, I mean the whole way of going about storytelling and how you view past properties.

Final Fantasy Advent Children

Who knew a last ditch effort to save a gaming company decades ago would bring about one of the most successful gaming franchises, plus a movie that I truly cannot seem to get enough of.

Final Fantasy really was that, the company's final effort to keep their fantasy life alive. Then FF debuted on the Nintendo, and history was made.

Today, Final Fantasy Advent Children dawns on Blu-Ray.

FF-AC is a movie people would possibly suspect I wouldn't like, but it is one I do not seem capable of growing weary of.

Some things will just never make sense, and you'll never know what it is I will or won't like. As proof of this just examine my 500+ album collection, and those are just the CDs, not the countless LP's I've accumulated.

So here's to you Cloud Strife, may you now be seen in all your 1080 beauty...and hopefully very soon here in my own home. I'm sure Maelstrom will have his own copy before the day is over.

The Great Trek Throwdown - Aftermath

Okay so the dust needs to settle at mania.

My friend Hobbs posted a blog entry over there with spoilers of the new "Trek," and it prompted me to do a follow up.

His comes first, mine comes second.

The new and improved Star Trek??

Starlight's "Star Trek" Compromise

What do you think? I say, in "Trek's" universe, we can always undo such damage.

Abram's story has a tiny bit of wiggle room, so the next one should exploit it.

But read my "Compromise" for further details on that.

The Hunger

A week or so ago, someone at Mania (Xenomorph, specifically) sent me a private message, asking for my input in a story he wanted to write.

I prefaced it with the usual speech I give people: "ultimately, the best person to judge your story is you. You can ask input from outsiders, and in fact do so, but ultimately work on it until you can no longer find something wrong with it. Then, and only then, will be perfect shape."

I used the term "perfect" here loosely, because no one's perfect.

So after that, he sent a second message, detailing his story (which I won't reveal here for his out artistic confidentiality) and I wrote back to him what I thought not so much of the story, but the places he could look to enhance the story.

And that was it. He said it was a great help, and I hope it was.

Everything I write follows the above stated philosophy. I have a friend who has been right beside me reading everything I've come up with, good and bad, for a good decade now. We shared a few college classes together, we have similar ways of thinking, but we're also dramatically different in our styles.

I have her read anything I've come up with just to use her as a sounding board. She'll make a suggestion here, say this needs to be clarified there, and so on. For as often as I do take her advice, there'll be a lesser amount of times when I'll say "no, this is where I'm going with this."

For the most part, I cannot judge works "in progress," except my own and it's because I have a feeling for mine which states "there are no more rough spots to be smoothed out, now go work on something else, damn it, before you ruin it."

I tend to follow Sting's idea of artistic rule: it has to be a benevolent dictatorship. I wouldn't trust someone else to take over my material, but I also won't dip my toes in the world of someone else's material. I don't have the proper mindset to bring, say, "Twilight" to life on a screenplay.

And I've enjoyed the first two books in Meyer's series, as I'm crazy in love with the "Harry Potter" series, but I wouldn't make the attempt at bringing hers to life either.

The one exception to this is "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy," which was ruined in the movie adaptation in the whole second act. Frankly the filmmakers could've expanded upon the back story of Deep Thought, how it was created, the Great Day of Unveiling, and all that. I also would've loved to see the philosopher's come in and start demanding to shut down Deep Thought instead of all that mucking about on the Vogon home world.

Now new readers to my entries may feel "damn, you're an arrogant son of a bitch, aren't you."

I'd say "no I'm not. I'm passionate."

Never confuse arrogance for passion.

Passion is in the blood, arrogance is in the head.

Passion is a hunger, a desperate ravenous need for whatever its seeking. You'll find it in the heartbeat of those that need to take flight, you'll hear it in the cries of those who swim into shining, fast moving currents of life itself, you'll know it when it catches of the sails of your ship and pushes you to tropical lands as your vessel seems to lift up off the water and soars into the mysteries before it much like Captain Hook's vessel could when given a touch of pixie dust.

Passion can seem like arrogance, I grant you that. I tend to do my own thing, and to hell with everything else because if I'm lumbered to others or certain guidelines I know I'll fail because I don't need barriers to hold me in, I need them to go crashing through while spectacular showers of glass rain upon the land while refracting the lights of above into serene patterns of light onto the lands below.

I know passion. I experience it whenever I go see a movie I want to see in the theaters. I get an electric chill in my spine that radiates through my body as I arrive at the local theater AN HOUR EARLY because I love the experience so very, very much.

Especially at these new all digital theaters.

But don't mistake the setting and the technology as what causes the hum and vibration. It's not.

I was at several movies, and they all had previews to "Speed Racer." There was absolutely no electric bite upon my skin when that was previewed, but then previews for "Nim's Island," and "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" would come on and, what do you know, the passion is back.

You gotta be receptive to passion. You also have respect it in order to let it flow and grow within you and around you.

I am NOT passionate about popcorn movies in general. To be honest, most of those I've seen since the mid-90's have really been instantly forgettable. To this day I still wonder what I saw in "Independence Day," "Spiderman," and "Armageddon."

Hype, most likely. Hype is artificial. Passion is absolute.

I've also been debating (some might say "arguing") my points with the rest of Mania over J. J. Abram's bastardization of "Star Trek," something he admits to not having been a fan of.

The man has no passion for 'Trek,' yet I do.

In great abundance.

A lot of movies (but not all) of today's movies are just over formulated. They lack passion, especially when quite a few of them have three screenwriters or more. It's just a job to them, one of counting out pages and plot points.

It lacks passion.

I once tried an experiment, to see if I could "run with the crowd," as it were. My friend (the one mentioned above) and I decided to write something together, which was a novel idea.

I'd also discovered Michael Hauge's screenwriting structure, and over the course of two weeks or so we stayed at it, night after night, and the end result was....terrible.

Absolutely terrible.

We'd sent it in to a contest that was happening that year, and got our review. The story and dialogue was just average (which was fair enough, we were new at this) but the format was excellent.

I turned to my friend and said "the format was excellent? It was as exciting as a goddamned aluminum ladder with just as much personality to boot."

"Well, don't do it anymore."

I tossed Hauge's proven formula out the window and went on to create, I feel, some truly wonderful things.

Formula's be damned.

This isn't math we're taking here kids. Leave the formulas at home.

My friends who have known me for a long time no you can reason with the passions I have for music, movies, games and ultimately debate, should it become necessary.

I don't simply "want" to hear the song "Thunder Island," I NEED to hear that song. This is a current, awfully potent passion I'm dealing with right now.

Thanks to my dad, my family has (at the very least) 5,000 LP's and EP's in the vinyl format.

And that's not including the hundred's of 45's or 78's.

"Thunder Island" is from the 70's, and guess what? They had records in the 70's! So my first trip is, not to Best Buy, but to the storeroom where the records are kept safe.

I've turned two boxes of 45's inside out as of an hour ago, and still haven't found it. And I won't stop until I've searched every single box and discounted them all as not having Jay Ferguson's dedication to loving a woman out there on Thunder Island.

Then I'll go to Best Buy.

You may argue "just go buy it and get it over with," and my response would be "I'll do that anyways, but I want to hear it and I may very well have it. If I do, I can feed the hunger to tide me over until my next trip to Best Buy."

Passions must be accepted. They must be fed...for if they aren't, it leads to starvation and death.

I'm always able to feed my passions...and if I can't right at this moment, I'll fight to claim the moment in which I can feed said passion.

I've been promoting to Hollywood nearly a decade now. They haven't called back yet...but the hunger is there.

It will always be there...and my passions are always fulfilled.

Always.

I encourage passion in those who come to me for advice, I encourage it in myself.

And I get pissed off when I find a lack of passion and vibrant vitality in modern day movies. There is less passion, less vitality, and less craftsmanship.

And that's how they sustain themselves - they lack the hunger.

And those that lack the hunger are easily satisfied.

Don't be easily satisfied. And never compromise your passion in anything you write, or do.

What Are You Laughing At?

The proper question should possibly read "are you even laughing at all?"

Thank you, World Health Organization, for dragging me back into a bleak, hilarity lacking world.

It only makes me want to spin comedic yarns even more, because I need to tell them just as much those around me need to hear them.

Laughter is an escape, and given current world trends, we'll desperately need something to laugh at.

But who will provide it? Comedy movies haven't been very "comedic" as of late. Sure Jim Carrey's "Yes Man" was a return to form, Kevin Smith gave us "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," and...well, that's about it.

Oh yeah, "Paul Blart - Mall Cop" is a contender, but since I was unable to get to the theater to see it, I can't judge it as being funny or not, even though I admit I'm willing to get it on DVD so you can tell I'm leaning towards the funny side.

Then there's Seth Rogen - a nice enough guy, and he is conversationally funny, but that's about it. I state "conversationally funny" because it's a different type of material, where two or three people are just hanging out, making instantly funny, yet quickly forgettable jokes.

I have my conversationally funny moments -- and they're nowhere near as funny as the sketches or scenarios I've written in the past.

We've also had a lot of the over polished, run of the mill, by the numbers teen sex comedies which really aren't that funny to begin with: "Sex Drive," and "Fired Up!" come to mind. It's like all the funny ideas are ran through a calculator, made to equal a particular number, and when the solution is made clear, the laughs are supposed to happen.

Well that's not happening.

There's no presentation in comedy anymore -- and this I know for experience.

In high school, to be taken seriously as a person (i.e. diffusing situations) I lashed out with my wicked style of humor, which finally earned me respect I didn't have with the overall population while I also managed to assert myself creatively in ways that simply weren't possible.

Nothing is rougher than high school, especially if you're just a 90 pound kid, six feet high, known for mastering video games and a peculiar love for cheese. The "white" Steve Urkel is what I was called. It's a fair cop.

But I wasn't alone, I had two others that were just as crazy as I. But I was the more flamboyant one.

When my 10 year reunion came back in '06, the old twitch (that never really went away) came to the forefront of my mind: "Weird Al" Yankovic had his hit "White and Nerdy" at that time, so I toiled with the idea of coming in, boombox in hand, blaring said song, while dressed up as the whitest gangsta rapper Arkansas had ever known.

I would then proceed to sing the entire song, while meeting and greeting everyone from days gone by.

It never happened...but I should've done it.

I also should've attended my prom (which I didn't) dressed up as "The Mask:" green face, yellow zoot suit, and all.

Two of my friends similarly had the notion to dress up like the guys in "Dumb and Dumber:" light blue and orange suits, matching walking sticks, and all.

That didn't happen either.

We were teenagers, we didn't have that kind of money...or any at all, which kept us from living out our fantasies.

Presentation is everything, you literally have to be a madman to break the monotony of life. Conversational humor won't do it, which is why Seth Rogen (and Judd Apatow's) movies cannot illicit a true lung busting laugh from yours truly.

No one is rolling on the floor laughing at anything anymore. I used to find myself, laughing so hard with tears streaming down my face, pounding my fist into the floor at the movies we used to get.

And I miss that experience. It's one I only get when I'm writing my own material (because it is a throwback to those days when comedy was actually funny) and, of course, Michael Xavier Maelstrom who is a fellow blogger at Mania.

The man is brilliant. He's also insane.

He obviously realized presentation, and the willingness to go far beyond the safety barriers, is what it takes to be genuinely funny. His blogs are the funniest I've read (no matter how serious they are in tone) and they are the only other source of material out there that can bring about the phenomenon of laughing so hard that it hurts, while tears of joy just wash down my face.

There's a potential for collaboration here, but it has to be like the experiences I had in high school: two half crazed people, looking at the world, knowing it's a screwed up place, standing up in defiance of it while declaring war on it with his "Mystery Apparatus" and the destructive "Butterscotch Catapult."

Any man that can come up with weaponry like that should be made a saint. That's all I'm saying.

I silently suspect if such a partnership arose, it would definitely burn bright and energetic, in the same style of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again," which we both love dearly, coupled with the styles of Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, and Steve Martin, with a raw naughtiness unseen since "Porky's" was last seen flickering of a movie screen back in the 80's.

There are no funny movie trailers or concepts on the horizon....except for the possibility of a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" sequel, which I dearly loved.

There really isn't anything truly inventive on the television set anymore...except maybe "Dollhouse," which I cannot see as I do not have a Fox Affiliate I can tune in, and "Eureka" used to be brilliant, but I fear its becoming a victim of its own success.

But those shows aren't really comedies, per se.

Thankfully, we do have Lewis Black, Jeff Dunham, Kathy Griffin, and John Pinette. But they haven't actually starred in any blockbuster comedies lately.

Comedic movies, like my own "Summertime Blues," need to have a wicked attitude, a Cheshire cat grin, and the nerves to stand up and flip off the establishment and the social norms while belting out Italian Operas while also dressed up in blue Speedos, swimming fins, a snorkel, and tuxedo jacket complete with tails and top hat .

Comedies literally have to have the cajones to be brash, loud, fast, and absolutely off the wall, just like we used to see in the mid 90's. It's a proven formula, and along with a certain naughty inventiveness, some of us could truly create something the world has never seen before that won't simply be quoted, it'll be emulated.

Quoting movies is nice, but it then becomes conversational humor. Acting like a maniac while throwing yourself whole heartedly into the material is where American comedies should be going.

We need trailblazers, and I absolutely consider myself one of them in this jungle. No one else is going to do it, no one else really understands it, and you can't really describe it to others, so you might as well just show off what you can do and, like me, watch them keep coming back for more.

So what are you laughing at?

I'm laughing at my own jokes and sketches: they're ten years old, and they haven't lost their comedic sting in a decade. They are timeless, just like "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," "The Mask," "Liar Liar," "Bowfinger," and "Austin Powers."

I'm laughing at Maelstrom's blogs, namely "The Chronicles of Sarah Palin" and "Tokyo Stomp" which we both devised quite by accident.

I'm still laughing at my old sketches like "The Remains of Babe Ruth" and "There's A Penguin In My Trousers!"

Hell I'm still laughing at all the crap I wrote in high school.

And I plan to keep on writing everything that delivers a right hook to current comedy standards, because they need to be knocked down. I plan on dreaming big while the world worries about all the possibilities of things that can kill us.

I'm not afraid to proclaim that there truly is no one out there as inventive as we are, Maelstrom. Not by a long shot.

Now, if you'll excuse us, the Mystery Apparatus needs to be oiled.

(It does use oil, right Maelstrom?)

PS - Come on Hollywood, not only do I need to do this as I have always done (and always will continued to do so) but the world needs something to laugh at to take its mind off all our collective troubles.

Film it, and they will come...by the millions.

Of this I'm very, very certain. And that's a statement I'll risk fifteen years of writing and performing experience, and an untold amount of friends (both real and online) upon.

The audience, (my audience) already exists. It has only grown bigger since I left high school, and it continues to grow. I'm laying my reputation on the line, and I know with absolute certainty that I will be victorious.

Igor, Here We Go Again...

God this is annoying.

I promote an "Igor" movie in 2005, then I hear they're making one.

In 2007 I promote that same story as a comic, now today I learn an unpublished version that mirrors mine to some degree has made it to Hollywood.

I must be the only person who can not only predict trends, but expand upon them to such a degree to make them bigger than they ever could be, and still not be allowed in.

I'd better check up on who this guy is represented by.

Yeah, I know, other people can have the same idea as you can, Starlight, trust me I've been down this road before. But it's becoming awfully suspicious as of late, I must admit.

Here's the article, in case you think I'm nuts.

--Updated--

Well now that the initial "ah hell" wave of madness has dissipated, I've decided that (as usual) Wiseguy is right. The maniacs were very good to offer support to my project last year while I kept putting up samples of the work.

Wiseguy's the one who was among the most vocal supporters for my "Igor," (as was NotAFan and Maelstrom), and to do battle with this new adaptation means standing up and being dramatically different...by keeping the story the same.

And mine has more characters.

Now I just have to find the appropriate place to put Richard, The Tango Dancing Squirrel which is, of course, one of Dr. Jekyll's other personalities. Him, and the vibrant, blond, and somewhat sexually dubious Simon which is a rip off of Simon Belmont and Van Helsing.

(Note to non gamers - Simon Belmont is the butch guy in skimpy armor last seen in the Castlevania series for the Nintendo and Super Nintendo.)

I've always talked about it, now I'll just flat out put it in:

SIMON
(overly emotional)
I'm a boy! I'm a boy, damn it!

IGOR
Simon say he boy, yet Simon soft like
girl. Pretty too. It confuse Igor.
(then)
Maybe Simon come back to Igor's
place? Rub Igor's hump?

SIMON
Humph!

Simon tosses his long, flowing hair in a very feminine style over his shoulder and storms out.

Let's see...the first third of the script is in pretty good shape, which is something I know for a fact. I will have to look at it again just to clean up any lingering doubts or rough spots, but I'm pretty certain there are few.

The other two thirds will need a little more work, and possibly a good stretching of a few pages here and there, but that won't be too much of a problem. The more Hollywood's antics keep putting Igor down, the more he resurrects himself.

I'll settle for a televised mini-series, just so long as we can still keep up with the manic energy of the story.

And if this incarnation doesn't make it...well, I guess I'll become a novelist.

Just like "Interesting Times," too much work has been put into this project to just let die.

A Brief Message

I just now took it upon myself to add the freelance review I offered to Bier Magazine of the Jim Carrey release "Yes Man."

You can click it now to see it.

And you're probably saying to yourself, "So, Starlight, you had a comfy gig writing movie reviews for a new national magazine. Why'd you give it up?"

The honest truth is, the magazine itself had decided they wouldn't be offering salaries to those contributors who provide material to their publication for at least six months, so I just cut my losses and went about my life.

They get a free movie review, and I get yet another chance to see my name in print.

But it's the last time I provide any amount of work free of charge.

And the promotions continue...

Starlight's Plan To Conquer The World...Part II

Part I in my plans of my cinematic vision of world domination detailed how, if I had an agent representing me, I would go about promoting "Sweet Dreams - A Sandman's Story" to a bunch of less than jubilant studio execs and other reptilian suits.

I should add to those previous statements, an unorthodox world premiere in a large, outdoor setting to form, basically, a drive in theater much like the ones we used to see in the 50's.

I admit I don't know how feasible that is, but hell Pixar took to NASCAR (of all the godforsaken places) to debut "Cars." I'm not stating I'd have the power of Pixar and Disney behind me, but I am stating it'd be appropriate and unique to do something quite different.

Also, I'd combine efforts with Cool Bobby B (from the 50's on 5) and we'd compile an album of the best doo wop from the 50's and use it as a sort of secondary release to the official soundtrack.

Now that those plans have been laid out, maybe I should mention what brought me to the here and now - ten years ago I realized I wanted to make it to Hollywood. I was, then, twenty-one.

I'd always been writing or rewriting something, be it for my own personal kicks or for some kind of project (both in high school or college), and I looked upon some of my favorite movies of the day, such as "The Mask," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," and "Back To The Future," as having the best possible means of getting my often manic vision across.

My philosophy has always been, for better or for worse, that "I can't tell you what it is, I'll just have to show you."

In other words, I could go into a bland description of golf courses exploding, snakes squirming their way into Victoria's Secret, and dirty old men bragging about their favorite conquests in the nursing home.

It sounds fun, but it lacks the actual punch - the sand traps being shot up into the sky, lingerie clad females running out through the mall, and the adventures of Barry and Gary while they tried to make time with the one woman who gave them a sponge bath every day.

So it had to be shown.

At this time, I was also a huge fan of "The Drew Carey Show," which was probably the last great sitcom, as I haven't tuned in one since ABC ran Drew's poor show into the ground. "Friends" went away, and I was glad. Drew's show went away, and I never even noticed, I'm sorry to say.

I'd even taken to writing my own scripts for "The Drew Carey Show," and even writing to Scott Adams about what the procedure is to become a television writer, as he was currently working on the "Dilbert" television show. Adams, who admitted he couldn't accept unsolicited ideas and such, gave me a brief behind the scenes look at the writing process for his show back in those days.

I, hopefully, still have that email. I state "hopefully" as that computer crashed some six years ago, and its sitting in the floor of my bedroom closet waiting to be turned on yet again to see if any remnants still exist within its hard drive.

I never tried writing to Drew Carey after Adams gave me his advice, but I still kept working on those scripts, knowing full well they'd never see the light of day, but I needed the practice.

As I'm in Arkansas, I've had to gather sources from all around me and do the best I can. I'd purchased possibly up to fifteen or twenty different volumes on screenwriting alone, not to mention the others that dealt with filmmaking itself.

I taught myself the craft. I had to, because no one here knew what it entailed.

That was 1999 through the Summer of 2000.

At the end of my Summer semesters, I accepted a project which would see me become an active writer, director, and co-editor of a collegiate promotional film. I recruited, directed, and chose what locations I could to help bring this to life, and presented a rough copy to a panel of suits from all over the campus.

They loved it.

I was then given license to make a second for the upcoming semester, and onward we went.

Now this is a long way from Universal Studios, I admit, but it does show you can take a self taught nobody, put him in a unique position, and prove to himself and others that, yes, I am capable of doing these things.

Then comes the notions of actually going Hollywood, via the New York Film Academy. Apparently, the NYFA offers "crash courses" in filmmaking which lasts anywhere from four to twelve weeks.

The first chance I get, I'm taking a six week stint out to California, which is most agreeable to me as Florida has hurricanes, and if it came to running from them, I'd likely get trampled.

I'm also reviewing J. Michael Straczynski's book "The Complete Book of Screenwriting." Mostly it's the parts on getting and keeping an agent I'm concerned with. That, and the warning signs.

I haven't (yet) been taken for a ride over my nine years of actual writing and promoting, and I've also been read several times. Some wanted to read earlier drafts of "Summertime Blues," several wanted to read "The Life and Times of Igor" (but didn't know what to make of it), and so on.

After a good strong nine years, I think I've realized I can effectively ditch the various Writer's Digest publications that list fewer and fewer screenplay agents. I won't say I wasted a crazy amount of money on these yearly publications because they have proven helpful, I'm just saying it's more economical to get the WGA list of agencies off their website and phone them up for their contacts.

Also, a note on query letters for all those who mass produce envelopes: what the hell happened? I've always had two formats of envelopes available to me, and one would always fit easily inside the other alongside the query letter.

Now I've found that the "standard" 4 1/8" x 9 1/2" is the largest one available at all major retailers, and the puny 3 5/8" x 6 1/2" are the only two options available to me, which leaves me in a quandary - do I use two 4 x 9" envelopes, and just fold one over to fit inside the other, or do I use the 3 x 6" which would require the agent to fold my original letter over to fit in the returned envelope?

Either way, I feel, it's a disaster. Either I submit a letter with an unprofessional appearance, or send a neat and tidy package that requires the agent to be unprofessional.

It's been like this for a year now. No matter where I go, be it Wal-Mart, Office Depot, Walgreens, Target, or any other specialty place you can mention, all I find are the exact same sizes.

And if that's not enough, I find myself waiting for the newest price hike in stamps. Ten years ago I could get a Pepsi from a vending machine for just fifty cents, and in a few years (or less) it'll cost that just to mail one damned letter.

But that's life.

I've survived years of agents, price hikes, loss of properly sized envelopes, and so far haven't fallen for the "okeydoke."

I'm doing pretty well, I must say.

And, though I most likely will not rule the world, I will, at the very least, make it to Hollywood and have the career I've been working so very hard at obtaining for a good decade now.

It's only a matter of time, just like everything else in life.

Starlight's General Theory Of Cinematic Believability

What is reality?

If you'd posed that question to Descartes when he was alive (and you weren't) you might've gotten an answer that could be best summed up thusly: "damned if I know."

We're going to have a second "Transformers" movie debut in the not too distant future. I know this because Jarrod, our beloved news editor at Mania (All Hail Jarrod!) has told us so.

That and the trailer was running on Reelz Channel the other day.

(Quick Note - "The Big Tease" needs to stop pretending they're the Siskel and Ebert of trailers. You don't review trailers, you watch them. I don't need two people getting excited or bored over a movie trailer when I can do so all by myself.)

I still find "Transformers" laughable.

Here's this big ass intergalactic space machine that goes crashing through buildings only to transform into a car that has probably one tenth of the mass (at most) of the previous incarnation of this piece of technology.

But seeing these huge hulking machines walking about on planet Earth is quite laughable. I don't care how much money the first movie made, I'm not interested in how many toys are sold. I just don't buy it, at all.

Well some might say "it's besides the point. It's all in the name of fun."

And that's fine. I've no problem with fun.

The issues of believability bend when it's an animated film, though.

I'm quickly becoming a fan of anime, namely "Full Metal Alchemist" and such. I intend to find "Bubblegum Crisis" and a few others. I also own my own beloved copy of "Final Fantasy - Advent Children."

To be fair, these are in the name of fun as well, and yet I don't find myself bitching at how unrealistic it is when Cloud Strife and his friends do battle in Migdar with the great big beastie of the skies and, eventually, Sephiroth.

Why is this?

I think the answer lies between the sheets of animation and live action. Live action suggest you went outside and saw it, or that one could see it. Animation can present any world it wants: a Parisian rat can speak English, cook, and has a French guy for his own marionette. A car can talk and manipulate its world, yet it has no opposable thumbs to create the gas tanks or design electric circuitry used to power his world. A talking moose can foil Fearless Leader and a squirrel can take flight.

All those scenarios I accept, for some reason, yet giant machines doing battle on Earth in a real live setting is both silly and yawn inducing to me. For some reason, the more unreal it is in our real world, the more ridiculous appears yet, the more unreal it is in an unreal world, the more authentic it seems to be.

Here's another dilemma of believability: should a movie be released at a particular time of the year to make it more authentic?

I posed this question after the sudden departure last summer of "The X-Files: I Want To Believe" from movie theaters. Let's be honest, I don't feel XF2 was much of a "summer movie," and it got swallowed up during the freakishly large run of "The Dark Knight" and its other competition.

(Let's be fair: TDK's success was a fluke. Fluke's happen. Testosterone fueled fan boys feel TDK's box office bonanza proves this is just the best damn movie ever made, it should've won a Best Picture or Best Director award at the Academy Awards, and so on. It made the money, but it's certainly not worth of those nods.)

I was there on opening day, at the very first showing to see what Mulder and Scully were up to. I wasn't the only one there. I also wasn't disappointed with what was projected before me. I easily got lost in the story and found myself very glad I didn't buy popcorn or a drink when the third act rolled around.

But, it's the middle of the summer, and I'm in a darkened theater looking at frozen winter landscapes. There's an incongruity there, I feel, and outside of TDK's runaway profit margin, I have wondered out loud many times if XF2 would've played better during the winter, that way it might've connected to us more effectively if we'd just driven by big heaping piles of snow.

I don't know that, one way or another. I can't prove it or disprove it, but it is a question that so far will remain unanswered.

I won't complain about XF2, except on one account: the title. Chris Carter was happy with it (or so the story goes) but I'm sure, considering how talented Carter is, that he and his crew could've come up with a title much better than that. In fact, that weak title might've been the second strike against this movie.

As for my own works, (namely "Sweet Dreams,") I wish the old fashioned drive in theaters still existed. I can't speak for other states, but in my area they simply vanished. In fact, we still have the parking lot from one that used to exist, and possibly ten years ago the screen was still up at the far end of the lot, but it had been abandoned ages ago.

I'd like to recreate that era of movie going for the eventual first run of "Sweet Dreams," but that is most likely a pipedream.

But there are possibilities - I remember "Cars" was debuted at, of all things, NASCAR, with the use of multiple screens, projection units, and an elaborate audio system. I'm sure we could come up with something similar, and far superior. Just eliminate the hick mentality, find a nice wide open space on a gentle summer evening, and let the experience begin.

It's not as crazy as it seems - every summer, up in Fayetteville, public screenings are held of previously released films up in Gulley Park, I believe. It's always free, and the organizers always tell the population to bring their lawn chairs and anything else they can think of.

As for the General Theory, it's simply that. I'm sure there are more than several exceptions to it to disprove it, but in an interesting paradox, my General Theory believes in those paradoxes and actually goes forth with encouraging them.

See you at the cinema guys and gals, wherever it may be!

Everything Old Is New Again (Whether You Like It Or Not)

I'm dedicating this one to Hobbs, with whom I share stories of grief and exultation in the realms of Star Trek and Star Wars.

Trek has always been there for me. It's a great passion, a source for philosophical discussion and, often enough, a source of frustration committed by those who were in charge of Trek at the time.

Now we have J. J. Abrams' new Trek incarnation about to appear in our cinemas. I've sweated over this as I have "Star Trek - Enterprise," the only Trek show I actively stated should be cancelled.

But there was once the chance to do a Trek prequel way back in the days before George Lucas himself had likely even considered such a notion with his own franchise.

After the bad, yet profitable, Trek 5 had run its course, the accounting nuts and big shots over at Paramount realized that, yes, Trek can survive even the worst outings and be profitable, but it's also getting expensive to produce.

Then Harve Bennett, the man who had guided Trek through these more recent film outings, starting tinkering with an idea he'd had midway through Trek 4. It, as well, would've been a prequel (or in the contemporary dreaded terms, a "reboot.")

The general ideas are laid out for all to read in Shatner's book "Movie Memories," but as I sit here revisiting this particular chapter I'm forced to look at my views of Abram's vision as well.

Harve's idea was one of a Starfleet Academy adventure, with young James Tiberius Kirk restlessly waiting for his acceptance at the Academy by buzzing around the skies of Iowa in an old fashioned plane while simultaneously sowing his wild oats with any woman who'd have him which, knowing young Kirk, might've been anyone of the female persuasion.

Meanwhile Spock would've left Vulcan against his father's wishes to join the Academy, and a young McCoy who'd also have joined up after years of caring for his ailing father. They also would've been under the tutelage of a gifted engineering professor, who was decidedly Scottish.

Take a guess at who that was.

And here it is the pieces would fall into place: Kirk and Spock would be rivals, but Kirk would ultimately come to Spock's defense when the rest of the human population essentially becomes prejudicial against Spock's being there.

Amidst all this there is a villain out in space manipulating the people with his own means of racist and prejudicial weaponry whom these young cadets would have to deal with.

Toss in a genuine love story with a female pilot and you've got a Trek reboot.

And, in a sense, some of these elements don't sound too dissimilar to Abram's version.

I'm still not doing back flips over this new incarnation, and I doubt I would've over this version that never made it to the screen.

But, given all these reboots, remakes, and re-imaginings, I'm reminded of a line from "Amadeus."

Mozart is pushing for permission to go forward with his latest opera, "The Marriage of Figaro" I believe it was (I don't have a copy of the film at my disposal at this moment), and those of the Emperor's court are all trying to prevent Mozart from going forward with it.

Even the man who is his greatest supporter in the court, the man who considers Mozart to be brilliant, is trying to reign the composer in, saying he shouldn't waste his talent on such nonsense and return to the old style legends which have existed forever.

Mozart objects, and argues why must the people keep promoting all these old legends repeatedly forever, and his answer is that because the legends themselves go on forever, "or at least what they represent."

Mozart complains, looking to do something new, as he's sick of hearing about Hercules and poses the question "wouldn't you rather hear about your hairdresser instead of Hercules?"

Hollywood needs someone, anyone, who'll stand up to all these people and say "let all the old things die, come up with something new and maybe then we'll revisit the past!"

James Bond was rebooted, and I won't touch it. Star Trek is suffering a reboot, and I worry about it. Fantastic Four is being rebooted after one movie, while The Inedible...I mean "Incredible" (and I use that term loosely) Hulk was rebooted after one outing.

The Pink Panther was re-imagined, and though it was somewhat enjoyable (it's hard to not like Steve Martin), it was probably best left alone.

Hollywood is built on old legends, and they do their best to keep retracing the steps of all those old gods and goddesses. They'll mine and cannibalize anything that's known, or well known.

But they're afraid of the new, and they shouldn't be.
But when something new comes along, and it has any amount of success, it instantly becomes a legend of old.

Look at Summit and how they've handled the "Twilight" series: it was given a fair budget, was filmed on American soil, make tons of money, and immediately the kids at Summit became evil, trashed the director of their hit, moved the production to Canada, and green lit two more movies instantly and demanded the next one come out within less than a year.

There's talk of a second Trek reboot movie, plus a second X-Men reboot movie as well.

And those haven't even hit screens yet.

But one thing worries me, will they try to reboot Harry Potter in twenty years? Or The X-Files? Or even, dare I say it, Police Academy?

Everything old is new again...but I wish everything new actually was new. And this is why I have so many problems with revisiting Trek in these instances: Gene Roddenberry was looking forward, not backwards.

Since "Enterprise," Trek has looked backwards, and therein lies the problem for me.

For Hollywood, looking back hasn't been completely successful either, so it should look forward as well. Maybe then, and only then, we can shake out the cobwebs and revitalize both the industry and ourselves as well.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To Hollywood

I hope Douglas Adams isn't spinning in his grave as I borrow the common phrase his great novel helped coin, but I feel I must say that there is one unlikely text among all those that I've read which serves as possibly the greatest lessons and provides the best inside information about the goings on behind the scenes at Hollywood.

I have it as a First Edition, when it was published back in 1994.

Over at Mania, The Movie Lord and I have made mention how we absolutely swear by this text.

And this oddly informative test is none other than William Shatner's "Movie Memories."

Yes, that Shatner.

Kirk himself.

Why was Trek I such a disaster, even if it was so profitable? What famous comedian was to be cast in Star Trek 4? Just what the hell was Bill thinking when he came up with the plot for Trek 5?

These are a few questions that are answered, but they're just the edge of the tip of the iceberg.

There's lots of studio glad handing, back stabbing, political maneuvering, people being fired, people quitting, people being rehired and others being unceremoniously kicked aside to make room at the top so the talent could get on with it.

And that's just "Trek 1."

But it is exceptionally informative, and should be read by anyone who wants to go out to the Dream Factory so they'll know beforehand that dreams are pre-formed and manufactured.

It really is a cautionary tale, unfortunately.

Sex In Cinema

Disclaimer: My intentions for this entry are purely for exploration of this phenomenon. I will likely use naughty humor, but hopefully I won't get too naughty.

I simply don't want to be Flagged as having Inappropriate Material(s) on my blog so that the warning page comes up.

Okay, so we're all adults.

Time we had The Talk, don't you think?

Sex in cinema is a multi-faceted thing. It can be naughty (Monty Python's The Meaning of Life), it can be really naughty (Zack and Miri Make A Porno) or it can be passionate (Cruel Intentions) or meaningful (Anything Else).

With sex comes nudity...or at least implied nudity. And here we find a double standard, as pointed out to me several years ago by a female cousin of mine while we and a few friends were at my place watching "Interview With A Vampire."

"Oh sure, the woman's always naked, but never the guy!" she declared.

And she was right, for the most part. Hollywood is, ahem, "gun shy."

For the most part, at least...

"Porky's" comes to mind. That delightful, rough around the edges naughty high school comedy that showed a room full of teenaged boys stripped down to nothing as they awaited their turn with Cherry Forever.

As a side note, that's one of the funniest scenes in the movie. A further side note, which should be added, herein states that the "Have You Seen This Penis?" conversation is, arguably, the funniest scene in the whole damned series.

I can think of very, very few instances where the lower half of a guy has been displayed.

Of course there's Jason Mewes' two full frontal scenes in "Zack and Miri," but that's also in the name of fun. Plus I secretly suspect Mewes' had been wanting to show off his goods since "Clerks II."

An implied display of such things was recently seen in "Beowulf." What Zemeckis did was meant to be convey a sense of seriousness, but it was kind of silly to me.

Beowulf is going to fight Grendel naked. Sure, I believe that.

Show me one warrior who'll actually strip down and risk having his beloved weapon severed by some grisly means and I'll be the first volunteer to reattach it with super glue and a staple gun.

As Bob Z's camera would swing around to follow the action (at a safe CGI distance not to reveal anything), it would always place itself to where a hand, a sword, or a vessel containing some kind of ale would be conveniently in the way.

Beowulf was reduced to "Austin Powers."

But those opening sequences in "Powers" were hilarious. Beowulf was laughable and wasn't meant to be.

I figure they'd gone to all that trouble to undress Beowulf, they might as well just show it all, at least in the Unrated Editions.

There are so few visual displays of various male's southern regions that I can really only think of what I've mentioned above. But should one ask me about a naked female, and it's not so matter of listing movies I've seen, it's a matter of knowing where to begin.

"American Pie" is most obvious to me, of course, but there's an infinite number of girls who've shed their clothes in various movies, be they serious dramas or about horny teenagers.

While male centered movies show sex as a series of headboard shaking wham-wham-wham up against the bedroom wall, the ladies try something decidedly different. Enter "Twilight."

This is where attempts at overt sex fail, especially if you've read the book.

The book is a sensual collection of lightly placed kisses and states of longing. The movie is the same, but midway through there's a moment where hormones seem to take control while Bella strips her pants halfway off and Edward is on top of Bella....and then nothing happens.

I sat in that theater going "well, that was a waste."

It was anti-climactic, and didn't belong in the movie. In terms of dramatic tension, you cannot go halfway, only to pull back and then have a montage of Edward and Bella laughing and talking after completely failing to have sex.

Yeah, it's a PG-13 movie, and thirteen year old girls really don't need to see Robert Pattinson rolling around naked (or half naked) with the one girl they identify most with. But, outside of that, the dramatic tension is, essentially, a supreme letdown.

Bella and Edward could've still been intimate, and it should've been in the same sensual manner of the book.

But if that happened, the Mormons would've shouted and screamed at how we Hollywood degenerates have nothing but sex on the mind, no matter how sensual it was.

There's another double standard that is very slowly breaking down, and it stems from the previous statements about how Hollywood is "gun shy."

You know, I know it, and Heath Ledger would refer to it as "Brokeback Mountain."

Another side note, because I like it, says that Mel Gibson didn't want Heath to do it because of it's controversial nature, and Heath did it for it. Of course, Mel is...well...an alleged anti-Semite with possible strains of conservative Christianity in him.

I'm convinced Jesus is giving Heath a hug for what he did in that movie.

If Hollywood is gun shy about one guy, then two rolling about in bed is even more forbidden, though I can't really figure out why. You could place two air headed bimbos in bed and entire rolls of film will be dedicated to the scene.

I'm not in the least opposed to air headed bimbos rolling in the hay, I just expect fair play.

Certain sectors that are post products of the Sexual Revolution and the era of Free Love are awfully repressed. And by certain sectors, I mean exclusively and exceptionally arrogant heterosexual males that are scared of one thing: that they might like it.

For me, there are few taboos left, especially after witnessing one particular scene in "Last Tango In Paris" where Marlon Brando requests his female friend...uh...well, she unlocks his back door, and that's all I'll say.

Then there's the film called "The Dreamers," which makes use of cinematic fandom and sexual liberation in certain particular scenes: a pair of siblings (if I remember correctly) like to re-enact old movies and the other has to name that film, or suffer a punishment.

One scene has her enacting an old scene, he cannot recall, so she has her brother kneel down in front of an old picture and masturbate to it.

Did I mention all this is unfolding while another male is watching? Yeah, I left that out intentionally. This third young man keeps a picture of the female in next to his "heart," (penis) which is discovered when she undresses him in the kitchen while her brother watches.

She and the third young man proceed to have sex while he goes about his business.

In independent and foreign films, sex is more overtly displayed.

I once watched a series of short films from France that dealt with the subject matter in very, very unique terms.

There's also the much whispered about movie that was called "The Brown Bunny," which featured a scene between the lead actress actively performing oral sex on the male lead who served as director as well. Some would call this porn, but that is debatable.

I say that because I'm quite familiar with adult films as well. Digital Playground has long since held my attention, but their series "Pirates" and "Pirates II" have captured mainstream attention for being the biggest adult production in history.

I still haven't seen them...yet.

But the fact something like this can be accomplished in the adult realm says something, not about the company or the genre, but about the power of its production: it is being taken seriously, and I even hear that "Pirates II" was screened at an upscale college in Los Angeles one evening.

People may have...uh...came for the sex (no pun intended) and stayed for the movie.

And I'm no stranger to displaying the intimate moments of a character in my own works. No sense shying away from it, although I admit sometimes it's gotten away from me.

In the spring of 2007, after having seen a documentary on the History Channel called "Vampire Secrets Revealed," I determined that there was a great story there as part of it dealt with the part of culture who refers to themselves as vampires, and they participate in the exchange of energy, not blood.

I devised an incredibly seductive young man who had the power to not only topple those with three times his strength, he could break their barriers down with a simple touch of flesh upon flesh and then, if he so chose to do, he'd initiate an intimate relationship with them, and feed upon their sexual and spiritual energies (i.e. the kundalini) during lovemaking.

This character was meant to be bisexual, as having no real preference, but when I introduced the character of a male escort, my lead decided he liked the handsome young man more than anyone else, including the two girls he'd had sex with simultaneously in a previous scene.

The escort was just there for this young man to feed upon, which is what my original intention for the relationship was going to be. Then, damn it, my vampire fell in love with someone that preferred girls, yet shared his body with this young man repeatedly.

Even though it wasn't what I'd expected, it did provide a key dramatic point needed which I hadn't counted on that changed the story considerably and made it better than I'd originally envisioned.

"Twilight" fans will hate it, I'm sure.

And so will Hanso, who also despises "Twilight," but that's okay as well. I write only for myself, not for the world. And I've always managed to gather a following, so I'm not worrying about popularity issues.

Whew.

Damn this has been a long entry. My word processors tells me I'm at Page 5 of 5. That's my clue to wrap it up.

The point here is, basically, we're awfully repressed these days, yet our past was somewhat much more explicit.

You can have nudity, you can have overt sexual behavior, and you can cross into realms that haven't been explored. You can and you should, cinematically speaking, as long as it's necessary for dramatic reasons, or even if it's just for a laugh.

But the key term is "necessary." Throwing in a scene just for the hell of it (outside of comedy) is pointless, and will likely end up on the cutting room floor, or under the heels of the MPAA.

As for me, I see challenges set up in the form of barriers being rebuilt.

Let's break 'em down again because, for me, it's a lot of fun to make people think.

The Great Trek Throwdown

Fights (albeit thoughtful fights) always seem to break out when the topic of J.J. Abrams' revisionist version of "Star Trek" comes to the Mania front page.

Just follow the links to mania, you'll see me, Hanso, Hobbs, and a few others getting into the act.

Part One

Part Two

--Update!--

The debate continues, although instead of being a phaser fight to the death, it marches on intelligently.

Check out the comment Hobbs' left on my mania profile page, and doubly click his avatar for the reply I posted on his profile page.