Ugh. Where to begin with this one. What is it about early 80s scifi movies connected to James Cameron turning into shit 30 years later. So, we have a problem.
The Terminator franchise is a very beloved one. It has a really passionate, built-in fan base, a sizable chunk of which is willing to rush to the theatres to see the latest incarnation.
But the last few Terminators have been real stinkers. The premise is tired. Played out. Here’s how to fix it and make a lot — A LOT — of money.
Again, just with the Alien franchise, there’s an issue of consistency of tone to deal with. So, much like the James Bond franchise, I would get the best director I could find willing to do three movies and attach them to the project.
Then I would do something to the basic premise of the movies that would infuse it with a huge amount of life. Instead of constantly sending Terminators to kill John Conner over and over again, why not shock the audience in the first film by having him die at the end of the first movie in the series.
The twist is — the whole thing is a different timeline from the one that send the Terminator in the future. (I haven’t seen the last few Teriminators, so if I’ve stumbled across one of their existing plot twists, sorry.)
Anyway, you would need to reboot the entire series from the beginning. Give it a three picture arc with the same director and rake in the money. The issue would not be “here we go again,” but a journey through different timelines.
Or something.
There is a risk, of course, that the entire premise is so played out as to make any reboot meaningless.
I’m a very visual person. And I love movies. I love how a good movie — or film for that matter — can become a totem for the era in which it was produced. Movies, with their combination of music, writing, cinematography and acting are artistic time capsules waiting to be discovered by new generations.
As such, the novel I’m developing and writing is pretty much a screenplay hiding inside a novel. I can’t help myself. I reference a lot of music. In fact, music is pretty crucial to understanding the whole thing. And the story (two novels, one story) is jammed packed with scenes that I look forward to writing and I know, given the opportunity, that audiences would crave to see on the big screen.
But the point of this post is the actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge. While, again, my expectations for this novel are painfully low, I do continue to see Ms. Waller-Bridge when I imagine my female romantic lead. She’s the right age and British. The female romantic lead is an amalgam of a number of women who have caught my eye over the years. The biggest inspiration is, of course Alexa Chung, who is, oddly enough, just about Ms. Waller-Bridge’s age.
It’s interesting how much of a struggle I’ve gone through to make my original vision of this novel a reality. My writing ability was sorely lacking when I started this process. But, finally, I feel I’ve pretty much figured out how my doofus hero might be able to snag a woman who is, at least in part, inspired by Ms. Chung.
As I’ve said before, I find it extremely amusing that my female romantic lead has an Asian surname, but — plot twist! — doesn’t look Asian. It’s all very amusing because I could see a lot of Twitter liberals who hadn’t read the book getting extremely angry that a Caucasian would play the character, not knowing that, lulz, she doesn’t even look Asian as described.
But, in general, I’m a big fan of Ms. Waller-Bridge. That girl has creative brass ovaries. She inspires me a great deal because she looks at the audience without blinking and challenges them. My novel, too, pretty much wallows in some very controversial subjects and demands the audience dare to look away.
Or, put another way, that’s what’s going on in my mind as I develop and write the novel. The whole thing is so diffused that, lulz, you probably wouldn’t even notice what the fuck I just said in the actual product. The novel I’m writing is a very breezy, accessible read.
Anyway. Who am I fooling. I can’t even get anyone to read this blog, much less read a novel in the 145,000 to 165,00 word count range. But, like I said, this a novel that has some serious screenplay envy.
Some of the scenes would knock your socks off on the screen!
I wish I had the resources to do it, it’s so obvious — a quickie, updated version of The Big Chill set in NYC during the current COVID19 Pandemic. The plot writes itself — a group of six 40th somethings (and one younger person) come together for a series of COVID19-related funerals and talk about the modern world.
Pretty much all you have to do is find a decent screenwriter and some high-end movie equipment and you have a movie. It could be super timely and it would give you the opportunity to explore — and maybe have some catharsis — about the current fucked up Trump Era.
I say someone is producing this movie because twice in the last few weeks someone has looked at a post I did two years ago suggesting such a movie. But now that funerals are starting up in NYC, well, it’s very easy to see an indie movie about what I’m proposing popping up.
You could do it really, really fast and maybe even get a well-known actor to be a producer and pay for the whole thing as well. You need six people. I tried to come up with a dream cast, only to realize if everyone (expect one person) is supposed to be in their 40s, you’d have to think about who would play which character and I’m not really into putting that much energy into this post.
Anyway, good luck people who are writing and producing the movie I thought up two years ago.
Hollywood, we got a problem. It’s at least within the realm of possibility that not only will all entertainment production shut down soon because of a pandemic, but people will stop going to the movies for a solid year. If you work on the assumption that for about a year — until a vaccine is finally approved and mass produced — some fundimental assumptions about everyday life will be suspended then Hollywood as we know it is a Dead Man Walking.
By the time things go “back to normal,” we may not even have a traditional Hollywood anymore. “Immersive media” in the guise of VR and AR may pop out of the rubble and take over the entertainment world. But another thing to remember — when will the crisis reach such levels that there aren’t live studio audiences for late night talk shows? Or everyone on TV starts to wear a mask? The issue is if you see the coming pandemic in the United States as a process, not an event, a “new normal” will happen at some point where we move past the “event” stage into the “process” stage where everyday life begins to come back, albeit in a dramatically different form. It will be surreal, at first, but it will have to be done.
The whole thing is going to suck. But at some point The Powers That Be are going to encourage “normal” TV to come back for no other reason than to make the life of pandemic — where everyone has to stay inside — at least a bit more bearable. Remember, whatever the pandemic is called will be, will said in the same breath as the Civil War and World War 2. So, eventually, inevitably, we’ll figure out some way to go back to “normal” while we wait for it to end.
But one thing that will be interesting to look at will be the rise of Immersive Media. How fast will that happen? Telepresence will be a huge growth industry in the middle of a pandemic. It will be interesting to see how that will work out specifically.
I am curious what will happen to music. Will someone write a pop song that alludes to the effects of a pandemic? How would they pull it off? I’m tempted to write some doggerel. But I see writing song lyrics a huge waste of time when I have a novel to develop and write. But someone should start thinking about that.
In the end, even with a pandemic all around us, life will go on. People will have sex. Babies will be born. People will die.
Now, I went into Elizabeth Banks’ reboot of Charlie’s Angels pumped. I love the concept and thought it might be interesting. I lasted until just about the inciting incident then walked out. This says a lot more about me than it does the movie, however. But given how everyone is talking about what a flop the movie was and why, I thought I would put my 2 cents in.
The star of the movie was Kristen Stewart. But I found her extremely miscast. She tried to come off as a dumb-dumb, but it was off putting because we all know she’s not and she’s not that good an actress. I would cast her as a more dominate role. Lean into native strength as an actor and person. Don’t try to ignore that who she actually is. I am aware of the difficulties they had finding the other two actresses and it showed. The movie definitely needed better actresses. But given what it was meant to be — a feminist action-adventure romp — I’m willing to grade it on a curve.
But the moment when I knew I was outtie was the montage of young girls running around for no apparent reason. It made no sense. I guess it was meant to set the tone of the film, but it was at that moment that I realized this was NOT the movie for me. I felt the movie suffered from creeping Bookstmart-itis in the sense that it was so wrapped up in smelling the farts of its message that it was to the detriment of the overall story.
In passing, I would note that one problem with franchises like Charlie’s Angels is it has what I call the Scooby Doo Paradox. This is when your audience is adults who remember something fondly so you think what they want is an over-the-top comedy, when the story might actually be best served by playing it a bit more serious because the conceit is actually really strong and timeless. So, might have made this latest reboot of Charlie’s Angels a little bit more John Wick than it was. That would have been cool. And, remember, Hustlers is how you slip in a feminist message into your story in a way that gets people’s asses in the theatres. Hustlers was a well written movie with just enough T&A (especially J.Lo’s ass) that men went into it not realizing the movie is actually extremely girl-power in its message. Something similar could have been done with Charlie’s Angels.
Make the audience not bi-curious girls in high school, but maybe couples in their late 20s. Have a just enough sex in it to get the guys going — I really liked Kristen Stewart’s flirty butt cheek flash — but if you were more honest about what this story really was then I think you could have a much, much better movie on a number of different levels. If you poured Hustlers and John Wick into Charlie’s Angels, it would have been a hit.
I went to see the newest Zombieland today and was pleased. It was worth the price of admission. Definitely got the impression Emma Stone HATES Jesse Eisenberg. She’s a good actor, but she’s not that good.
Not really related, but has an update on the state of the novel.
Going through the process of seeing the movie that I came up with some really great scenes in the latter pages of the first half of the novel. These scenes are so good, in fact, that I had a momentary bout of existential creative angst. I started to think maybe it should be TWO books with the first book ending on a cliffhanger. But since then, I’ve thought better of it. I really like the idea of just writing one novel that’s really accessible and fun but actually has something of a deeper, darker meaning.
One issue I keep toying with is how much to ground the story in a specific year and how much I should just make it “now” and have it run as a scenario. I’ve long called the novel a political fairytale for woke Park Slope moms and there is something to be said for making it a gauzy story that is simply set in the modern era. I worry it will come off as dated if I make it specific to an exact time.
And, yet, given that it’s meant to be my own person indictment of the clusterfuck that is the Trump Era, there’s something to be said for setting in in a specific year of that clusterfuck. If people go into it knowing that it’s set in a specific year, then it won’t feel dated (I hope.) It will simply feel like a way to have catharsis about about the Trump Era which, hopefully, will have come crashing down by the time this novel is set for me to pitch it to an imprint. If it HASN’T come to and end by about August 2020 then, well, I’ll just roll with the punches. The moment it sank in that wasn’t going to be able to finish the novel in time for it come out in summer 2020 when people would be thinking about the presidential election, I became a lot less concerned about being rushed.
I’m well on track to finish this novel by August 2020, but it’s my impression there is a good six months of post-production after you actually sell a complete manuscript. Of course, it would be like winning the lottery if I actually was able to sell the damn thing at all. I’m not the greatest writer in the world, but I am a decent story teller.
One thing I’m a little uneasy about is how cinematic some of the cooler scenes are. I mean, does that mean I should just write a screenplay? I quickly push such thoughts aside, however. All of Michael Crichton’s books pretty much read like a movie treatment as it is. I think I can forgive myself if I come up with a scene or two that depends on you knowing a song well enough to have it playing in my mind as the scene unfolds.
Anyway, I continue to worry that Phoebe Waller-Bridge is going to steal a creative march on me. But that’s just being really paranoid. My story is uniquely American. It wallows in its Americanism. Though I definitely admire and gain inspiration from Waller-Bridge because of her creative courage. I’ve made some creative decisions on this novel which are potentially fucking huge risks for any number of reasons.
But watching Zombieland today, I took note of how the were able to give what an mainstream audience wants. It’s because of how entertaining and, well, good, Zombieland was that I am reminded of how much I fucking hated Booksmart. That movie insulted me with its contempt for middle-American values and its absolute need to cram it’s desire to be comfort food to a 17-year-old bi-curious girl who goes to like, fucking Hollywood High down my throat. Sometimes, you want shit to blow up, people fall in love in a traditional manner and to hate on hippies like was found in Zombieland.
I am quick to note, however, that I was definitely not the audience of Booksmart, so go see it! I guess if I was in the mood to see a movie like Booksmart, I would just watch Heathers again. Now THAT was a good movie. Also, I like political subtext. In these divided times, it’s nice to put your politics in your work on the sly as a treat to people who agree with you. That way people who don’t agree with you politically, who don’t have the same cultural touchstones, still get to have a good time.
Everybody having a good time reading my novel is a big deal for me. That’s why, yes, there are plot points that are pretty conspicuous, there’s at least a small chance a MAGA person will at least enjoy themselves should they hate read it because Don. Jr. won’t shut up about it.
I am going to stay humble. There’s just too much that can go wrong. But I refuse to make decisions on what I don’t know. I’ve gotten this far and the story continues to entertain me, the writer, so I keep going. I’m well on my way to wrapping up the first half of the novel pretty soonish. I just keep making the specifics of the novel better and better, often because I distract myself for a few hours by watching a movie.
We’ll see. It will be interesting to see if I manage to pull this off or if I wake up one day and see someone has completely stolen a creative march on me. But, again, make decisions on what you know — not what you don’t know.
Ad Astra is a good movie, not a great movie. The closest movie I can compare it to in spirit is Ex Machina. Both movies linger in the mind after you watch them. But Ex Machina is a far better movie.
I get the vision of the movie intended by this Brad Pitt vanity project. It’s supposed to be a melancholy rumination on the human condition and a man’s relationship with his distant father. Ok, I get it. And I get why they kept talking about aliens only for there to be no aliens.
And, yet, the movie is a little too subtle for its own good. It might benefit from the very thing didn’t want to have — aliens. I say this because the movie is obviously inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though the more astute of you will notice an homage to the campy space classic Dark Star. (In Dark Star an astronaut rides a piece of his ship into a planet’s atmosphere like a surfboard. Pitt does something a little similar at one point.)
In a sense, I think the lack of aliens is kind of a cop-out. Much of the rest of the movie was serviceable adult-oriented entertainment. It wasn’t hackish at all. It’s just the whole thing could have been a whole lot more…profound. The whole thing was so slight, so subtle that it felt lacking.
I have to be a nerd and point out the producers of the movie apparently are completely oblivious to the difference in the gravity on the moon and Mars compared to earth. But you can’t have everything, I guess.
But I did honestly like the movie. It’s going to be a great on-air entertainment for people flying to Walla Walla.
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