When I was on the student council in elementary school, I'd somehow convinced the faculty advisor, Mrs. Wilson, that we should have a dance for the students.
Yes, I was probably 9 or 10 years old at the time. And, yes, that's crazy. Moving on.
I'm not even sure what BS story I made up to convince Mrs. Wilson to let a bunch of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders have a party in the gym on the school's dime. It's not like she was the cool teacher that everybody liked. People hated and feared that woman, and rightly so. She was pretty doggone scary. But she bought it. There were some heavy restrictions put on the dancing, and, in her mind, the big pay off was the unveiling of this god awful paper mache giraffe that was supposed to be the school mascot, but we still pulled it off.
But the REAL highlight of the party was the dance contest.
Or, more specifically, the Michael Jackson dance-alike contest.
One of my best buddies at the time, David, won, even though he had some pretty stiff competition, including a kid who made the bold choice of not dancing like Michael but dancing like one of the slow-motion pop-locking zombies from "Thriller".
David was an active participant in the "Michael Jackson jacket" arms race.
Because, even in elementary school in the early 80's, every kid could tell you the difference between the "Beat It" jacket versus the "Thriller" jacket. And God help you if your mother bought you one made out of "pleather" (i.e. plastic leather). EVERY kid was desperate to get one or all of these jackets.
I remember going to a cookout at my aunt's house after my brother & I had gone to see "Ghostbusters", and my younger cousin was debuting his own take on Michael's moves. My dad dubbed it "The Pain Face".
I remember when my best friend Tito had a birthday party at his house, and the centerpiece of the entire thing was that his family had a video tape of the entire "Thriller" music video, and we'd all sit around and watch it again, and again, and again.
I could do this all day long.
As I said in a previous blog, Michael was magic. Pure and simple.
It really, really does. Magic is there to remind us that there is MORE.
That WE, as human beings on this planet in this moment in time, are all MORE. MORE than any of us can ever possibly imagine.
That a child in a poor, hard-driving family in a dying industrial city could reach out across four decades and literally touch the souls of hundreds of millions of people in a way that each and every one of them are personally mourning him today as if he was a member of their family.....
Magic.
People crave magic.
The World? Not so much.
(OK, this is where I'm going to get in trouble).
I can't help but think about Jesus.
Because here was a man who didn't just heal through entertainment, but someone who, if we believe the stories, made the lame walk, made the blind see, feed thousands with next to nothing. But he, too, was still dragged through the streets, tortured, and murdered by the state as crowds cheered and soldiers gambled over his clothes.
I'm not saying Michael was, somehow, the 2nd Coming, or that he was executed.
But The World, or those in power, cannot allow people to believe in magic. If you know that you're MORE, you can't be convinced to bow down and genuflect to the political or financial or military prowess of another man.
Power hates magic.
Which is why, even on this day of mourning, we have people calling him names and spitting on his legacy.
Which is so sad. Because, if those people could actually open their hearts enough to hear the music, maybe they'd remember that they, themselves, are also MORE than a title or a weapon or a dollar bill.
I'm grateful for living at a time where I could witness magic.
I got a surprising amount of pushback, and, after seeing a report in the New York Times that offered similar pushback (i.e. "it's not the speculators, it's peak oil that's the real problem"), I had second thoughts.
Well, clearly, Matt Taibbi, the political writer for Rolling Stone and a regular on "Real Time with Bill Maher", has more time & access to do way more due diligence than me. He goes several steps further than Keith: not only does he blame the speculators for last summer's oil spike, and not only does he name the venerable old financial concern Goldman Sachs as one of the biggest offenders.
He points to a larger conspiracy of culture: there's no sneering Moriarty at the center of it all behind the scenes, but the corporate culture of greed at the firm is so pervasive that just about everybody who works there and then takes a job in government later appears to act in the best interests of Goldman to the detriment of the public.
And when I say "detriment to the public", I mean "bankrupting pensions" and "instigating food riots" detriment.
Moreover, he holds Goldman largely responsible for most of the economic bubbles we've seen since thr 1929 stock market crash, and in virtually every case, they make huge amounts of money for their employees and get a slap on the wrist from a compliant government.
And what's the latest Goldman Sachs-backed bubble scam, according to Matt Taibbi?
Two words: "Cap" and "Trade".
The article is superlong, but man, is it worth it. And, if it's true, REALLY f'n scary.
If this whole expansion of the field of Best Picture contenders from 5 films to 10 is, as Nikki Finke suggests, a ploy by the studios to get more blockbusters considered in the running for the Oscar telecast, I'm not sure that this will work out the way the moguls intend.
I mean, really, do we really think that, say, The Dark Knight would have stood any better chance of being considered Best Picture of the year by the academy if there was one more available slot? I just did a cursory pass over the films released in '08, and I can come up with at least 5 more indie films that got considerable critical love that would probably have just as good a chance, if not more, at Oscar nomination than Batman or Iron Man or Tropic Thunder or any other big studio film. Consider:
Revolutionary Road - starring former nominees Leonardo DeCaprio & (now winner) Kate Winslet and directed by former Best Director & Best Picture winner Sam Mendes
Gran Torino - starring and directed by perennial Oscar favorite Clint Eastwood
In Bruges - starring perennial Oscar contender Ralph Fiennes, nominated for 7 BAFTAs that year and an Oscar for Best Screenplay
The Visitor - 3 Independent Spirit Award nominations, plus SAG, Oscar, & Critics choice nominations for Richard Jenkins
The Wrestler - 2 Golden Globes, a BAFTA, and 3 Spirit Awards, including Best Picture.
My point is, the studio movies don't need more bites at the apple, because there's plenty of beloved indie fare to take up the slack. The Academy voters have very specific tastes, and, frankly, they rarely coincide with that of the average movie goer.
And, more frankly, they shouldn't intersect. The Oscars aren't a popularity contest, in the strictest sense. That's what the People's Choice Awards are for.
The Oscars are supposed to be about art, and art is not necessarily popular.
Now, of course, the Oscars are insanely political, but let's be real: The Dark Knight was an edge case. And anybody who seriously thinks Spider-Man 2 should have gotten an Oscar nomination over The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways, Finding Neverland, or Ray is smoking crack. Or that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (which I liked) should even be mentioned in the same breath as No Country for Old Men is just tripping.
Within the first month of my freshman year in college, I met a girl at a party. Not a particularly unique occurrence, excepting the fact that I'd spent the previous 7 years at an all boys private school. So Princeton was, at first, a very pleasant bit of culture shock. (Boy, did THAT wear off fast! But that's a topic for another post).
Anyway, I met this girl. She was cute. We danced a bit. And then we settled into a quieter area in the eating club to actually chat. And, initially, I was really impressed because, not only was she beautiful, but she seemed to be so thoughtful and contemplative with every thing she said.
Sadly, it wasn't too long before I realized that she wasn't really as thoughtful or considered as I'd first assumed. It's just that she talked...... really...... slow.
And the moral of this story is that, many times, presentation can trump content. At least, at first.
Which brings me to Dick Cheney.
I know he's sort of gotten off the radar lately, but I think this bears pointing out before the next time he decides to make a media appearance.
I remember during the 2004 Vice-Presidental Debate, Cheney said that, even though he was the President of the Senate and was a regular in the Senate chamber, that night was the first time he'd ever met John Edwards in person. The implication being that Edwards was a sandbagger who was too busy running for president instead of doing his job for the people of North Carolina.
Now, Edwards sandbagging-ness may be more true than not, but that, too, is another blog post.
The point is that Cheney's actual statement was just a flat out lie. Not only was Cheney rarely on Capitol Hill, but, he'd met Edwards at least three years before at the Annual National Prayer Breakfast. See?
And let's not even get into his grotesquely incorrect statements about WMDs or Iraq's non-relationship with Al Qaeda. So I wondered, why were people still listening to this guy? Why does he have any sort of credibility at all?
Again, it's all about presentation. Cheney looks and sounds like a guy who should know what he's talking about. He speaks in the hushed and measured tones of a serious man talking seriously about very serious issues.
Funny. When he was Buch 41's Sec Def, I always thought Cheney reminded me of Lt. Gerard in "The Fugitive".
But just because you sound reasonable doesn't mean that you're actually telling the truth. But I think Dave Chappelle said it best back on his show: if anybody else had said half the crazy shit that George W. Bush had said in his first term (especially, to Chappelle's point, a Black man), people would think he was a crazy man.
Here's a lit manager's assessment of the spec screenplay sales market over the last six months. Please keep in mind, these are just the numbers for the scripts that got sent out by the various major agencies & management companies in town. It doesn't account for how many actual writing clients each of these companies rep that they AREN'T sending out, let alone the scores of writers represented by smaller companies, and the multitude of unrepresented screenwriters. And that's just here in L.A.
In short, the odds are VERY long for selling a completely original screenplay to a studio.
This is why I've become a big advocate of independent film. Don't wait for Warner Bros. or Sony to give you permission. There's more money out there than studio money. We all just need to retrain ourselves to sniff it out.
You know, I've written about some controversial things over the years here at Macroscope.
Torture. Election fraud. Katrina. Iraq. Rwanda. "There is no Hell".
Why do I get the feeling that this one will generate the most hate mail?
I didn't realize that my first exposure to the film director Michael Bay was one of the coolest commercials I'd ever seen. It made such an impression on me that I didn't even realize just how old it was, and by that, I mean the original "Got Milk?" commercial:
Just beautiful, right? Simple, fun, and award-winning. And directed by Michael Bay.
Who knew, right? A far cry from what we assume about the director and his filmmaking preferences, right?
Now, the first time I could name Bay was after I and a bunch of brothers back at Princeton had formed a new organization, the Black Men Awareness Group, which was basically a safe haven on campus where we could voice our unique frustrations ("I have no mentors because the professors don't understand me or my culture", "I'm experiencing extreme culture shock in this Ivy covered tower from my predominantly black town/school", "the sisters on campus don't want me, but will crucify me if I so much as look at a white girl", "I barely have time to study & work through school while my roommate is so rich he's ineligible for financial aid", etc.).
So, one weekend, our little group therapy club decided to go out, 30 deep, to have a day just to hang out and feel good. Now, there isn't much to do in Princeton, NJ, and it's too much of a pain to organize 30 dudes to head up to NYC for a weekend, so we just did something silly: we went bowling (yeah, I know), and then we went to see this new movie that had just come out in theaters that weekend.
Yes, it was Bad Boys. And, yes, we all rolled out of that theater charged, pumped, excited, happy. It was like we were seeing some of our own up on screen. It was great.
And it was directed by Michael Bay.
While I was working in New York after college, I went with some of my AC co-workers & buddies to see Bay's next film, "The Rock".
Eh. Kind of fun, especially the Nic Cage/Sean Connery banter, but I didn't buy Ed Harris' character. Did I HATE it? Of course not. I didn't love it. It was pretty forgettable. No big deal.
A few years later, that same crew of mine did a triple-feature weekend. In one day, we saw "Lethal Weapon 4" (which kicked ass. Literally. Pleased to meet you, Jet Li.), "Toy Soldiers" (which, exactly as I predicted, absolutely sucked. Not my choice. My buddy had kids with him), and "Armageddon".
FUN FACT: for those of you who hate "Armageddon" but love, say, "Lost", "Alias", "Fringe", or the new "Star Trek", it was written by J.J. Abrams.
Now, a few weeks earlier, I'd seen "Deep Impact". This was during the time when the studios had a ton of dueling movies. "Deep Impact" had Morgan Freeman as the President of the United States, was directed by one of the regular directors for "ER" and was written by guys who'd done "Jacob's Ladder", "Ghost" and "The Player".
In short, from a dramatic and emotional perspective, it's a vastly superior piece of mature filmmaking in comparison to "Armageddon". "Armageddon" was a shameless summer crowd pleaser.
And, you know what? That's actually OK. My biggest problem with "Armageddon" was that, frankly, it gave me a headache.
Of course, that may have something to do with the fact that it was the 3rd action movie in a row I'd seen that day. Maybe.
The point is, when I look at "Armageddon" on TV now, it's perfectly fine. It's overdirected, but fine.
And that's probably my biggest problem with Bay: he clearly trusts the camera more than his actors to elicit an emotional response from the audience. Hence, the turning, spinning, sweeping, steadicam crane shots of people standing against a blue sky, instead of just holding the frame on the actor giving a performance.
Anyway, Armageddon's OK. Not great, but not horrible either.
Which brings us to "Pearl Harbor". And I'm pretty sure this is where I got on the "FUCK Michael Bay!" bandwagon. I was a film student when "Pearl Harbor" came out, and that was the first time I became acutely aware of the power of film marketing. Because I actually didn't want to see "Pearl Harbor". I knew I wouldn't like it. And, yet, there I was at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd. on opening day.
And it was exactly what I thought it would be.
Well, let's qualify that a bit:
The combat scenes, and especially the dog fight scenes are dynamite. But the story around it, of the love triangle, was just a complete joke. Not only was it a joke, but they spend all of this time building up the 2nd guy as a sympathetic love interest only to toss him aside in the end. Now, clearly, Randall Wallace (screenwriter) deserves some of the blame, but it's a partnership between the writer and the director.
It's clear that Bay loves the military, so he was a kid in a candy store in making this film (In fact, he's the PERFECT guy to do a real film adaptation of "G.I. Joe" instead of this "Iron Man" knock-off crap that's lumbering it's way to a theater near you this summer, but I digress.). But it's WAY too long, and it fills it's time with a lot of nonsensical fluff.
Pearl Harbor's a bad movie. A super expensive bad movie about a real life tragedy. They were trying to make a World War II version of "Titanic", but even "Titanic" is too long, and Ben Affleck is not Leonardo DeCaprio (who, in 1997, may as well have been the 6th Backstreet Boy in terms of his teen idol status) , and Kate Beckinsale (who I think is a great, fun actress) is definitely not Kate Winslet. It was poorly conceived from the start.
But I knew all of this. I knew it the minute I heard about it in detail, despite the pretty pictures. In the end, I only really have myself to blame.
"The Island", on the other hand, is another matter entirely. In my humble opinion, this is the best, most complete, most fun film Bay has ever made. Smart. Fun. Satisfying. Great cast (Ewan Macgregor, Scarlett Johanssen, Djimon Honsou, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi). It's biggest problem, sadly, was it's title. It's the anti-Pearl Harbor: a great film with rotten marketing.
More importantly, when I heard that Speilberg specifically reached out to Bay to get him to direct this film, it told me that he sees more in this guy than most. Personally, I think Bay has the ability to do more complete films like "The Island", with the right script and the right producer.
So much so that a kid on the intramural soccer team used to make fun of me by calling me "Optimus Prime". And, you know what? For the most part, I enjoyed it. I think it could benefit from more locked off camera shots. And there are some huge logic gaps. But I'll probably go see the sequel. No stress.
So, why this trip down Michael Bay memory lane? Because I simply don't understand the absolute hatred that people have for this guy. I mean, if he's a jerk on the set and you work in the business, I sort of understand. But, whatever - don't work with him.
I think to some people, he's the poster child for a certain kind of filmmaking - the summer blockbuster, critics-be-damned, budget busters. But, at the end of the day, I basically had a good time in most of his films. I rarely walked out feeling cheated or tricked (I'm looking at YOU, M. Night Shymalan!). The money that goes into his films could make 20 indie features, so I definitely can understand that sense of waste. Although, from a studio perspective, would those same 20 little movies have gotten the same rate of return on their investment as, say, Bad Boys II?
The dirty little secret in Hollywood is that popcorn pays for award season gold. Miramax couldn't afford to make "Shakespeare in Love" if it's sister company, Dimension, hadn't made a ton of money on "Scream". And a movie like "Transformers" probably paid for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". So the Michael Bay's make the Slumdog Millionaire's possible.
What I really really don't get is the fanboy hatred.
Well, I suppose, if I think about it, it makes sense. It's not like Bay is Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson. He's clearly not one of us. He's a little too cool and too tanned and too tall and too permed, and how DARE a non-geek give Optimus Prime a mouth!
But, then again, Hater-Aid never makes sense.
And it's his obvious disdain for the original material that burns people when it comes to Transformers. But, you know what? The stuff DOESN'T age well. Most Saturday cartoons aimed at kids don't (with the rare exception of "Robotech"). I mean, have you tried watching "Challenge of the Superfriends" recently on Boom or Cartoon Network? It's painful!
I'm not saying that people shouldn't hate Bay. It's a free country. But I would say, take a step back and think about it. After all, the guy did help make Transformers cool again. That's got to count for something.
The sad thing is, when you look at his films, Bay is clearly a fan boy at heart. He should do himself a favor and come to Comic-Con. He'll probably get geek religion.
I interned at HBO Films for a time when I was in film school, and, during that period of time, they produced a great film called "Conspiracy", about the Wannsee Conference.
In short, when Hitler decided he wanted to kill all the Jews, he ordered his military and bureaucratic leaders to get together and figure out how. After all, organizing the apparatus of a nation to systematically murder 6 million people is a helluva thing to pull off. So, they all got together in a mansion in Wansee to work out a plan.
"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
Now, with regard to waterboarding, as described by Bent Sørensen, a Senior Medical Consultant to the IRCT and former member of the United Nations Committee against Torture:
'"when water is forced into your lungs in this fashion, in addition to the pain you are likely to experience an immediate and extreme fear of death. You may even suffer a heart attack from the stress or damage to the lungs and brain from inhalation of water and oxygen deprivation. In other words there is no doubt that waterboarding causes severe physical and/or mental suffering – one central element in the UNCAT’s definition of torture”.
“In addition,” he continues, “the CIA’s waterboarding clearly fulfils the three additional definition criteria stated in the Convention for a deed to be labelled torture, since it is 1) done intentionally, 2) for a specific purpose and 3) by a representative of a state – in this case the US.”
“Finally,” says Prof. Sørensen, “it should not be forgotten that the consequences of torture – including waterboarding - are often long-lasting or even chronic. For instance, anxiety attacks, depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder are very common sequelae after torture, regardless of course, whether the victim is guilty or innocent. So torture is never just a momentary infliction of suffering.”'
Which directly contradicts the conclusions of the Bybee memo, namely that it wouldn't constitute pain equivalent to organ failure or imminent death, or that it doesn't cause lasting pyschological trauma, and, therefore, doesn't rise to the level of torture.
But, let's be honest, wasn't the whole point of using these techniques was because it was torture? It's not just about interrogation and stopping attacks. It was payback for 9/11, right? And it was to send a message to anybody else - here's what happens if you fuck with America, suckers!
Which proves a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of Mr. Cheney and others: Al Qaeda has already been calling us The Great Satan, and this is how they're helping to rally people to their cause. By using these tactics, to try to prove that we're bigger and badder than Saddam or the Soviets or any other bad actors in the world simply proves their case.
And, more to the point, the people who need to prove that they're bigger and badder than everybody else are usually motivated by fear. I'm beginning to believe Larry Wilkerson's evaluation that Dick Cheney is "a profoundly fearful man." I know it's a joke, but I'm reminded of my thoughts on Dark Sidious:
How scared do you have to be if you need to subjugate the universe?
I'd been going back through my old, unfinished drafts here on Macroscope when I came across this old article I'd saved from The Atlantic. It's a letter from a woman who was in Hiroshima on the only day that most of us in the rest of the world know anything about Hiroshima, and how, as Wayne Gale would put it, she lived to tell the tale.
Choice quote:
I rubbed my nose and mouth hard with a tenugui (a kind of towel) I had at my waist. To my horror, I found that the skin of my face had come off in the towel.
This, my friends, is pure, unadulterated horror.
But worth a read when we consider the modern state of nuclear proliferation.
Before actually having any suspects in custody from the War on Terror, officials in the Bush Administration took a program created to help captured American soldiers resist torture techniques crafted by the Red Chinese in the Korean War to illicit false confessions and reverse-engineered it so that they could APPLY those techniques in a way that would illicit false confessions about a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to justify an invasion of Iraq.
And, consider this - after being waterboarded 180 times, KSM never gave up Osama Bin Laden.
Effective, huh?
Anyone who says it's not torture is wrong. The United States has prosecuted people as war criminals for using these very same techniques going back as far as the Spanish American War.
Anyone who says that 9/11 was so extraordinary that we had to violate the law is wrong. Is Al Qaeda really more dangerous that the Nazis or Mutual Assured Destruction? Get real.
Or, actually, let me put it to you this way: Let's assume that there is a ticking time bomb. Let's assume you have absolute proof that an attack is imminent and you have a suspect in custody that you are absolutely sure knows how to prevent it but he'll only talk if you break the law and violate him physically in some way. And let's assume, by torturing him, you prevent an attack and save millions of lives.
We are STILL a nation of laws, with a court system where you're judged by a jury of your peers. When the dust has settled, you should still have to stand trial and answer for your crimes. Because if a jury of your peers agrees that you made the right decision, they'll acquit you. The law is upheld with the people kept safe. Problem solved.
And if the jury DOES convict you, but the President knows that you did a great service for this nation, he can pardon you.
But the law is still the law. We don't just pretend that torture is OK. It's not OK. And if you think the circumstances are so dire that you're required to do some awful things, you should be man enough to stand up, say it proudly, and take your lumps because you believe in America and our system of laws.
To do otherwise, to say the law shouldn't apply to you, I'm sorry, that's just fundamentally un-American.
You want to know how you're REALLY supposed to interrogate prisoners? Read "The Interrogators", about the first guys on the ground in Afghanistan and how they got real actionable intelligence without resorting to torture.
So, I'm about a month away from starting serious casting for my feature film, and it occurred to me, for as many actors who want to be stars, how many of them are conscious of the responsibilities, from a filmmaking perspective, that stardom brings?
I'm reminded of a conversation Tom Cruise and Jada Pinkett Smith had with Tavis Smiley just before the release of "Collateral", where Tom said, at the time, "I've never lost the studio money". It struck me at the time because, honestly, it hadn't occurred to me that he, as the star, felt personally responsible for making sure that the people who invested their money in his performance would see a return on their investment.
As a director, I'm reminding myself that it's not just important to cast someone who can give a performance, but someone who can also be a responsible filmmaker: supporting the performances for the other actors, treating onset crew with proper respect, being engaged in the evolution of their character with the director and the writer, using their fan base to promote the film, and, in many, many cases, helping to bring in the money to make sure there even IS a film to make in the first place.
It sounds like J.J. was very blessed by Chris Pine's onset presence. He was the star of the film, and he knew it, and acted appropriately.
I hope other actors are taking note - if you want to be a star, act like one. And that doesn't mean being a diva. It means being someone that a filmmaker and a producer and a studio and your castmates can put their trust and faith in. Being a star is about having broad shoulders.
That's my true passion. It's the reason I quit an insanely well-paying job in New York and moved all the way to Los Angeles nearly 10 years ago to get my MFA in Screenwriting at the American Film Institute.
Ironically enough, I pursued screenwriting after I took a production class at NYU back in 1998 and realized that I really didn't care enough about F-stops and film stock to devote my energy to cinematography and directing. I figured, if I could learn how to tell a good enough story, I can draw in all of the technical people I needed to make my films happen.
That was, of course, before I moved to Hollywood.
Now, don't get me wrong - you will never see a good movie that doesn't begin with a good script. But, after getting my degree and years of trying to push various feature film scripts in the marketplace, I came to realize that, when all you do is write, you're completely at the mercy of other people's tastes. Certainly, spec sales happen, but, given how many scripts there are out there in the system, selling a spec (i.e. a script you wrote on your own, with out anyone paying you to do it up front) is a lot like winning the lottery. Of course, if we're going to stick with the lottery analogy, going to film school is sort of like living in Montgomery County, MD - there's just an abnormally high number of state lottery winners there, just like you're more likely to know spec sellers if you go to film school.
Anyway, I came to realize that, contrary to popular rumors, scripts are not the coin of the realm in Hollywood. Only actual finished films are the real currency in Hollywood. From a buyer's perspective, buying a script is too big of a risk - WAY too many things can go wrong because of way too many people before you get your money back. There are far more buyers for films - cable networks, foreign territories, film markets, etc. - than for scripts.
Which gets to a piece of advice a lawyer buddy told me he received from his mentor at his first law firm: He told my friend that there were lawyers at that firm who could never understand why they didn't make partner. But making partner had nothing to do with seniority or legal skill. In a partnership, you have to split the pie, and anytime you add a new partner, you have to split the pie a little thinner. So the only reason why they would ever add a new partner is if he or she has something, a client or a relationship or something, that makes the pie bigger.
No one will hand you their equity for nothing.
And, as I thought about it, I noticed that a lot of the screenwriters I really loved were also directors: Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, David Lynch, etc.
In short, I realized that, if I wanted to see my movies made, I had to start making them.
So, I did this:
You like? If so, show "5" a little love: make it your favorite on YouTube, give it 5 stars, leave a funny comment, and, of course, forward it to every single person in your address book. :-)
You'll feel better when you do.
But, back to my original point, I've gotten FAR more traction as a screenwriter from this little short than from any of my feature screenplays. Why? Because it only takes 5 minutes to watch, while I script can take hours.
Which is why, whenever I run into a frustrated actor or writer, I tell them, take control of your destiny and make a film. Give yourself the role you want. Make yourself the producer who loves your writing.
Give yourself your own equity.
In the meantime, I'm planning to make something considerably.... longer. :-)
I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.
Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then.
Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed--
I, too, am America." - Langston Hughes
I know I've been pretty quiet since the election back in November. A lot has happened since then - personally, professionally, artistically, romantically.
In many ways, I feel like anything I could write now would really pale in comparison to the reality of the moment.
But I would like to say a few things:
I love that Michelle's mother is moving into the White House, because it is representative of the reality for many Black families here in America. My grandmother lived in my parents' house since before I was born, and there's something to be said for having another adult who is not working a full-time job there to help raise the children. And, let's be blunt, it's much more likely for Blacks to BE the nanny instead of HAVING a nanny. But, even more importantly, having a blood relative to help with your babies is probably always better. So I love that America is going to have a "First Nana".
I went to the Martin Luther King Day parade here in Los Angeles yesterday, and I love the weird trick of fate that we get to celebrate MLK the day before we inaugurate our first Black president. There were Obama t-shirts & signs & bootleg merchandise EVERYWHERE. But what's even more cool is how crazy diverse the MLK Day Parade itself was - there was a huge Korean contingent; Brazilian carnival-style dancers & floats, even freakin' Hari Krishnas. :-) A reminder that King's dream wasn't just about Black people. It was, and continues to be, about everybody.
Needless to say, I can understand how some on the left are highly pissed off about the whole Rick Warren thing. But, as I think those who oppose things like Prop 8 here in California are beginning to learn, this is a democracy, and the only way to win a majority for your beliefs is to change hearts and minds. And that means you have to talk to people who may believe in things that you hate, and they have to actually be in the room in order to talk to them. I stopped listening to some folks that I like because they believe something different than me, and, frankly, that's a sign of my own weakness. And ours. So, let's be real about this. Rick Warren is a far cry from Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, and he probably represents a very large cross-section of the church-going populace of this country. Even if you're a big believer in separation of church and state, even if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you still have to share the country with the religious people. You can't get rid of them just like they can't get rid of you, no matter how much either of you would like. That, my friends, is what democracy is all about. Just like talking to Iran is not appeasement, giving an olive branch to the Christian middle is not an endorsement. Have faith that the President may just know what he's doing.
Don't you just love that last sentence? Above all else, I love the return of a presumption of competence to the Federal government.
The last time I was on the national mall was 1995 for the Million Man March. After watching the festivities of the day, I'm suddenly itching to go back and go on all the tours. If I may paraphrase our new First Lady, this may not be the first time I've been proud of my country, but today is definitely the day that I've felt MOST proud to call myself an American.
"The Earth is at ground zero of a Doomsday Singularity. The impact of Darkseid's fall is causing cracks to spread through all space sectors."
"John Stewart's still down there! Darkseid's dragging all our friends into Hell with him!"
"Then I say we go in after him, Guy. You, me, Kyle, anybody else who wants to.And we kick his ass."
- Green Lanterns The Green Man, Guy Gardner, and, finally, Hal Jordan, pictured here, in DC Comic's Final Crisis #5
Gotta love those cosmic superheroes with no fear. DC editorial may be a colossal train wreck, but this is easily the deepest, neatest, most broadly conceived superhero comic I've read in quite a while. Grant Morrison rocks.
When I was in college, the term "facebook" may as well have been more accurately translated to "sex menu".
I cannot tell you how many hours I and my fellow classmates spent looking through the official guide book published by the university, listing names, addresses, and, yes, pictures of the faces of all the members of our incoming class to determine who was hot or not and just how far away that hotness was from our respective dorm rooms. The freshmen facebook was irreparably dog-eared well before the end of orientation week every September, and I suspect that tradition still lives on today.
Of course, Facebook now has a totally different meaning, turning into an online version of the game show "where are they now?" In many ways, I think the reason Facebook has garnered so much more attention than MySpace is that it seems uniquely designed to help you rediscover those people whom you never thought you would miss until you see their name in a friend request.
Guido Sohne was one of those people.
It would be a bald-faced lie to say that Guido and I were anything more than casual acquaintances back at Princeton. And, considering how few black faces there were, especially within the confines of the Computer Science department during the early '90's, that says a lot. It wouldn't be accurate to say Guido kept to himself, because all I really know is that he didn't really hang out with me. And there's clearly an element of arrogance there on my part - after all, I was the president for Princeton's chapter of NSBE, the National Society of Black Engineers, for two years running and organized an entire little community within a community of Black & African students aimed at helping ourselves survive the Princeton E-Quad gauntlet. So I knew and studied and partied and traveled with everybody. If he wasn't where I was, he couldn't possibly be out somewhere else with a whole other set of people, right?
I think that was the weird trick about Princeton: for even a relatively small school (~4,500 undergraduates back in the day), there was enough self-segregation that you could always find ways to make it seem even smaller. As one brother once told me, "I don't even see the white people. I walk around campus, and, it's like they're blurry. Like they're not even really there."
All I really knew about Guido was that he was very cool, friendly, and way, way, way smarter about computer science than I was. He'd disappear for seemingly entire semesters, while the rumors circled around him about some amazing thing he'd done back in his home country of Ghana or some other part of the world.
So, I must admit that I was very pleasantly surprised to reconnect with him via Facebook. Just glad to see his face.
He sent me a pretty long e-mail back describing all of the amazing technological and political activist work he was involved in back in Africa, although he hadn't been back to the US since he left Princeton because, in his words, he'd decided that he was going to come back successful or not at all.
That was October 1, 2007.
And I never replied.
I guess I was just lazy. Like Louis Armstrong said, "we have all the time in the world", right?
The next time I saw Guido's name was when a mutual friend send me a Facebook message this past June asking me if I'd heard that he'd died.
Died.
Of heart failure.
Guido was 34 years old.
Here's a guy who founded companies, co-founded NGOs, advised international foundations, all in the interest of bringing the promise of technology and innovation to those in his home who were less fortunate than he was. He was the living, breathing embodiment of everything Thomas Friedman talks about in his book "The World Is Flat". Someone who had dedicated his life to nothing less than transforming Africa.
It wasn't right.
Guido's death just struck me as colossally, cosmically unfair. Like a tiny crime against humanity had been committed.
And, on top of the injustice of it all, I must admit that I also felt a tremendous sense of shame.
I mean, let's be honest: I firmly believe that what I do, namely tell stories that can both move people's hearts and, if I'm really good, shift their perspectives a little, is one of the single most powerful and important ways to effect the human condition. Everything that is begins with an idea, and it takes storytellers to help grow the new ideas that become the future, especially the one that we desire. But even if I'm the most successful filmmaker the world has ever known, my effect on the world is very subtle. It's not an exercise in direct action like what Guido did every single day in Ghana. Hell, just BEING an open source programmer and advocate in the middle of Accra is a form of direct political action. Let alone those who have been educated, or empowered, perhaps even enriched, directly through his efforts.
Guido was in the arena. And his death reminded me that I hadn't really done much to get my hands very dirty.
But we all have our specific roles to play, and the fact remains that I, personally, will never be as technically proficient or politically courageous as Guido Sohne.
I cannot be Guido Sohne.
But it occurred to me that I could certainly do my best to find the NEXT Guido Sohne.
So, after a summer of informal chats with some of my other classmates and members of the university faculty and administration, we've created the Guido Sohne Memorial Fund at Princeton University.
The idea is this: In conjunction with the Engineering School, we'll conduct a search each semester for an African college student who's studying computer science, and, when we've identified the top candidate, we will pay for him or her to spend a semester studying in Princeton. And, at the end of the term, if there are funds left over, we'll send an American Princeton student over to Africa for a summer to study as well.
In order to do that, we're all engaged in the process of raising the initial $50,000 that's necessary to establish the scholarship. Ultimately, we need to raise $250,000 to make the scholarship self-sustaining over a period of years.
Most of the time, if I ask you folks who read Macroscope to do anything, it's usually to go see a movie or vote in an election. Maybe read a specific book every now and then. I believe this is the first (and, most likely, the last time) I will ever ask you to reach into your wallets so directly.
But, if you're motivated and inspired by Guido's story the way I was, I would ask you to contribute. You don't have to be associated with Princeton in any way to make a donation. Simply mail a check made out to `Princeton University', referencing the "Guido Sohne Memorial Fund", to the following address:
Jotham Johnson '64 Director of Stewardship Princeton University 330 Alexander Road Princeton, New Jersey 08540
Yes, I know - checks are so 20th century. Apparently, the university still only accepts direct credit card donations for their annual giving campaign, so we're still trying to figure out a way to facilitate credit card and/or PayPal donations to Princeton that doesn't put either me or any of my classmates (i.e. people who are not official representatives of the university) in charge of anyone else's money (and we're definitely open to suggestions). And I would LOVE to find a company who could do a matching gift of some sort.... especially since Guido was actually working FOR Microsoft at the time of his death (still trying to figure out how to recruit them to get involved).
The point is, contribute. However you can. If we can help even one kid come across the Atlantic and live up to his full potential, there's no telling how many lives will be directly transformed for the better. It's opportunities like these that can literally change the world.
If you're on Facebook, click the title of this blog post to become a fan of the Guido Sohne Fellowship there. Or just click this URL:
On that page, you can find links to a number of articles detailing Guido's work and life. And you should absolutely feel free to forward this e-mail and/or blog post to as many other people as you see fit.
Princeton's unofficial motto is "In The World's Service". Guido helped remind me of that. And I hope I'm not the only one.
Barack Hussein Obama II will be the 44th President of the United States of America.
Honestly, I don't even know where to begin.
Moments after the networks called the election on Obama's behalf, my friend called me and said, simply "this proves that Love Beats Fear."
A few days later, another friend called and said this:
"Yo, man. I had this dream last Tuesday night, where this whack dude was the President, and he was fuckin' everything up. So we had an election, and there was another old whack dude running against a black dude.
And you know what? The black dude won.
Crazy shit, right?
So, I was just callin' to ask, did you have the same dream?"
My own personal analogy is that it's the difference between standing in a room in the dark for eight years, and suddenly someone switches on the lights. Nothing physically in the room has changed. But the light banishes the shadows. It makes the gems in the room shine. It illuminates the paths forward. Where once there was nothing but fear and uncertainty, we can now, all see the possibilities.
Those of you who've seen my short film "5" know that, at the end credits, there's a dedication in honor of my brother and all of the other brave men and women who put on the uniform of the United States military to defend our nation.
Now, I'm far from a jingoist. I do think there's more than a little veracity to Smedley Butler's claims about the relationship between American military activism and the advancement of corporate agendas.
On the other hand, I like to think of myself as an aggressive pacifist. Or, in the words of our new president elect, I'll never throw the first punch, but I'll for damn sure throw the last one.
And, as much distaste as I have for non-fictional violence, I do recognize that sometimes you do have to throw that punch. And, consequently, you need people who are willing and able to throw it.
As my brother so aptly put it, "It's easy to stand on your principles when you aren't responsible for people's lives."
So, today, I want to take a moment to salute not just my brother, recently minted as a major in the U.S. Army Reserves, but to all of my family members - cousins, uncles, even dear old Dad - who've put on the colors.
Because far too many people falsely believe bloody=scary.
And, frankly, there's a difference between thrilling (i.e. 28 Days Later) and frightening.
I'm talking about the stuff of nightmares, here.
So, in honor of All Hallow's Eve, here are some films that legitimately made me afraid to turn off the lights at one point or another, in no particular order.
Anyone out there want to suggest any additions to my list?
Reading this great interview with Christopher Nolan as he contemplates the possibility of doing a third "Batman" film really does raise the question: Has there EVER been a third film in a trilogy that's as good or better than the first two?
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was quite good, and definitely better than The Temple of Doom.
Revenge of the Sith? Well, it's the best of the three, but the whole trilogy is so suspect, I don't really want to count it.
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a very good 80's horror film, definitely better than part 2, but not as freakishly scary as the first film.
Matrix Revolutions contains elements of a brilliant film, but there spliced in with nearly an hour of a really terrible mecha war movie, so, no.
Rocky III? Not a particularly artistic or emotionally honest film like the first, but MAN, that movie is good clean fun! Mr. T and Hulk Hogan? What's there not to love?
Die Hard With A Vengeance? I enjoyed it, but it's not nearly as tight or well written as the first film, and the ending is kinda random, so, no.
Batman Forever? Again, I enjoyed it, but it was not nearly as rich as either of Burton's two films (of which, I think Batman Returns is the best).
The Bourne Ultimatum is an exceptional action movie, but, without the Marie character, it really lacks emotional resonance and, in the end, it's about very little.
Return of the King is, in my mind, the only one that surpasses the other two films in the series. And that's only because the entire series was conceived as one complete story beforehand, where Act Three is the big payoff.
Most other part threes are commissioned largely for commercial purposes, with people trying to find a story to justify a reason to capitalize on the success of the first two films.
In short, I would LOVE to see Nolan find a reason to do a 3rd Batman.
(My recommendation? Cast Daniel Day Lewis as Dr. Hugo Strange for the main villain. "Who the Hell is Hugo Strange?" you ask? Who cares? Outside of comic fanboys, who the Hell ever heard of Ra's Al Ghul before "Batman Begins"?)
But I hope it's for the right reasons. Story reasons.
As I've mentioned in the past, one of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek is entitled "The Enemy Within" - a transporter malfunction creates two versions of Captain Kirk.
One is intelligent, wise, compassionate, yet indecisive.
The other is....
Well, see for yourself:
Forceful? Yes. Decisive? Yes. But also crazed, lustful, paranoid.
And yet, as Spock points out, while separated, neither one is capable of surviving without the other. In the end, as much as the two repulse each other, they're forced to literally embrace each other to both survive and lead.
So, I've been following the coverage of the growing lynch mob qualities of the Palin/McCain rallies over the last few weeks.
And let's be real about this: McCain may be the official party nominee, but Sarah Palin is really the standard bearer for this particular facet of the Republican party these days. Given the choice, I'm sure many of them would prefer to have her at the top of the ticket simply because they trust her more. In their mind, she's one of them, through and through. McCain is, sadly, just someone who's hitched his carriage to them on the vain hope that this pony will carry him all the way to the Oval Office.
Honestly, I feel sort of sorry for both of them.
McCain, because, after the abuse he suffered at the hands of Bush & Co. back in 2000, could not get over his Presidential fixation and has debased himself over and over again by cowtowing to Bush, Falwell, et. al., hoping that these people that he once scorned will finally let him in the club. Frankly, much of his career has been spent seeking acceptance from the "cool kids". Originally, he hoped that by being a rebel Republican, he'd be popular among the Hollywood & press elites. And it worked. But it wasn't enough to get him elected, because as far as most Democrats are concerned, he's still a Republican. One they might want to have a beer with, but a Republican, nonetheless. So he did a switch, seeking favor from within his party. But, by then, it was too late, he'd pissed too many of them off. And the only reason he's the nominee now is because everyone else in the GOP field proved to be unacceptable to at least one sizable faction within the party (Rudy's too liberal and Romney's too Mormon for the cultural conservatives, and Huckabee was too much of a policy lightweight for the neocons and finance conservatives). In short, everyone else's constituencies killed the one guy they were the most offended by, and none of them were paying attention to McCain, leaving him the last man standing.
Sarah Palin's just like McCain in that her ambition consistently overrides whatever better judgment she may have about her career. I get the sense that when she was approached about taking the VP spot, she must have said to herself "well, how hard can it be?" My sympathy for her comes from the fact that she'll probably go down in the annuls of presidential election history in the same breath as Admiral Stockdale or Dan Quayle as a figure of national ridicule. But don't be misled. Even if McCain loses, we've probably not heard the last of Gov. Palin on the national stage.
Of course, there are limits to my sympathy.
And I suspect that McCain didn't fully appreciate the Frankenstein's monster he'd created by turning Palin loose to stoke up her base with the notion that Obama might somehow be a member of some fictitious joint Black/Muslim sleeper cell.
And, for the record, I'd just like to say two things:
1. If I were Obama, I would stand up during that prime time speech he's going to give the week before the election and say "Yes, my full name is, in fact Barack HUSSEIN Obama, and I have about as much in common with with Saddam Hussein as Bill Clinton has with George Clinton. Think, people!"
2. "Muslim" != "Enemy". My family was all raised in Protestant, Methodist traditions in the country churches on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Yet, my uncle converted to Islam some 30 years ago. And I can tell you that he, his wife, and his six children are among the most thoughtful, considerate, compassionate, disciplined, spiritual people I have ever known. His Islamic faith has given him a core of inner peace and personal strength the likes of which I feel I have almost never seen among even Christian clergy. And the VAST majority of Muslims are like that. Blaming all Muslims for the actions of a man like Bin Laden is like blaming all Christians for the actions of Hitler. Or Jim Jones. Or Timothy McVeigh.
But my point is this:
Even if Obama wins in a landslide next month (which, according to FiveThirtyEight.com, has a better than 50% probability of occurring. Hope springs eternal), these people who are currently literally screaming for his head aren't going anywhere.
The fearful, the paranoid, the hateful - these, too, are very much part of America. Always have been.
And yet, in these very same parts of the country, you probably get the highest recruitment ranks from the military. The highest church participation and activism. These people love this country. Many of them have wildly different, and, in some cases, mutually exclusive view of what this country is supposed to be.
And, as long as no one is picking up a pitchfork or a rope, that's actually OK.
It's called democracy.
I know Kos likes to talk about "breaking their spirits" and Karl Rove was renowned for seeking a permanent Republican majority, the fact of the matter is, short of straight up genocide, neither side can ever get rid of the other.
No matter how much it disgusts or repulses us, that other America is still America. And we could not have what we have without it.
That's not to say that it's a good thing. Far from it. The provincial hatreds and prejudices and fears are, in my mind, a part of our national shame.
And the generational times are changing for the better. But I don't think any of us on either side of the divide should delude ourselves into thinking that we can ever be rid of the other completely.
So, with that in mind, we have to look for the common ground, where it can be found.
And, where it cannot, and it comes to a point where we have to lay hands on each other in a non-Christian way to resolve our differences...
Well, just the thought of that makes me sad. But I have to acknowledge that there may just be some people who are beyond reasoning.
At which point, like Jill Scott said, we just have to take off these rings and deal with it.
It's ALL America. The good and the bad.
But, personally, just like J.J. Abrams, I'm encouraged by the fact that Star Trek is making it's return in the same year that a transformative, hopeful figure like Barack Obama potentially becomes the new leader of the free world. It's no accident that Star Trek's Final Frontier was the projected future from JFK's New Frontier. I mean, who can dispute the Kennedy-eque qualities of a character like this:
Yes, it's always been a challenge. But I, for one, am filled with hope.
The hope that this country will have leadership again who will once again make us proud through their actions at home and abroad. The hope that we will find the means and the will to resolve our most pressing problems while capitalizing on our most golden opportunities.
I believe the cultural zeitgeist is changing. I believe the sci-fi worlds of "Blade Runner" and "Mad Max" where an outgrown of our sense that The Future was dying. But now, people have hope again. The future looks bright again.
There will always be serpents. But that doesn't make the fruits of the garden any less sweet.
