We Move. Five Meter Spread. No Sound

Has it really been seventeen years since Predator was released? Oy but I'm getting old.

Just rented the DVD from Netflix, along with the bonus disc. Interesting commentary from director John McTiernan, who tries to make a case for how unviolent his film was; the scene where the boys literally mow down the jungle in an orgy of full-auto glory was supposed to be "ironic."

Um, yeah.

My college buddy Kent had a bit of an obsession with this film back in the day. Kent was a pretty avid body-builder, so anything with Arnold was a must-see. But mostly, I think, he loved the dialogue -- it was so silly, and so over-the-top, but still worked. He even transcribed the script for fun (this was pre-web, remember). Of course, he didn't speak Spanish, so his transcription of the local dialogue was a hoot ("Moohair! Moohair! Kay Pasoh ah kee?").

The behind-the-scenes stuff is great: Jesse Ventura talking about shooting the gattling gun; Carl Weathers becoming addicted to cigars courtesy of Arnold; McTiernan's dismay at the first monster; the late Kevin Peter Hall not just being a guy in a suit, but actually creating a personality for the creature. Very fun. Hall really comes across as a professional -- and a fun fellow -- in his cameos. The suit apparently weighed 200 lbs, they were shooting in a jungle, and the guy is cracking jokes. Amazing.

Kent would eat this stuff up...

Oscar predictions

Nominees won't be out for a couple days. But I think it's not that hard to figure out who will get what.

Best Picture
Winner: Brokeback Mountain
Nominees: Good Night and Good Luck, Crash, Walk the Line, Constant Gardener

Best Actor
Winner: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
Nominees: David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Jeff Daniels (Squid and the Whale), Terrence Howard (Hustle and Flow)

Best Actress
Winner: Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)
Nominees: Felicity Huffman (Transamerica), Joan Allen (Upside of Anger), Charlize Theron (North Country), Maria Bello (History of Violence)

Supporting Actor
Winner: Matt Dillon (Crash)
Nominees: Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man), George Clooney (Syriana), Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain), William Hurt (A History of Violence)

Supporting Actress
Winner: Rachel Weisz (Constant Gardener)
Nominees: Catharine Keener (Capote), Laura Linney (Squid and the Whale), Scarlett Johannson (Match Point), Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain)

Director
Winner: Ang Lee
Nominees: George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Fernando Meirelles, Paul Haggis

Original Screenplay: Crash
Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback
Art Direction: King Kong
Cinematography: King Kong
Editing: Crash
Documentary: March of the Penguins
Foreign Language: Paradise Now

Ok, in truth I haven't seen "King Kong" yet. There is a rumor that it could burst out as both best picture and give Peter Jackson (recently slimmer and trimmer!) another gold statue. We'll see.

I give Reese Witherspoon a lock. The rest nobody knows.

Well, except PricewaterhouseCoopers..

It's the Rutger Hour

Last summer I did a film for a small fraction of my normal rate. I did it for three reasons: One, I owed the production designer a favor. Two, the script was dynamite. Three, my favorite film of all time might well be "Blade Runner," and this film had Rutger Hauer in the title role.

The film's not out yet, hell, I don't even know if they've finished cutting it yet, and its web site is just a placeholder, so it's Against the Rules for crew to talk about films in this state. But today I discovered that Rutger had written up some comments on "Mentor" on his own blog.

Here's the thing: Rutger doesn't really act. He is completely, utterly, and deeply insane. And I love him for that. He is a royal PITA 50% and the most charming person you've ever met the other 50%. He's a star who recognizes the crew -- constantly. One night he invited all of us to his hotel for cocktails, food, and a screening of some of his unknown (at least in the US) shorts. He's a pro, and he smokes way too much, and we're going to lose him far too soon as a result. As propmaster (well, my title was set decorator, which is one of the reasons we do little micro-budget indies, to inflate our titles; most of the time I was art director, set decorator, set dresser, propmaster and set constructor as well as scenic at one time. It was a three-man (well, two women, and me) team at most at any given time. It was the hardest I've ever worked) one of my tasks was to keep a constant supply of cigs in fake packs that our talented production designer had genned up. I still have one sitting in my prop kit. IRL, they were Marlboros. Rutger went through three packs a day of prop cigs. At least.

But, as his cig supplier (as well as chain smokers Matt Davis and Dagmara Dominczyk) I got popular with the principals. Now I know what it's like to feel like a pusher.

Oh, and I was the stills photographer too. Microbudgets, man, the best way to learn filmmaking. Yeah, that's a portion of one of my shots on Rutger's blog.

The script changed pretty dramatically between prep and shooting. I'm not sure I liked all of the changes, most of which were made for budgetary reasons -- but not all. Still, I think it could be an interesting film. Really looking foward to seeing the final project... mostly so I can comment on it more.

Locations were interesting. Johns Hopkins doubled for two colleges, one upscale, one not so. Our "beach house" was just outside of St. Michaels, a beautiful piece of land that I wish I owned. A trendy on Charles Street in Baltimore was across the street from the old money Men's Club where we shot some scenes for "Syriana;" a not-so-trendy bar uptown served as the "townie" bar. One of the most rewarding days was on a small ferry that crosses near St. Michaels. We were fighting the light, and desperate to steal shots. Matt Davis posed for some stills for me against the sunset -- he's a pro, never shot a bad frame of him. Our last location was a funeral home west of Baltimore. Gave me the creeps, but Rutger is one sprightly old SOB: He could twist himself into that coffin faster than anyone would believe.

We'll talk more about "Mentor" as it approaches release. I'm proud of the work I did. I think we all were.

Let the Advertising Madness Begin

Exciting games this weekend. Guess I'll have to suffer through another couple weeks of Bill Cowher. Oh well.

The Burger King spot where the King assumes Steve Young's body and scrambles through the Vikings defense is just hilarious. I love the way it ties the slightly overcranked, grainy, NFL films look with their wonderfully cheesy music.

Then again, the King is still creepy. But in a good way...

On the flip side... what the heck happened to that McDonald's spot? You, know the one where the fellow is making hors d'oeuvres out of Quarter Pounders? It looks like it was printed on an 8mm transfer with a single light. The first time I saw it, a couple weeks ago, I figured it was some glitch at CBS. But now it's run at least a dozen times that I've seen, and each time it's this God-awful transfer. It's one thing when you deliberately go for a grainy look, or degrade the image to make a point, but this just plain looks like a mistake. I'm a little surprised that Mickey-D's ad firm allowed this one out the door.

Since I'm predicting a complete rout by the Seahawks, perhaps some good spots will keep our interest this year.

A Lousy Football Weekend

While it's true that few of us Redskins fans ever expected them to make the playoffs, let alone win a playoff game, the loss in Seattle was still painful. (Seattle? NFC? I still can't get used to that one) With any kind of offense (as in, more than one receiver) they might put together a decent team. It's hard to argue with that D.

I've always admired the Pats. They play no-nonsense ball, and have talent at every position. At the beginning of the year I predicted they'd repeat as Super Bowl champs. Denver's tough, and it was a pretty good game. Still, I was pulling for the Pats.

Didn't really have a dog in the hunt between Chicago and Carolina.

Which brings us to Pittsburgh/Indy.

I really don't like the Steelers. Here's why:

1. Annoying fans. I suppose every team has them, but the Steelers fans, at least here in the DC area, can truly become tiresome.

2. Dumb helmets. Still can't afford a logo for the other side?

3. Corporate sponsorship.




I realize it's an old US Steel logo, but I still don't like the precedent. Consider what a money-grubbing owner with no sense of tradition -- say, Dan Snyder -- could charge for this helmet?



4. Cheap Shots. Kimo von Oelhoffen made a deliberate move to damage the knee of QB Carson Palmer, long after the pass was thrown. Palmer was looking downfield, and van Oelhoffen hit him blind. He grabbed the leg and put his weight into it. It could have ended Palmer's career. Oelhoffen should be thrown out of the league, yet Bill Cowher defended him

5. Which brings us to Bill Cowher. Like Jon Gruden, he's a TV coach. His antics, his motions, even his facial expressions are designed to look "tough" on television. If he'd spend half as much time coaching as acting, he'd have a Super Bowl win instead of NINE playoff appearances without one (and an unprecedented four AFC championship losses -- at home, no less). I really did think the Gods were going to punish Cowher's arrogance in Indianapolis; when he decided to run up the score instead of just kneeling down, then taking the FG, and over-the-hill RB Jerome Bettis promptly coughed up the ball, the irony was sweet... almost. Cowher won because it turns out that Peyton Manning is human after all. It will be interesting to see if Cowher can figure out how to lose to the Broncos tomorrow. And we'll be able to see a classy coach, Mike Shanahan, act like a professional on the sideline.

There's a film Cowher should review.

Get Your Shots!

Looks like the flu is making the rounds in Peter Parker's L.A. and J.J.J's New York:

Either that, or all three of our characters have become animated zombies like the ones in Dawn of the Dead.

Hey, now there's an idea...

Good Advice

Snapped this near Alligator Alley in Florida. Good advice.

I've often thought of collecting fun "international" warning signs. You can see some really imaginative ones on the sides of earthmoving equipment. First started thinking about them years ago, when an acquaintance who worked as a printer showed me one nicked from work; it showed a hand and a steel rod. The chemical that we were being warned about was shown burning through both. As if to say "If it'll burn through steel, imagine what it'll do to your frigging hand!"

Maybe I'll start a blog of these. Then again, no doubt someone else has already done it...

The Nookular option

Mallard must be running low on material, if he's gotta go back 25 years to find a Democratic target.

Funny thing is, I thought Carter was one of Rickover's boys; worked in the reactor development program at Schenectady, that sort of stuff.

München on Spielberg's Munich

Was really looking forward to this one. Plot sounded great. Good cast. The Spielberg touch -- when it's a serious project, no one is better (Ryan and Schindler, for instance).

My verdict? Really disappointed. And the thing is, if 45-55 minutes had been cut, it might well be the best film of the year.

Spoiler alert!
*************

The photography is stunning. From the re-creations of the initial kidnapping, to locations around Europe, the film looks like it was shot in 1973 with 2005 gear, sort of like how Ryan seemed a bit like the world's greatest documentary during the battle sequences. The actors are all, to a person, first rate. As we watch the first hit take place, we can't help but notice how inept our Mossad assassins are. While they get better, they still botch the job several times. As opposed to a Clancy story, where any Delta Force or Special Forces type can simply do no wrong, it was refreshing to see human faces on our deadly assassins.

But... it just dragged. Our hero quickly realizes he's losing his humanity in performing these jobs, and he reaches the conclusion that another terrorist will simply take the place of the one he just killed so quickly, we wonder why we sit through the next couple hours. The paranoia, so vital to the plot, comes in quickly, but loses its tension after so much time. And I just don't get his haunted visions -- wouldn't the awful images of the athletes being butchered be a source of inspiration for him? Not pain; if anything, it should be relief for him.

I love Spielberg. Have since Jaws. But in 2005, he made two of the most disappointing films of the year. Is he just too powerful, and editor will dare tell him "Steve, we gotta cut the prostitute assassin, we gotta cut the Beirut scene, we gotta cut the newlyweds, we gotta cut the aborted hit in London..." and so on? Take those scenes out, plus a few others, and Munich becomes a tight, gripping, and emotionally moving film.

Rogo-Matic

Back in college, we played Spades. Pretty much constantly. One fellow who lived on floor became so addicted, he wound up dropping out after failing to basically do any homework or write any papers. Was Spades to blame? Well, it's entertaining to think so.

Me, I graduated. Barely. And I can say, with a great deal of certainty, that had I not been introduced to the DOS game "Rogue," in approximately 1984, I would have graduated considerably higher in my class.

Rogue, for those of you too young to have experienced the first generation of PC games, was an ASCII-based adventure game, modeled on Dungeons and Dragons. You worked your way down through 26 or so levels of dungeons, fighting monsters represented by letters of the alphabet (A is for Aquator, B is for Bat, C is for Centaur... Z is for Zombie). Then, if you were still alive, you'd grab the Amulet of Yendor and work your back UP 26 levels until reaching the light of day.

I'm pretty sure it's impossible. But being clever sorts, we quickly figured out that if you made a copy of the saved game, you could go back to a point and try again. And if you were really clever, you could milk a scroll of identify or magic mapping for several levels, by saving right before using them.



(In the above screen grab, I'm about to have my arse handed to me by a Griffin.)

I wrote my first column for the college newspaper on Rogue, and its addictive qualities. I'd love to find it somewhere, so that I could clean up the grammar and spelling.

So last month my friend Kent sent me to a link where one could download Rogue -- the single file, small enough to fit on a low-density floppy (A what? Nevermind -- it was a long time ago). He's been trying to win without saving the game. I think he's mad. But, partially for old time's sake, partially because I really haven't changed much in 20 years, I gave it a whirl.

Well, I can't beat it. I've gotten close a couple of times (you really do need leather armor or a ring of maintain armor, and alost certainly a ring of slow digestion. Some kind of wand of polymorph helps, as does slow monster. Even so... bad luck just kicks in). But close doesn't cut it.

If you're interested in giving Rogue a go, you can download it here.

But don't blame if you graduate last in your class....

A Perfect Design

Been doing a bit of editing lately. Here's a live video for The Dillinger Escape Plan. Another video guy saw an early draft and commented "What, did you have nine cameras?" Well, not quite. Seven. Well, sort of. We shot two performances with two cameras, and one performance with three. I'm pretty happy with it.

(You'll need Quicktime 7 to see it.)

The power of the still image

Recently I was thinking about how the power of images have, perhaps, been diminished in my lifetime. Today, we are pretty much bombarded with media. Every event seems to have near-endless press coverage. Yet, in my lifetime, that wasn't always the case. In November 1963, I was still in diapers, but those a bit older than me will always remember Bob Jackson's Pulitzer-prize winning photograph of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

I started thinking about the differences between the moving image and the still frame when I came across a Quicktime clip of the shooting at the Newseum's website. In the video version, things happen so quickly, it looks like chaos. Jackson's still frame, however, freezes the moment for us... and it's a truly transitional moment for everyone in the photograph. I count ten faces, either full face or enough to register an emotion.

Five seem to have recognized what has happened... or at least that something has happened. These are:

The cop in the white suit:



The cop in uniform at the back


a partially-blocked fellow in a black hat


and a guy reaching an arm over towards Ruby.


And of course, Oswald himself.

Three others, behind the cop in the white suit, have turned to see what's going on, but it doesn't appear they are registering any alarm.


Finally, the elderly cop on the far left


and the reporter in the raincoat don't seem to have noticed anything at all.


I must guess that a had Jackson fired his Nikon a fraction of a second later, every face would be showing the same look of shock as the one found on the cop handcuffed to Oswald.

A few years ago, I watched a documentary on HBO about famous sports photographs. Naturally, Neil Leifer's amazing shot of Muhammad Ali standing atop Sonny Liston was included.




What intrigued me was a short film clip of the same event; Ali is strutting around, barely restrained by the ref, and very briefly waves his arm. It's over in a microsecond. In Liefer's photo, it seems like Ali is posing, flexing his powerful right arm, shouting his excitement over the sprawling Liston. In the film, he's just dancing around. The differences are striking. In a way, the film is much more historically accurate, yet the still has become an icon.