FIGURING SHIT OUT
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things my wife and I bought/got this month…
Jackie Brown
Superbad
My So-Called Life: Complete Series
Pixar: Short Film Collection Vol. 1
Entourage: Season 3, Part II
Sesame Street Old School: Vol 1
The Muppet Show: Season Two
The Jungle Book
The Soporanos: Season 6, Part II
Seven Up
7 Plus Seven
21 Up
28 Up
35 Up
42 Up
49 Up
Forrest Gump
Beetlejuice
Apocalypse Now
things I wached this month…Californication: season one
Tin Man: part 1 only
The Hunger
The Break-Up
Dexter: season two
Gwoemul (The Host)
Cache (Hidden)
The Holiday
Death to Smoochy
Project Greenlight: season two
Beautiful
The T.V. Set
Criminal
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Pan’s Labyrinth
Superbad
Delta Farce
Seven Up
7 Plus Seven
21 Up
28 Up
Walk Hard
Pixar: Short Film Collection Vol. 1
Sweeny Todd
figuring shit out
My wife has been bugging me for almost as long as I’ve known her to go see her Naturopath. For those of you who don’t know, a Naturopath is someone who “uses a system or method of treating disease that employs no surgery or synthetic drugs but uses special diets, herbs, vitamins, massage, etc., to assist the natural healing processes.” Now I don’t have anything really wrong me with that I want help with, but because it was important to her I went. The first meeting is an assessment, more like an interview that lasted about three hours. How our guy works is he wants to know everything about you, because he believes everything relates to everything. Like Freud, a cigar is never just a cigar. I’m not someone who’s big on talking about my inner thoughts. To quote David Duchovny’s Hank Moody, “I’m a writer, I don’t give that shit away for free.” Surprisingly I really enjoy getting into it, talking about my past, old memories popping up that I had completely forgot about. We spoke for great length about myself as an artist, what kind of stories I tell and why. And I realized that I hadn’t spent much time reflecting on that aspect of myself, so it was nice to have an excuse to do so without feeling too overly self-absorbed. It’s amazing all of the things you know about yourself, but until you say them out loud they don’t quite exist.
Van Gogh is a bit of an ass, really…
My wife and I were in an artist studio at the beginning of the month buying a Christmas present for Emily’s father. He’s an art collector and enjoys the artist's work. He is a local artist who splits his time between Toronto and Vermont where his son lives. While we were there we got to talking and he told me about a Van Gogh biography he was reading and in it he mentioned this quote where Van Gogh talks about the fact that you can either give your love to a woman or to your painting, but you can’t give it to both. So the modern interpretation would be that you can’t love your artistic work and your partner in the same way. He seemed to like this philosophy, and fair enough, but I have a slightly different take on it. To me, it’s kind of bullshit. Last year I was out for drinks with a friend and we talked about the difference between working to live, and living to work. I think I lie somewhere in-between. See, I know what it’s like to be the lonely artist who buries themselves in their work, believing that it will save them, but it never does. The empty hole artists believe they can fill with their art is just that, an empty gaping endless hole. And so they create, constantly, non-stop, creating a massive body of work, and in the end it is a few decent pieces and a lot emotional artistic masturbation. I know, I’ve got drawers and notebooks full of it. See, I believe when you find someone, the right someone, you naturally split your passion. You spend a little less time on your art, sure, but the truth is that even though you’re outputting less work, the work you are outputting is better. There are people that will disagree with me and I respect that. But I know that for me, my wife and my relationship to her makes me a better artist, if I am one at all.
The Starry Starry Night
Speaking of Van Gogh, the short film I’m (fingers crossed) directing this spring is inspired, at least in name, by a painting of his. Right before the Christmas break I submitted an application to Bravo so hopefully they’ll like it enough to work with us again. I’ve got my usual fantastic crew and this time around in front of the camera will be Jane Moffat, a veteran of Canadian television and stage, and the young and talented Miriam McDonald known best for her work on ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’. The best part about putting together the Bravo application is that it forces you to really start thinking about your film in a practical way and that’s made me ridiculously excited to make this film, the script (written by Ms. Irena Huljak) is loaded with lots of wonderful things. It’s been a long time since I’ve tackled something that’s more of a straight drama so I’m looking forward to flexing those muscles. There will be more on this to come in the upcoming months as I meet with my production people and do some more preliminary work while waiting on word about funding.
Books & Things
So I’ve been a good boy and I’ve been reading a lot more instead of just watching films. My reading is all over the place, I’ve really been into Graphic Novels lately and I’m completely obsessed with Brian K Vaughen’s “Y: The Last Man”. The first nine volumes are available at most comic shops and even bookstores. If you can’t find them look at ‘Comics & More’ on the Danforth over by Greenwood, they’re pretty awesome in there. Personally I find the Silver Snail is under stocked for most things I want. I read the first volume of “Fables” and I liked it quite a bit and want to see where that one goes. I’ve also been working my way through a stack of books that I’ve been meaning to read for forever, and revisiting things that I love, which has led me to rediscover something which has sparked some ideas for a future project that could either be small or quite large depending on how it all comes together. I’m meeting with the book’s author at the end of this month to chat about the possibilities, so depending how that goes I’ll be less cryptic next month, but if you’ve been reading my blog you know that I’m nothing if not vague until I know something’s a sure thing.
I should make reference to a screenwriting book I read this month “Crafty Screenwriting” by Alex Epstein. Pretty good read. He covers almost everything from structure, craft, down to what brass beads and how many to bind your script with. I have a few differing thoughts than he does on some things but by and large I really liked what he had to say and how he said it. I know that his chapter on writing action has really made me second-guess parts of my own writing style. The main thing he mentions, and it’s something that I don’t think a lot of writers really think about oddly enough, and it’s that there’s no point in writing a screenplay that you don’t think will sell. I know that reflecting upon this I’ve written a lot of stuff that doesn’t really have any chance of ever being made unless I have a name that just lets me get whatever I want to make made. It’s something that I always think about now though while I’m in the spec stage of my career.
Best of…
I made a top ten list, but then I deleted it. I have a small issue with top ten lists. First off, no one can ever see everything that’s out. I can’t even comprehend how many films I’d have to watch in order to give even a remotely informed opinion. What was my favorite film of this year? I’d probably say “Juno”. I think it’s going to stand the test of time for me.
So that’s all I’ve got for now. Lots of stuff coming up, celebrating my birthday this weekend. I think it’s going to be a good year…
until next time
