Thoughts on UP
UP. I saw it.
I hated it.
Just kidding, I loved it! Some thoughts on the film: SPOILERS FOLLOW.
- The balance between drama and comedy was excellent. The first act of the film quickly established Carl’s story and all of the visual metaphors used throughout the rest of the movie. Whenever the audience needed a laugh, it got one. The grounded, real-world setup about a loved one’s death balanced the whimsy of the flying house — these two ideas established polar points that gave the story a lot of room to roam between.
Another thing that struck me is that we as the audience were the only ones privy to Carl’s backstory. No other characters in the movie ever understood the importance of the house, the mailbox, the quest. We were the only ones who really knew how much those things meant. That’s a powerful device in any kind of storytelling — making the audience into the only confidants to a person’s secrets.
- The visual metaphors were great. Carl and Elie’s chairs — so different individually, yet pairing together so well. Plus when Carl is sitting alone in his chair you sense Elie’s absence. The movie kept revisiting that metaphor and others, telling a story about the progression of the characters: Together, then just one, then the chairs left by themselves, empty and not needed anymore. Remnants in the past. Pixar is very good at visual storytelling.
The character design was really great too. The silhouettes — Carl being angular, blocky. Russell: Spherical, soft. The juxtaposition of the designs and the way they moved conveyed a lot about their character and emotion. Pixar is incredible at finding ways of moving the animation art form forward.
- What struck me too is how clear the difference is between storytelling and commodity entertainment. True storytelling is constantly searching to tell us something new about the human experience. It makes us think, learn, grow.
Commodity entertainment’s goal is to temporarily keep the viewer’s brain busy with explosions, regurgitated pop culture references, etc.. There’s nothing wrong with that, and both things have value and the right to make money. Both have a place in our society.
But true storytelling will always be rarer because it’s much harder to do. It exponentially requires much more practice, thought and refinement because of its nature — it does something new. And that’s really tricky.
But when you see great storytelling happen as it does in UP — man does it make the dreck that’s out there look even dreckier by comparison.
Cowboy Versus Samurai at Stanford University
Hey guys, how about a fun student production of Cowboy Versus Samurai at the liberal arts academy founded by famed robber baron Leland Stanford?
Yes, C vs S comes to everyone’s favorite top-notch U, which also happens to be mentioned in the script:
CHESTER: “Dear Stanford University, we have your artifact of atrocious history. If you want it back, prepare a hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills. P.S. — Fuck you.”
Yes, the life of this play has come full circle.
Where:
Nitery Theater — Old Union Courtyard, Stanford University
When:
Thursday, 5/28/09: 8pm
Friday, 5/29/09: 8pm
Saturday, 5/30/09: 4pm & 8pm
New York Food Roundup
FOOD. I like to eat. I eat a lot. If I didn’t run so much, I would weigh five hundred pounds. I would have to ride around on one of those little electric scooters. In fact, I might start doing that anyway — those things look like fun.
New York City. Food. You can find the best of everything in NYC — it’s restaurant Darwinism there. If it’s not good, it doesn’t survive for long.
Through the advice of friends I discovered three new places that are now on my recommend list:
Mama’s Home Cooking is on East 3rd Street at Avenue B. This used to be a bad neighborhood — “Alphabet City”, where Avenue Q got its designation. But now it’s totally gentrified — our good friend Lloyd pointed out that it’s now home to a six dollar taco stand.
Anyway, Mama’s: Its banner has a skull on it, and you know how much I love skulls. They give you heaping hills of food — fried chicken, bacon-wrapped meatloaf, mac and cheese. It’s good and there’s a lot of it — too much for a regular human to consume. They also carry hubcap-sized cookies fresh from the oven. This is the American way on a plate.
Next, Veselka in the east village. This place recently gained some notoriety for being featured in the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. If it’s good enough for George Michael Bluth, it’s good enough for you. It’s all Eastern European food, all the time. Pierogies. Stuffed cabbage. The borscht is hot, meaty, beety, wonderful. I had originally wanted diner food that night, but my friends recommended this place instead. They are geniuses.
Finally, Venerio’s on East 11th and 1st Ave. A pastry emporium like Hot Doug’s in Chicago is an encased meat emporium. Cheesecake: We ordered the Italian cheesecake and the NY cheesecake. The Italian was firmer, less sweet, a little bit more cheesy. Fine and good. However, the NY cheesecake was incredible. Sweet, fluffy like a cloud, creamy and amazing. The contrast allowed an even greater appreciation of the Italian variety.
New York City is great for getting whatever you want and getting it right now. I think that’s part of the city’s appeal for me — instant gratification. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the push-push-push, hustle and bustle thing. The food’s great, but there always seems to be too little time to enjoy it.
They Say There Are No Ghosts Here, But There Are
Hey peanut gallery. I just got back from NYC. There’s a lot to say, some of which I’d like to share here and some of which I’ll share with you in person when I see you.
I was recently accepted into New Dramatists, so I was in town for their luncheon honoring the late, amazing Horton Foote as well as the all writers’ meeting the next day. Horton is one of the great American writers of our time, as well as the screenwriter of one of my favorite movies of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird.
What struck me at this luncheon was the fact that no one referred to him as “Mr. Foote”. They all called him by his first name. Horton: Horton wrote with love. I think that says a lot about an individual’s character — when he has developed such closeness with people that it would be unnatural to call him by anything other than just his first name.
So one thing that you can do when you’re in New Dramatists is that you can stay at New Dramatists. Meaning that they have a few rooms upstairs where out of towners can hang out.
The building is a converted 100 year old church. Inside are two studio theaters, a library, a classroom, a writing room. The walls are covered with the show posters of alumni and residents. You basically come in, they give you the keys and you have the run of the place.
Some people say that there are ghosts in there and some people say that there aren’t. But after coming back alone at 1, 2 AM, unlocking the heavy outer door and creeping around, I can definitely say that there are.
Not of the chains-rattling, “Hey there are three more of us coming to visit you tonight” variety, but in the sense of a spirit. There are spirits in there. Of peoples’ history and of their work and of the things they’ve witnessed. They’re palpable. You can sense them, and they’re good spirits. I feel good and safe surrounded by them.
Anyway, I’ll tell you more when I see you in person. There’s also this fantastic cheesecake place that Deb took me to that we definitely have to discuss.
Hey I Saw Star Trek! [SPOILERS]
I hated it.
Just kidding, I loved it! SPOILERS FOLLOW.
I loved all the visual inside jokes and doo-dads. How the phasers turn blue when they’re set to stun. The red-shirted dude who died inauspiciously and gloriously. That rocky mountain outside of Winona Ryder’s house that is the same rocky mountain where Kirk fought the Gorn. This is all great stuff. If there’s something I know a lot about, it’s Star Trek. And apparently the people who put this thing together did their homework — check the list of references to previous Trek here.
This movie was also a fun ride. TNG made Trek intellectual, academic. Made every story a moral issue. That was good, but fun rides are also good.
THIS MOVIE HAD A GREEN CHICK IN IT. There was a little dude who kept climbing on things and refusing to get down! He got sad when Scotty left him behind! Also Scotty was played by Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead! I had no problem with any of this.
There are some things I wonder about though. For instance: The Engineering section on the Enterprise looks just like the Burlingame Water Treatment Plant?? [Note: The actual location they used was the Budweiser beer plant in Van Nuys.] And I can understand there being giant cooling pipes in there, but why are they transparent? So that you can see if people happen to be trapped inside? I guess a lot of people get accidentally beamed into the pipes and you’ve gotta have a way to get them out.
Also, why does the emergency release on the fluid-filled pipe empty directly onto the floor? Wouldn’t it better if it emptied into a drain? BAH.
I thought the cast was great. The Kirk/Spock relationship was fun to watch. Karl Urban as McCoy was really fun too. All of them were fun. That green chick was hot.
I liked the idea of everything — space, control panels, hallways, etc.. — being “busier”, more full of stuff. Things were less sterile and clean and more grimy. I like this.
But I think the best part of this particular reboot is that, due to the “alternate timeline” factor, none of us have any idea where this new Trek is going to go. And for something that is so familiar and dear to me, that’s really exciting.
I Keep Seeing Freakin Reptoids Through This New Pair of Sunglasses
I got myself a very cool pair of Ray-Bans that I had to take back to Sunglass Hut because of a manufacturer’s defect.
“Whenever I put these on it makes people look like Reptoids,” I told the saleslady in my best Indignant Customer voice.
“Are you sure?” she asked with an upturned eyebrow.
“Absolutely,” I said, “And it’s like, totally uneven too. Sometimes I’ll put them on and some people will look normal and other people look totally like Reptoids — big-time.” I folded my arms huffily, hoping to get a free carrying case out of this.
“I see,” she said, frowning.
“And it makes the people on TV totally look like Reptoids too,” I added, “Chris Matthews: Reptoid. Anderson Cooper? Reptoid 360. Fox News: Iguana city -”
“You watch TV with sunglasses on?”
“It’s my way,” I said, irritated. I can’t help it — whenever people ask me that it irritates me.
“Go on,” she said, staring through me.
“Other people too: Sandra Oh, normal. Sandra Bernhard, normal too. But Sandra Bullock -”
“Reptoid – “
“Fuckin’ Lizard Queen,” I said. “I was watching The Lake House again and I don’t remember there being a gerbil eating scene in there, but there it was. Even now when I put them on -” — I put the sunglasses on, glanced at her — “You look totally like a – “
“Let me see those -” She quickly snatched away the sunglasses, carefully inspected them. “Signs? Billboards? Those all look normal through these?”
“Yeah,” I said, “The usual perfume and jean ads. CONSUME. PROCREATE -“
“Yeah, these are defective,” she said. “Sorry about that. I’ll get you some new ones from the back.”
As she turned to go she rumbled out something low, guttural — “OBEY – “
“What was that?” I asked.
“Have a nice… Day,” she said.
“Oh yeah, thanks,” I said.
She was really nice.
My Ears Are Getting Pointier
I am reading a lot of what you humans call “science fiction”, although where I’m from — THE FUTURE — we call it “science FACT”. As in it’s a fact — get over it already. Yeah we have flying cars, so what? Traffic still sucks, parking’s still a bitch. Plus now people die when cars break down and fall on them.
Yes we had that robot uprising — we dealt with it and it’s old hat. We’re all robots now. Robots or batteries. Yeah we had a Bothan as our President. He was the one guy that didn’t die getting us those blueprints for the Death Star. Apparently that’s enough to get you elected these days. But now we’ve got a Vulcan president again — like that black guy you guys have. What can I say, the Democrats are hot again.
I like science fiction a lot. “Speculative fiction” some might call it. You start with the real world and stretch it into the future or some other dimension. This has always appealed to me for some reason. Re-imagining the world as it might be and then re-discovering a way to live in it. There’s something really nifty and sexy about that.
Not that our world isn’t already weird enough. There are a LOT of weirdoes out there, my friend. You gotta watch your step.
I just finished reading Oryx and Crake, The Forge of God, The Black Company series (not sci-fi but fantasy). Am about to start The Handmaid’s Tale and after that Good Omens and a couple of other books. I should also re-read Snowcrash. Been thinking about changing my last name to Protagonist.
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
