Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Touched by a New Kid, next a Go Go

Well the fulfillment of a dream came true last night...for my wife that is. She got to actually touch members of New Kids on the Block .

The New Kids were/ are her favorite thing to happen to music EVER. Whenever something New Kids related occurs, a fourteen year old girl busts out of her. It doesn't bother me as it makes her tremendously happy, and who doesn't want to see their spouse happy and all aglow? Sure it was just a quick handshake while she was at the edge of a revolving stage, but nonetheless, she got to go palm to palm for a matter of seconds with her favorite New Kid Joey McIntyre (who also smiled at her when he saw the sign she had made with markers and glitter saying "I LOVE JOE NKOTB!") , as well as Jordan Knight, Donnie Wahlberg (who, I am told, is a solid #2 in her heart) and Danny Woods who I refer to as "Pig Face"(he is not a handsome man).

While it is great sport for many to put down the New Kids, as the reviewer in today's Ottawa Sun cattily did, it is equally easy to see the effect these boys have had on at least two generations of young woman, all of whom love and adore them. The massive success of this year's comeback tour speaks for itself, and my wife, in her "Property of Joey McIntyre" T-shirt, came home last night an extremely happy woman. Anyway, this touching-in both senses of the word- incident means one thing:

I may now touch as many Go Gos as I please.

It's only fair. Though the members of the band are bow in their 50's, anyone who saw the Go Gos lead singer Belinda Carlisle recently on Dancing With The Stars has to admit she has aged very, very well. However, and I have discussed this, and obtained permission from, my wife in one of those "kinda unlikely it will ever happen" sort of things, rather than touching each individual member of the Go Gos (sorry Belinda!), I would much rather simply touch Jane Wiedlin repeatedly.

Jane was my big rock star crush in high school. While I have grown disinterested in most of the rock stars I loved in high school, (okay, maybe not The Police, Talking Heads and Duran Duran, now that all the Ramones are dead), I will always carry a torch for Jane. I loved her first solo album and her most recent one, which came out in 2002, I listen to often. She is a terrific musician and song writer and still has tremendous sex appeal. If I lived in New York, I would be found every week watching her new band, which performs classic standards from the Sinatra era, at a small club (I also love the music of the Sinatra era, but that's a whole other blog).

As with many of my varied obsessions, I am aware I am one of the few people in the world with this opinion, but what can I say?

I'll say this. Some day, I get to touch Jane Wiedlin at least four times. it's only fair. It is written.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

007 best to worst

Yes, it's come to this. I'm bored today, and there's little exciting happening on the personal or movie making front. OH WAIT- the baby took her first steps last week and is now up to 21 at a time. Otherwise, here's the list....

If you're a fan of the James Bond series, as I am, you have likely experienced both deep exultation and crushing disappointment while watching the saga over the years...often during the same movie. Here's my personal ranking of the 007 series. I know many of you will disagree, but hey, us Bond geeks gotta have something to talk about between movies!

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service- Proving without a doubt that a Bond film is only as good as its script, this is not just a great James Bond movie, it's one of the all time great movies period. The action scenes are some of the most daring committed to film, the plot is continually twisting and turning and at the heart of it all is a doomed love story. George Lazenby, who only played 007 once, has gotten a lot of guff for this movie, but he's very good. It's unfortunate he didn't carry on with the role.

2. Goldeneye- For my money, Pierce Brosnan was the best 007, really capturing a mix of the snobbishness Roger Moore brought to the role, and the tough guy panache Connery had. This, his first of his four, really nailed the Bond formula and has a great villain and the absolute best villainess ever.

3. Goldfinger- Obviously. The series really started to gel with this one, creating the template for all to come. Though every Bond cliché was pretty much invented here, it's amazing how fresh and exciting Goldfinger remains to this day.

4. For Your Eyes Only- Roger Moore, taking things somewhat seriously for a change, gives us all the bells, whistles and smirks with a bit of toughness previously missing from his approach to the role. We actually believe Bond is in jeopardy in certain scenes as he chases after what can only be called "a mcguffin".

5. The Spy Who Loved Me- Pure spectacle is what this 007 adventure offers on skis, on water and on land. This is the one where the Moore formula of wisecracks and breath taking stunts worked best.

6. From Russia with Love- Of all the Bonds, this is the one that succeeds best as a pure spy thriller, before the gadgets arrived and Bond had to rely less on his wits and more on pushing buttons.

7. Licence to Kill- This one took awhile, but it has really grown on me. All the Bond elements are there, shoehorned into a plot that has a pissed off 007 out for revenge. I used to think Timothy Dalton was too humorless in the role. Then along came Daniel Craig... The finale, a wild chase scene involving tanker trucks, is one of the most Bravo action scenes in the Bond series.

8. Tomorrow Never Dies- The denouement is a bit of a let down, but otherwise this is the best of the full on "action" Bonds. Just sit back and watch the sparks fly, especially during the terrific remote control driving sequence.

9. Dr.No- Welcome to the screen Mr.Bond. Connery in the first 007 screen adventure. There was no template yet, so Dr. No goes into some dark areas the rest of the series played down.

10. Live and Let Die- Moore's Bond hits the screen for the first time, and the result is a compelling adventure, with a more serious touch than usual including a voodoo motif that adds genuine tension. The mid-movie boat chase sequence is a stunner.

11. Thunderball- Connery chases a villain to the Bahamas. Coming right after Goldfinger, it suffers a bit from the "bigger and bigger" syndrome, but it's still full of the kind of fun and adventure Bond does so well, including the only entertaining underwater fight scenes I've ever seen.

12. Moonraker- Yes, Moonraker. Deal with it. If you don't think about it too hard, and just go along for the ride, you'll have a lot of fun with this, one of the most action packed of the 007 movies. It's also one of the silliest, but is still a kick to watch.

13. You Only Live Twice- I call this one the midway Bond: It's not terribly memorable, with the exception of the exciting "Little Nellie" flight sequence and a great rooftop chase, but it's not exactly "bad" either. It's the Bond that separates the truly entertaining entries in the series from the somewhat disappointing so, here we go...

14. Die Another Day- The most disappointing thing about this one? It's exactly "half" a good movie. The opening with Bond escaping from being captured and tortured, right up to about the brutal fencing match between Bond and baddie, is excellent. Then, it goes off the rails with some bizarre gadgets, atrocious dialogue, the always awful Halle Berry, and poorly conceived CGI . That it remains entertaining none the less is a testament to its fast pace, if anything.

15. A View to a Kill- Yes, Roger Moore was getting "way too old for this shit", but this is still an OK dip in the Bond well held together by Moore in his last Bond movie, and Christoper Walken, clearly having a fabulous time as the villain. Minus points for Tanya Roberts, one of the most annoying Bond girls, and an interminable sequence at a horse farm.

16. The Living Daylights- Dalton makes for a slightly awkward Bond here, playing the role somewhere between Moore's jokiness and Craig's deadly seriousness. A terrific opening sequence and some other exciting action scenes keep it from being a loss, but it's still kind of flat.

17. Octopussy- This is the one where Moore really looks his age, and the plot is much too convoluted, but there's some genuine tension during the obligatory "Bomb defusal" scene at least.

18. Casino Royale- I'll state it flatly: I'm not a fan of Daniel Craig's 007. He's too "Hulk Smash" and too little "Gentleman Spy" for me, so I wasn't a big fan of this "reboot", which takes the series in a much more down to Earth direction. Not complaining about that, I just didn't feel like I was watching a James Bond movie while watching this.

19. The World Is Not Enough- The opening sequence is what Bond movies are all about- an over the top chase spectacle, this one down the Thames. The film is worth seeing simply for that. There's also a sweet goodbye to Q and some good lines from Robbie Coltrane, but on the whole, the movie seems to want to have its cake and eat it too by combining a "serious" plot with over the top action. It doesn't really gel. Also, Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in hot pants named Christmas Jones? Uh huh.

20. Never Say Never Again- Connery returned after a long absence to the role. He looks like he's having a good time, and the result has some good stuff in it, but it's way too overlong, and now a days feels like an 80's museum piece. Remember how I said that "Thunderball" had the only entertaining underwater fight scenes I've ever seen? This too has underwater fight scenes.

21. Quantum of Solace- Craig's second go feels a bit more like a Bond movie, but it's still a pretty uncharismatic affair with edited within an inch of their life action sequences and a plot echoing "Licence to Kill", but coming up short in the comparison. There's little memorable about this one.

22. The Man With The Golden Gun- Christopher Lee is a great, sinister villain, it's just too bad he's in the cheapest looking, most lacking in action Bond of them all. Moore, in his second film, is still growing into the part here, and he's not helped by Brit Ekland, the series dumbest, most annoying leading lady.

23. Diamonds Are Forever- There's a good line here and there, and the two gay villains are quite cool, but Connery looks overweight, old and bored. There are no memorable action sequences and the whole thing is lackadaisical and dull. The broad humor Moore was blamed for bringing to the role is in full effect here.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

DASH is making a movie

Here is my long term, movie making diary.

Yes, I am going to make a movie.

It will be a slow process. It will probably take months until anything comes to fruition, but it will eventually happen. Why? because I've had this story rattling around in my head for almost 9 years since I went to a friend's cottage and thought: This is the perfect location for a movie. I am now going to start putting it down on paper. That's a month or so of work and research. Then comes the incessant search for funding. I have no budget, but a 70-80 minute film in one location. How much can it cost? Well...plenty, First of all, you have to feed and house your cast and mini-crew. You need to pay an editor, You need to create a poster with some smart kid who knows photoshop. You should also pay everyone for their time. Yes, that includes the actors. You also have to pay the guy (or gal) who owns the cottage for the privilege of using his digs over the course of four or five weekends. As for an editor? Well, Julian F. Adderley better give me a fucking awesome day rate.

So what's the plot? It started life many, many years ago as a great idea for a softcore porn flick. The I realized I have three daughters, and too many female friends I respect greatly to betray them with something so simple and cynical so-I also grew up a bit ovr the course of a decade, now instead of looking for girls who will take their clothes off and atempt to act, I wil be looking for actresses who can give a real performance...and occasionally remove an item of clothing. I hate to say it, but with a low budget film, it is highly unlikely you will get any distribution what so ever without some kind of special effect, and since I have no plans for explosions and CGI, and the piece lends itself to it, there will have to be the occasional bared breast, whch director Jim Wynorsi termed "the cheapest special effect". Anyway, my point is, this is not going to be a softcore porn flick. It's going to be a real movie (though shot on video for nothing) about actual human beings.

So what's the story?

Log line: it's more or less the end of life on Earth as we know it, for some reason, all the women on Earth are killing all the men. (We need not know why- it's ambiguos, I like ambiguous- people are smart enough to draw their own conclusions, right?) and the only people alive, as far as they know, are four emo girls at a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Some are suicidal, some have tragic romantic mysteries, some just wonder what they want to survive for.

Follow here as the saga grows, and all idea are welcome. May not use 'em nice to have 'em.

-DASH

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Men and Women ARE different. Wow!!!!

Hey all you red blooded men out there. Have you ever been making some juice, the kind that comes in a cardboard thing so the semi-gelatinous like juice has to slink out of it, into the juice jug? Sure. We've all been there. However- while doing it, do you ever make moaning and groaning sounds like you're taking the most difficult dump ever in history, just so you can laugh like a maniacal idiot when the stuff makes a PLOP sound as it lands in the jug? Sure you have. You probably do it all the time. If you haven't, you will now. You know what the odd thing is about this, though? Women don't think it's funny!

Another story. Today as we were driving home, something reminded me of the early 90's Dolph Lundgren motion picture crapfest "I Come In Peace". I began relating the plot of it to my wife. It's your basic cop chases alien action flick, except every time the alien kills someone, he first says, rather ironically, "I Come In Peace". I told her the plot, I told her the story, I fucking even told her it starred Dolph Lundgren. Then ,this happened:

ME: ...and finally at the end, Dolph picks up this huge mother gun and points it at the alien who says "I Come in Peace" and just before blowing him away, Dolph retorts..

SHE: (Cutting me off) Stop it. I don't care. I don't need to make a place in my head for that kind of crap...

ME: But, I've already told you the plot of the movie, what it's called, and who stars in it...everything EXCEPT Dolph's final line.

SHE: I don't care. I don't care.

Now here's the thing. I HAD already told her all those things. There is definitely now, much to her chagrin, a place in her head for this movie. Would it be too expanded by knowing what Dolph Lundgren says before he shoots a space creature? Would that destroy a balance in her mind?

Unbelieveable. And on that note, dear reader, I rest my case. Oh- men also find it very funny to fart and blame it on the dog or cat, even if said animal isn't even in the room or, indeed, the house itself (maybe it went to the vet? Who knows.) Women do not tend to, as a species, find this amusing. Just thought I'd mention it.

What a closer, huh!!!

Monday, March 9, 2009

The best PFO letter ever!

So the job hunt continues. As visions of chucking it all and going back to my first love, independent film making, dance in my head, so do other things. Things like the children, the wife and the mortgage. Little things like that. Some would starve, one would hunt me down and rip off my testicles with pre-sharpened nails, and the last one...well, I guess it just would be unpaid.

So anyway the delightful attempts at getting a full time, long term permanent job continues. But not without its crushing defeats.

Well, actually, as crushing defeats go, this letter I received today was what they called in the olden days, a corker:

Thank you for your diligence and hard work in preparing for the position of Communications Specialist with ________ Theatre and the project brief you presented.

I regret to inform you that the interview committee, by consensus, was unable to recommend you to be hired into the position according to the city's interview rating guide. Nonetheless, all of us enjoyed our meeting and commend you for the care in which you engaged in this process, and the time you devoted to it.

We wish you well in your endeavors and encourage you to continue to seek opportunities with the city as they are posted.

Blah, blah, blah, sincerely, blow me, etc...

A few thoughts:

1.
What the fuck is a "City interview rating guide"? If I had simply read the interview rating guide and gone in there and lied my ass off so that everything in there perfectly applied to me (ie: I am not a disabled person, but hell, how hard could it be to "borrow" a wheelchair for a few hours from the near-by children's hospital?) would I have then gotten the job?

2.
In this interview rating guide: Right after the interview, did the three people in the room hold up signs with a number on it, a la the Olympics, which they then added up to reach a magical number which I was unable to reach? Say that number was 14, and I only reached 10.5. Would I have received higher points if I had gone in their disguised as a female visible minority? (Don't worry, if found out, I would have said it was a theatre, so I was being theatrical and also attempting to prove a point about the awful way minorities are treated in our society or whatever...something like that...) Anyhow, would that, then, have gotten me an extra 3.5, thus allowing me to sneak in under the wire? They ask these questions on every municipal job website when you apply, so it must have a point value in the "Interview rating guide" somewhere, I imagine.

3.
I did present a project brief. If I had gone in there with nothing in my hands to present them, as was requested in the job description, and simply presented myself as a black woman in a obviously much too small wheelchair (for extra pity- can't even afford a decent sized wheel chair, and what not), would I currently be working in the glamorous world of theatre? Hell man, I probably wouldn't even need to know how to speak English! (1.5 pts.)

4. By consensus? How BAD must I have been that they all instantly said "Well fuck that guy!", TOGETHER at the SAME TIME? I wish there was some way I could see what degree of badness I had reached, but alas, it must remain confidential.

5. I'm SO glad they all enjoyed themselves SO fucking incredibly much. Should I have another opportunity to interview with them, as they rousingly encourage me to, perhaps I will prepare a PRE- humiliation for myself. You know, just to make it more ENJOYABLE for them, I could go in there wearing nothing but a My Little Pony cod piece (I bet they make them. You know it. I know it.) and then do a little interpretive dance I'd call "My Special Lovely Job Interview Day Dance (Yay! Yay! Yay!)".

and lastly...

6. When was the last time someone wished you luck on your endeavors EXCEPT in a job interview situation? No one ever says. "Hey, have good endeavors today!" When does that happen? I'll tell you. Never. That's motherfucking when. It simply does not happen. Ever. Try it tomorrow on your spouse or partner as they head out the door in the morning. See the WTF??? very confused look that spreads across their face.

Anyway, welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy reading it, though I am well aware that having done so, you would probably never hire me to work for you either...