Kevin sent this in on Friday, and I almost spit water all over my workstation:
"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone."
If this movie is half as good as the book, it'll be up there with Shaun of the Dead. The pedigree on this project is good; Max Brooks is Mel's son, and geeks will recognize J. Michael Straczynski from his work on "Babylon 5," as well as a celebrated stint writing "The Amazing Spider-Man."
The script review seems good; the description makes it sound a lot like Citizen Kate or Immortal Beloved, at least structurally. I still think it would have made for an amazing HBO miniseries, but I must admit I say that about a lot of properties these days. If the director they attach is good, this could be huge.
Exciting.
Living in West Hollywood, Tracy and I have gotten fairly used to urban noises, both traditional (police sirens, fire engines, traffic) and L.A.-specific (arguing Russian teenagers, arguing Russian old folks, muscle cars being worked on at 11 p.m.). And one of the big sources of noise is helicopters; news and police 'copters routinely prowl the skies above our house, following car chases, traffic accidents and jams, celebrities on the move, movies premieres, and who-knows-what. Even at their most intense — when it sounds like a chopper is about to land on our street — they usually go away before too long.
Somewhere between 5 and 6 this morning, the noise of helicopters became so loud Tracy and I both woke up. After attempting to sleep through it for almost an hour, I eventually admitted defeat, and went to the computer to find out what was going on. I couldn't find anything on local news sites or gossip columns; I assumed Paris Hilton was going back to jail or something and took a shower.
But that wasn't what happened. Leanne filled me in when I called her to arrange a carpool: police responded to a report of an "injured man," who apparently attack the officers on scene, stabbing one of them in the hand. The police then opened fire, killing the man.
After Leanne gave me that information, I found this report. Walking down the block, I could look up Curson and see the crime scene taped off a few streets away, and watch the officers working the scene.
Yikes. My initial reaction is to back the police up on this one; not knowing the full circumstances, I can only imagine how I'd react if someone came at me with a knife. That being said, it's a tragedy no matter what, and a little unsettling. This is the third violent death in the neighborhood in as many weeks; police killed another man in an altercation at the beginning of the month, and while Kevin and Sarah were here, an elderly man was stabbed to death not far from where we walked on our way to Pinks. Not a happy trend at all.
I still feel safe walking the streets, and believe our neighborhood to be a good and comfortable one. It just goes to show, things go wrong no matter where you are.
Asshole.
I'd love to say I was shocked and surprised, but after eight years, I'm not.
On a semi-related note, here's a post that I tried (and failed) to write last week.
I will add: since we entered Iraq on March 20, 2003, 4,000 American soldiers have been killed there. 43 days later, President Bush declared "major combat" to be over on May 1, 2003.
3861 of those deaths have occurred after that date in May.
That's over 96% of all American casualties in Iraq. All dead after our leader told the world "Mission accomplished." And that doesn't even begin to factor in the two orders of magnitude difference in Iraqi casualties.
Some accomplishment.
Take a look at this great interactive chart over at the New York Times, illustrating comparative revenue of feature films over the course of their theatrical releases.
Scroll all the way to the left, and then quickly scroll right. What do you notice? My eye is caught by how what start as small "bumps" in profitability turn into large spikes over the twenty years covered.
That's the trend we see today, where a movie makes the bulk of its money in its first week or two. No more "legs," no more long runs. Get a monstrous opening weekend that people will talk about (and which will encourage more people to check it out), and you can make $100 million with any shitty movie.
The color ratios (which correspond to how much money a movie makes) stay close to the same; I'd say that there are more upper-middle level films, but the difference appears to be minimal. What changes over the decades is less how much money is made, than how long it takes to make it.
Follow this link for a fun look at what the opening credits for Star Wars: A New Hope would have looked like if they were designed by the legendary Saul Bass.
I love it, even though the music is cheating a little bit; it would be interesting to see if a similar effect could have been achieved while still using John Williams' score.
Then again, quick looks at opening credits for Anatomy of a Murder and The Man with The Golden Arm show why the designer scored it as he did.
Other great works by Saul Bass (a small selection out of many): the openings of three very minor Alfred Hitchcock films; the openings of Casino and Bunny Lake Is Missing; a whole slew of wonderful movie posters; and the old AT&T logo.
While we're at it, check out an (arbitrary) compilation of "25 of the Best Title Sequences" (Part 1 and Part 2). I've always been a huge fan of the Soylent Green title style, which will creep up on you if you haven't seen it before. It's a fun collection of great sequences, and well worth the twenty minutes.
Enjoy the holiday everyone, in whatever way suits you best.
Just remember... nobody knows Easter like the Cadbury Bunny.
Regular readers and RSS subscribers will have noticed that there has been a fair amount of activity on the blog here today. This is a result of a "Perfect Storm" for blogging conditions.
You know what happens when you wait to long too post a good link?
Kottke posts it first.
Daniel passed along Michael Chabon's excellent essay on the nature of comic book superheroes and their costumes at the beginning of the month, which really struck my fancy.
We say “secret identity,” and adopt a series of cloaking strategies to preserve it, but what we are actually trying to conceal is a narrative: not who we are but the story of how we got that way—and, by implication, of all that we lacked, and all that we were not, before the spider bit us. Yet our costume conceals nothing, reveals everything: it is our secret skin, exposed and exposing us for all the world to see. Superheroism is a kind of transvestism; our superdrag serves at once to obscure the exterior self that no longer defines us while betraying, with half-unconscious panache, the truth of the story we carry in our hearts, the story of our transformation, of our story’s recommencement, of our rebirth into the world of adventure, of story itself.
Why must the movies I get excited for have their release dates pushed?
Spike Jonze, director of Being John Malkovitch and a bunch of trippy music videos, has been making a live-action film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are" for just over a year, but if this article speaks the truth, we won't be seeing it for almost two more years.
I don't know if the studio's (supposed) fears are justified or not; all I know is that the still accompanying the above article gets me more excited than most trailers do. If the FX live up to the promise of that single photograph, count me in.
A leaked clip circulated for a while; you can find it here. The performances are awful, and the suit doesn't look quite finished, but no worries, because Jonze said it was an FX demo, which makes sense. Either way, I love the feel of the clip, and look forward to more.
Some friends at work got to see the Pasadena screening CHUD mentions, and they were neither impressed, nor amused. Bummer. Here's to hoping that Jonze gets to make his movie, even if it means reshoots.
Because, dammit, I want to see it!
Brett found this page, which offers a sneak peek at the upcoming animated anthology "Batman: Gotham Knight." Much like "The Animatrix," it's a series of short animated films that Warner Brothers is commissioning to fill in the storytelling gap between 2005's Batman Begins and the upcoming The Dark Knight.
It's being made by Bruce Timm, the genius behind a whole slew of DC Comic animated television shows and direct-to-video movies. I was always a big fan of "Batman: The Animated Series," which in many ways is still the best film version of Batman yet. And, lucky me, Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne on that series, will be voicing the titular hero for "Gotham Knight."
Brilliant idea, and I can't wait to see it. The great news is, although it's direct-to-DVD, it will also be coming out on Blu-ray, which is a real treat.
The name "Gotham Knight," however, always ends up being "Gotham Knights" in my head, which leads me to thinking about "Baywatch Nights," which is something best never done. Ah well.
I am always behind the musical trends: I depend on people like Will and Kevin to keep me up-to-date on what's happening in modern music.
So it's no surprise that I only discovered Vampire Weekend yesterday, over at Deus Ex Malcontent.
Gotta say, I like the music, and love the video. It manages to take the Michel Gondry "Around The World" video style and do something new with it. It feels familiar and fresh without being derivative.
Not ground breaking in any sense, but worlds better than this garbage.
Looking at the newest Jake and Amir video, it looks like Jake might have gone to Wesleyan. His Tumblr bio says he grew up in Connecticut...
Or not, as his College Humor bio says he went to Hunter College.
Well, at least he has good taste in shirts.
Sorry about the screwed-up post that mangled the site for most of the day; this is what happens when you forget to close a single <sup> tag.
The power, and the drawback, of HTML, I guess.
Thanks for the heads up, Tracer!
From Hollywood Makeovers, Frame by Frame, over on NPR.org:
Nowadays, films are edited digitally, get their sound digitally — and, in just the past few years, rely on technology that can change the colors of a costume or a background digitally, without fancy lighting or painted sets.
[c/o Daniel M.]
What do you think of when you hear "Tasty?"
Even money it isn't a five gallon bucket...
Turns out that Jeff Bridges has a blog, and I've got to say, it's one of the best websites I have ever seen.
Check it out and see what I'm talking about; it strikes me that Jeff Bridges, completely aside from his "Dude" persona, would be an amazing person to grab a beer and hang out with.
Kevin and Sarah, who had been visiting for the last eight days, left yesterday morning.
So that's definitely a Sad Thing.
We all had a good time with them around; we saw a movie, went to the Getty, had some dinners both out and in, celebrated Tracy's birthday, checked out the Hollywood farmer's market, played the Wii a bit. Kevin edited a family doco he'd shot three and a half years ago; watching that come together, and helping a bit, was pretty exciting. Kevin deserves some hearty congratulations on finishing a project that's been so long in the making. I may not have done any blog posting during their visit, but we showed Sarah Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time, which was priceless and much more important.
Having out-of-town friends in LA always makes me appreciate the city more; sure, I get self-conscious about some aspects, but I also feel proud and happy about others. For better or for worse, this is my city right now, and I like to show it off.
I discovered that Kevin has a blog, just as he discovered that I have one. One more link to add to the roll.
Kevin and Sarah are good people; Tracy and I both wish they lived near us with a stronger day-to-day presence in our lives. Which is not to say that we don't have other good people living in Los Angeles, because we do, just as we have other good friends who are afar. Still, though, Kevin and Sarah were fully present for a week, just as John was in Hawaii, and now we miss them.
With the house to ourselves, I can spread my junk around again, and go into the office at any time and not feel like I am intruding (or waking our guests up). I have my computer back, now that Kevin isn't editing on it. I can walk around in my underwear if I want to. Our apartment isn't huge, and there's more breathing room now.
But, for all of that, it also feels a little empty now. And we're the poorer for it.
I enjoyed writing a little calendar-related history for Bissextile Day; so, just for fun, here's some more. This research was quick and dirty, with some heavy Wikipedia-related info, so I could very likely have some of this wrong.
My inspiration? Beware the Ides of March.
The Ides of March is March 15th, with Ides being the Roman term for the middle day of the month. Meaning "half-division" in Latin, you can plainly see what is being divided in half.
Several dictionaries I consulted list Ides as a plural noun, yet when used in a sentence it is not treated as one; ie, "The Ides of March has come." Some dictionaries point out that it can use either a singular or plural verb form, but most usages I found are all singular. Go figure.
Having a special name for the middle day of the month may seem strange, but remember, we're the culture that uses the term "Weekend." BesIdes, looking at the Roman calendar system, you quickly see why it was important.
In modern English, every day of the month is named. The 1st, the 3rd, the 25th. You can imagine our naming scheme to be abbreviated versions of "The X day of the month Y." The numbers are determined by counting up from the start of the month, starting with day one. A simple system, easily adapted to any length of month.
The Roman system had specific names for only three days per month. The first day of a month was the Kalends, which, as you may suspect, is the ancestor of the modern word calendar. Being the first day, its monthly position was invariable. The next two, with shades of the pre-Julian system, came at different points dependent on which month they were in. The Nones was either the fifth or seventh day, and the Ides fell either on the thirteenth or fifteenth.
Why? It all goes back to the origin of months, the Moon. Assuming a month begins with a new moon, this system makes sense: the Kalends is the day of the new moon, the Nones is the day of the half-moon, and the Ides is the day of the full moon.1 However, as the solar and lunar cycles drift slightly apart, reconciling the two perfectly ends up impossible, and half-measures just get messy.
With just three "named" days to reckon with, the Roman calendar system was, to modern eyes, a total mess. They counted down to the next "named" day. So, the 2nd of March would be the VI ante diem Nones Martius, or "six days before the Nones of March." Wait, you say, six plus two is eight, not seven! True enough, but because it wasn't already confusing enough, the Romans counted inclusively, including the target day.
In another odd twist, this meant that fully half a month was names as "X" days before the following month.
To further confuse, there were three "secondary" days, to the Kalends', Nones', and Ides' "primary" status: the pridie, or "day before." Each of the three primary days had a pridie, leaving the last day of January as the pridie Kalends Februarius, behaving much like the modern "Christmas Eve."
As an outsider looking in, the Romans seem to have really loved their math. Or maybe it's just that they loved to show off their math skills. Regardless, they seem to have gone out of their way to make counting amd keeping track of days, months, years, and numbers in general as difficult as was humanly possible.
[1 - The Romans were clearly an optimisitic people, as they only counted half-full moons, and not half empty-ones. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.] ⇪
Today is Tracy's birthday; even though we both have to work today, we have Kevin and Sarah visiting, so that makes today extra-special.
Love you!
It's a complicated world we live in. Just this week, Leanne, Josh, Lindsey, and I had a long conversation about taxes, coming to the conclusion that we basically know squat about the system. We're all smart people, and I find that to be unacceptable.
I object to systems that are designed to shut out normal people. Systems created solely to create and promote "experts" are inherently corrupt, because everyone involved has a reason to deceive and obfuscate. I'm not saying all accountants are corrupt liars trying to steal your money; it is, however, in their self-interest to have a complicated and opaque system of regulations and requirements in place, because (on a large scale) that is what gives them a job. So they are probably not going to be the one leading the charge for a simplified set of tax laws.
Besides, some of them really are corrupt liars trying to steal your money.
I should be able to do my own taxes, and understand what I can and cannot deduct, without going crazy. I should be able to quickly find out which forms and taxes I need to pay. I want to use an accountant, and plan on it this tax season, but I should be able to grasp and understand what she's doing and why.
We need accountants, just as we need lawyers. Taxation, law, and regulation are always going to be more than your average taxpayer can just "know" on his own. Experts are good. But the tax system shouldn't be as difficult to understand as it is. Imagine a world where people did (or at least could do) the majority of their own taxes, and accountants just cleaned them up, added a few write-offs here, took off a few there. Wouldn't everyone like that better?
On a related note, we've all been hearing about the subprime mortgage loan mess. And I get the basics of it. But I wanted more information, and found it. So, for those of you looking for a detailed explanation, I recommend the following link, where some visionary has taken the facts and distilled them into a universally easy-to-understand format: a forty-five panel comic strip.
Looks like with the release of highly anticipated iPhone SDK, Apple has arranged for some semi-high-profile games to get ported to Mobile OS X: we're getting Super Monkey Ball and Spore!
My response?
Hell-fricken-yes!
I look forward to getting a few apps on my iPhone (an installed Sudoku, a few games, maybe a mobile MarsEdit for blogging, etc.), but, at least right now, I'm not planning on installing everything under the sun. I'm pretty happy with the iPhone as-is; Sudoku without a web connection is really all I want right now.
"Keep it simple, stupid," and all that.
That being said, if some amazing stuff gets released... who knows?
I like Apple's Safari web browser quite a bit. I like the built in RSS reader (although, as I subscribe to more feeds, I start to understand why people use stand-alone applications). I love the bookmark system, and enjoy the simple feel of the program, and couldn't live without tabs.
That being said, I have found myself annoyed when trying to get around it using only the keyboard.
One of my longtime favorite tricks has been navigating between tabs using Command-Shift-Left or -Right. Very useful, although if the "focus" is paid to a text field in a page, it won't work.
Holding down the Command key when hitting "Return" or "Enter" after filling in any text box, be it a web form, or the Address Bar or Search field, opens the resulting page in a new tab; very useful.
But I always wanted to be able to jump to the Address Bar (where the URL is) and the Google Search bar easily; hitting tab until I ended up there takes too long and is unpredictable, depending on the complexity of the site you're currently on.
So I was pretty excited when I discovered that Command-L takes you to the Address Bar, while Command-Option-F brings the focus to the search field. As a bonus, that search shortcut works in most applications with a search field: The Finder, iTunes, Mail, and others.
But my favorite discovery isn't a shortcut... but a fairly comprehensive list of shortcuts. For those so inclined, copy this link and paste it into the Address Bar, hit enter, and feast your eyes on a master guide to Safari shortcuts.
This game is awesome. Like Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop game systems, it proclaims the geek values held by those who play it well.
I am a typographic novice, albeit an enthusiastic one, and I nailed nine out of ten. Damn all-caps "Apple" threw me off, but I got the joke enough to properly figure out all-caps "Windows." Should've known.
And, for the record, I knew most of the differences between the two typefaces before playing; the "C" comparison was one I didn't remember, though. Clearly, I haven't devoted enough time to the important task of font analysis.
So, I guess it's March now. That happened fast.
Ashby turns eight months old today; hard to believe he's 2⁄3 of a year old already. Tracy's birthday is eight days away, so I'd better make sure her gifts arrive in time. And Ian's birthday is a mere 20 days off, but he and I have squared away his present.
Time sure flies, eh?
Corey pointed me in the direction of Jake And Amir Dot Com, where two of the College Humor workers post frequent short videos chronicling their exploits. They are, in two words, damned hilarious.
Much like the original (British) "The Office," it may take a few video to get into the humor.
I recommend this, then this, followed by some videos of their trip to Florida here, here, and here, and then wrap it all up with this piece of comedy gold.
Turns out that Amir keeps a blog in character, which gets its web address from this video.
