A nonfiction book. Then a novel. Rinse and repeat. In theory, it sounded nice, a way to keep my ungainly stacks of books organized. No way was I going to bother organizing them further beyond how I had already stacked them, with most randomly placed and only one that could be considered organized with Las Vegas and Florida books within it, and this seemed like the right idea. At least my reading could be organized.
I started this notion with Like I Was Sayin'..., a collection of columns by Chicago god Mike Royko, and after that, I read O: A Presidential Novel. Then Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins, followed by Sleepless Nights by Sarah Bilston, the sequel to Bed Rest, which didn't work for me past page 30, because the diary format that was employed in Bed Rest was ejected, because Q's sister was coming over from England to visit and see the baby, and Bilston wrote from her perspective as well. Plus, the first novel felt sort of stuffy, whereas this sequel was overly stuffy.
Instead, The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry. Then Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse. Then How Sweet It Is by Alice J. Wisler, which I ejected after page 20 because of the awful writing, not much in the way of powers of description, particularly since Wisler couldn't simply say that the dog barked twice, but rather that the dog "produced two barks."
By this time, The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte was eating at me, because it was time to figure out how I want to eventually write my 1930s Hollywood history project after all the research is done, and I wanted to see how LaPorte covered the story of DreamWorks SKG. I'm not as much interested in business practices as she is, but the level of detail she produced in this book is astonishing and will undoubtedly remain an inspiration for as long as this particular project goes on.
The breakdown of this idea of nonfiction then fiction then nonfiction and so on came as I was doing it, because of Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, which I had received in the mail and wanted to read so badly, but wanted to stick to my pattern. It's about Angelina, who cooks and cooks to try to deal with the death of her husband, and soon comes to a deal with her new across-the-street neighbor, a retiree who pays her to cook two meals a day for him, six days a week. And soon, other bachelors get wind of this.
This pattern is all wrong for me. I'm only organized where it matters, such as making my bed, washing the dishes, and my writing projects. With the writing projects, the only pattern for books for research is to keep reading them and taking notes until I have enough information for a book, while also seeking out other resources. That should not apply to my regular reading.
So I've finally had enough. I decided that if The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher came today, I would make it part of a triple header for the weekend that would include Angelina's Bachelors and Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah. It didn't come today, but it might come tomorrow, and even so, I decided to get started. Not with Angelina's Bachelors, as you might expect, but with Kitchen Chinese, which is a gently descriptive, yet mild debut novel. I don't feel completely enveloped in the Beijing that Isabelle Lee becomes accustomed to after moving there, and I want to be, especially with the descriptions of the different types of food there. But I like it enough to keep on reading. And after this, definitely Angelina's Bachelors.
I'm also reading The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, to see if I want the Hollywood project first or one of my presidential book ideas, but that's only sporadic throughout the weekend. These novels first. And I've also got The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, purely for endless inspiration, because he writes about books with such a passionate love that it makes me love books more than I already do. I read it column by column, as these words appeared in the McSweeney's magazine The Believer. So I don't feel the need to read it all at once, though it is often tempting.
This feels right now, and this is how it shall remain, to just go with what I really want to read right away.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I Don't Miss It, But I'm Grateful for It
I was 5 years old when I saw my first movies: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Jetsons: The Movie. It was 1990.
I was 7 years old when, for some inexplicable reason, I copied onto a sheet of white posterboard by hand a review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel. It was 1992.
It was 1999 when I began actually writing movie reviews, for the Teentime pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's weekend Showtime section. I was nearing the end of 8th grade, and I had found a call for writers in those pages. I wrote two test reviews for the editor, Oline Cogdill (One review was of Analyze This, which I had seen at a sneak preview), and was deemed good enough to write regularly for the section. During my three years, I won, at the high school journalism awards that the Sun-Sentinel held every year at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, 2000 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, 2001 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, and 2002 Teentime Reviewer of the Year. I still think that those awards were for sheer quantity, because I wrote a lot, and there were weeks when I didn't think my reviews were any good. Sure I wrote them, but I didn't feel so vested in them. Step one: Pour out opinion of movie into Word file. Step two: Send review to Oline. Step three: Repeat steps one and two.
No matter those occasional dry, dull weeks, I appreciate the experience because it taught me to write regularly. It gave me a routine about it. It began the process that led to where I am today, undaunted in the face of potentially massive writing projects. Don't mistake that for arrogance. I'm comfortable with the tasks, but it still entails a hell of a lot of work.
In 2002, my time with Teentime had ended because I had graduated high school. And one day, in February 2003, while attending classes at Broward Community College on the smallest campus they had (Which was diagonal from the Southwest Regional library in Pembroke Pines, part of the Broward County library system), I was in the computer lab at the Southwest Regional library and had come upon a website called Film Threat, which was looking for writers. I e-mailed the editor, Eric Campos, asked what was needed, and I sent along many sample reviews, silently praying that they would be good enough as I sent each one. And they were. And until 2009, I wrote countless reviews for the site.
In 2004, I applied for membership to the Online Film Critics Society, which Phil Hall, a fellow writer, had suggested. He was also a member of the Governing Committee of the OFCS. I was rejected because, as Phil had said, my reviews contained too much plot summary and not enough opinion. I made necessary adjustments to my reviews, and I was accepted the next year.
Then, in 2006, I decided to run for a slot on the Governing Committee and was elected. Phil was with me, and it was nice to be at the top. And I had also been impressed that at the end of the year, when Hollywood was pushing so many movies for Oscar consideration, we got screeners too since we had our own awards. Sometimes, movies that I wanted to see arrived this way. And then the entire membership sent ballots of what should be nominated, and a few weeks later, we voted on what should win our awards. In 2006 and 2007, I loved it. In 2008 and 2009, I was tired of it and it was partly why I was glad to eventually leave the OFCS.
It began to feel like a hamster wheel. The screeners were wonderful to have, but it felt like there was an obligation to watch these movies, to see if there were any performances, cinematography, editing, etc. that was remarkable enough to garner a nomination, and then the voting, and that was it for the year. Then it began at the same time the next year. I didn't mind the requirement that you had to have written at least 50 reviews for the year in order to retain membership. It was just this aspect that I slowly began to loathe.
At the same time I became a member of the Governing Committee, Jim Judy, the owner of Screen It (http://www.screenit.com/) posted a message on the private OFCS board looking for writers for his site. It was vastly different from other movie review sites, being that these reviews were geared toward giving parents the most information possible about a movie. Everything from alcohol and drugs to sex to violence and profanity was documented in each review.
I e-mailed Jim, very interested, because unlike Film Threat, Screen It paid per review. Jim e-mailed me back, assigning me two test reviews, one for Bad Boys II and another for Something's Gotta Give. Both were easy to get since I had a 3-DVDs-at-a-time account with Netflix at the time.
Bad Boys II, with the violence, explosions, and profanity was a nightmare. I quickly learned what was involved in documenting an "R"-rated movie and had worked so diligently on all of that, and it took so many hours, that I'd forgotten that a regular movie review had to be written in the "Our Take" section. By the time I was done inserting everything I had written down into the template Jim had provided, I didn't even want to think about what I had thought about the movie.
Jim e-mailed both files with corrections, pointing out what needed to be expanded in my descriptions, what wasn't necessary, and hired me. He wanted reviewers for pre-1996 movies (Screen It began in 1996), so it was a godsend for me since I didn't have to go out to the movie theater and try to get everything down without a pause button. I reviewed Ghostbusters, The Godfather, and Beverly Hills Cop, among others. Some reviews took a week because I was so thorough. Mom thought I was being too thorough, but I felt this obligation to get it all exact, no matter how many hours it took.
In early 2009, my final review for Screen It was Goodfellas, and I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to write other things. Not only was it not possible for me to be a full-time film critic for a newspaper or a magazine, as I once thought I might be, I didn't want to be that anymore, and I also didn't enjoy movies anymore. I wasn't as enthusiastic about them as I was as a writer for Teentime.
It was in the same year that Phil and I lost re-election to the Governing Committee. After the results were known, he asked me if I wanted to join him in co-writing a book called What If They Lived?, about what actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and John Belushi might have done in their careers had they not died. It was the second book in his two-book contract with BearManor Media, which specializes in Hollywood history and other books about movies and television and radio. It was going to be published.
I didn't want to do it. It felt like too much work. So many books to read, notes to take, and I also had to find other sources, such as newspaper articles, and people to interview, to speculate about what these actors might have done.
Mom told me I had to do it. I would not get this opportunity again. This book was being handed to me. It was a gift other writers would kill for. I understood, and I told Phil I would join him.
Some of the research was very tedious. I especially remember the evening of July 4th in 2009, sitting at the dining room table while fireworks were shown on CBS, reading a 600-page biography about Judy Garland. Fortunately, I had been reading since I was 2, so I was a pro at speed reading, but having to take notes while reading slowed things down considerably, particularly because the first half of each essay was a straight-out biography about each actor, and I had to choose what I wanted to include about Garland.
The fun part was contacting people to interview about these actors. There was a publicist named Gilda N. Squire who had worked with Aaliyah, who graciously speculated about what her career might have been, believing that she would have become what Beyonce is. Considering what I had read, I believe it, because Beyonce is taking the same path with acting as Aaliyah was planning, and had already begun with Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned. The Matrix sequels would have been next for her, in the role that Nona Gaye played. And then she wanted the remake of Sparkle, and Some Kind of Blue, with her playing a woman dating a white jazz musician in a time when that was extremely taboo.
I appreciated that people like Squire gave time to talk about these actors. To talk movies with them was most welcome to me because as a writer, you do spend a lot of time alone, in front of a computer screen, trying to figure out how to make your writing work. To talk to others is always welcome, especially in the thick of a writing project.
After I finished writing and editing my share of the book, and sent what I had to Phil to be put together with his essays, I decided I was done with movie reviews. I would be much happier as a former film critic. I wanted to love movies again. I wanted to only know what was coming out by way of the commercials on TV and the trailers I saw online. I didn't want to request DVDs from publicists anymore, I didn't want to receive press release after press release; I just wanted movies to be one part of my life, not the dominant part anymore.
I don't miss movie reviews. I don't miss the wind-tunnel hype machine of awards season. I don't miss the sniping that went on during Governing Committee election campaigns within the OFCS. I don't miss my encounters with publicists after screenings when I wrote for the Teentime section. They were nice enough people, but you could never be sure if it was truly them or just their PR personality.
However, all these years taught me to write regularly and the book taught me how to do research, what was available to me, and it was the first time I wrote anything over 1,500 words. My reviews, save for Screen It, never went above that, and here I was, writing 8 pages about James Dean. It's difficult to do, but if you've got enough research material, it's bearable.
Without all that, I wouldn't be here as I am right now. Without Phil, I would not be so eager to begin writing books. And now I'm facing choices over what I want my second book to be about. I don't have a publisher this time. I'm going to have to become a salesman in addition to being an author. But now I have some of the confidence necessary to pitch myself because of those years of writing movie reviews, because of What If They Lived?. The rest of the confidence will come once I have a book I want to present to the world.
Here I go.
I was 7 years old when, for some inexplicable reason, I copied onto a sheet of white posterboard by hand a review of the animated movie Bebe's Kids from the Orlando Sentinel. It was 1992.
It was 1999 when I began actually writing movie reviews, for the Teentime pages of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's weekend Showtime section. I was nearing the end of 8th grade, and I had found a call for writers in those pages. I wrote two test reviews for the editor, Oline Cogdill (One review was of Analyze This, which I had seen at a sneak preview), and was deemed good enough to write regularly for the section. During my three years, I won, at the high school journalism awards that the Sun-Sentinel held every year at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, 2000 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, 2001 Teentime Movie Reviewer of the Year, and 2002 Teentime Reviewer of the Year. I still think that those awards were for sheer quantity, because I wrote a lot, and there were weeks when I didn't think my reviews were any good. Sure I wrote them, but I didn't feel so vested in them. Step one: Pour out opinion of movie into Word file. Step two: Send review to Oline. Step three: Repeat steps one and two.
No matter those occasional dry, dull weeks, I appreciate the experience because it taught me to write regularly. It gave me a routine about it. It began the process that led to where I am today, undaunted in the face of potentially massive writing projects. Don't mistake that for arrogance. I'm comfortable with the tasks, but it still entails a hell of a lot of work.
In 2002, my time with Teentime had ended because I had graduated high school. And one day, in February 2003, while attending classes at Broward Community College on the smallest campus they had (Which was diagonal from the Southwest Regional library in Pembroke Pines, part of the Broward County library system), I was in the computer lab at the Southwest Regional library and had come upon a website called Film Threat, which was looking for writers. I e-mailed the editor, Eric Campos, asked what was needed, and I sent along many sample reviews, silently praying that they would be good enough as I sent each one. And they were. And until 2009, I wrote countless reviews for the site.
In 2004, I applied for membership to the Online Film Critics Society, which Phil Hall, a fellow writer, had suggested. He was also a member of the Governing Committee of the OFCS. I was rejected because, as Phil had said, my reviews contained too much plot summary and not enough opinion. I made necessary adjustments to my reviews, and I was accepted the next year.
Then, in 2006, I decided to run for a slot on the Governing Committee and was elected. Phil was with me, and it was nice to be at the top. And I had also been impressed that at the end of the year, when Hollywood was pushing so many movies for Oscar consideration, we got screeners too since we had our own awards. Sometimes, movies that I wanted to see arrived this way. And then the entire membership sent ballots of what should be nominated, and a few weeks later, we voted on what should win our awards. In 2006 and 2007, I loved it. In 2008 and 2009, I was tired of it and it was partly why I was glad to eventually leave the OFCS.
It began to feel like a hamster wheel. The screeners were wonderful to have, but it felt like there was an obligation to watch these movies, to see if there were any performances, cinematography, editing, etc. that was remarkable enough to garner a nomination, and then the voting, and that was it for the year. Then it began at the same time the next year. I didn't mind the requirement that you had to have written at least 50 reviews for the year in order to retain membership. It was just this aspect that I slowly began to loathe.
At the same time I became a member of the Governing Committee, Jim Judy, the owner of Screen It (http://www.screenit.com/) posted a message on the private OFCS board looking for writers for his site. It was vastly different from other movie review sites, being that these reviews were geared toward giving parents the most information possible about a movie. Everything from alcohol and drugs to sex to violence and profanity was documented in each review.
I e-mailed Jim, very interested, because unlike Film Threat, Screen It paid per review. Jim e-mailed me back, assigning me two test reviews, one for Bad Boys II and another for Something's Gotta Give. Both were easy to get since I had a 3-DVDs-at-a-time account with Netflix at the time.
Bad Boys II, with the violence, explosions, and profanity was a nightmare. I quickly learned what was involved in documenting an "R"-rated movie and had worked so diligently on all of that, and it took so many hours, that I'd forgotten that a regular movie review had to be written in the "Our Take" section. By the time I was done inserting everything I had written down into the template Jim had provided, I didn't even want to think about what I had thought about the movie.
Jim e-mailed both files with corrections, pointing out what needed to be expanded in my descriptions, what wasn't necessary, and hired me. He wanted reviewers for pre-1996 movies (Screen It began in 1996), so it was a godsend for me since I didn't have to go out to the movie theater and try to get everything down without a pause button. I reviewed Ghostbusters, The Godfather, and Beverly Hills Cop, among others. Some reviews took a week because I was so thorough. Mom thought I was being too thorough, but I felt this obligation to get it all exact, no matter how many hours it took.
In early 2009, my final review for Screen It was Goodfellas, and I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted to write other things. Not only was it not possible for me to be a full-time film critic for a newspaper or a magazine, as I once thought I might be, I didn't want to be that anymore, and I also didn't enjoy movies anymore. I wasn't as enthusiastic about them as I was as a writer for Teentime.
It was in the same year that Phil and I lost re-election to the Governing Committee. After the results were known, he asked me if I wanted to join him in co-writing a book called What If They Lived?, about what actors like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and John Belushi might have done in their careers had they not died. It was the second book in his two-book contract with BearManor Media, which specializes in Hollywood history and other books about movies and television and radio. It was going to be published.
I didn't want to do it. It felt like too much work. So many books to read, notes to take, and I also had to find other sources, such as newspaper articles, and people to interview, to speculate about what these actors might have done.
Mom told me I had to do it. I would not get this opportunity again. This book was being handed to me. It was a gift other writers would kill for. I understood, and I told Phil I would join him.
Some of the research was very tedious. I especially remember the evening of July 4th in 2009, sitting at the dining room table while fireworks were shown on CBS, reading a 600-page biography about Judy Garland. Fortunately, I had been reading since I was 2, so I was a pro at speed reading, but having to take notes while reading slowed things down considerably, particularly because the first half of each essay was a straight-out biography about each actor, and I had to choose what I wanted to include about Garland.
The fun part was contacting people to interview about these actors. There was a publicist named Gilda N. Squire who had worked with Aaliyah, who graciously speculated about what her career might have been, believing that she would have become what Beyonce is. Considering what I had read, I believe it, because Beyonce is taking the same path with acting as Aaliyah was planning, and had already begun with Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned. The Matrix sequels would have been next for her, in the role that Nona Gaye played. And then she wanted the remake of Sparkle, and Some Kind of Blue, with her playing a woman dating a white jazz musician in a time when that was extremely taboo.
I appreciated that people like Squire gave time to talk about these actors. To talk movies with them was most welcome to me because as a writer, you do spend a lot of time alone, in front of a computer screen, trying to figure out how to make your writing work. To talk to others is always welcome, especially in the thick of a writing project.
After I finished writing and editing my share of the book, and sent what I had to Phil to be put together with his essays, I decided I was done with movie reviews. I would be much happier as a former film critic. I wanted to love movies again. I wanted to only know what was coming out by way of the commercials on TV and the trailers I saw online. I didn't want to request DVDs from publicists anymore, I didn't want to receive press release after press release; I just wanted movies to be one part of my life, not the dominant part anymore.
I don't miss movie reviews. I don't miss the wind-tunnel hype machine of awards season. I don't miss the sniping that went on during Governing Committee election campaigns within the OFCS. I don't miss my encounters with publicists after screenings when I wrote for the Teentime section. They were nice enough people, but you could never be sure if it was truly them or just their PR personality.
However, all these years taught me to write regularly and the book taught me how to do research, what was available to me, and it was the first time I wrote anything over 1,500 words. My reviews, save for Screen It, never went above that, and here I was, writing 8 pages about James Dean. It's difficult to do, but if you've got enough research material, it's bearable.
Without all that, I wouldn't be here as I am right now. Without Phil, I would not be so eager to begin writing books. And now I'm facing choices over what I want my second book to be about. I don't have a publisher this time. I'm going to have to become a salesman in addition to being an author. But now I have some of the confidence necessary to pitch myself because of those years of writing movie reviews, because of What If They Lived?. The rest of the confidence will come once I have a book I want to present to the world.
Here I go.
Feeling Like It Can Be Done
I don't know how many books I'm going to pore through this time for either that 1930s Hollywood history writing project or one of my presidential writing projects. I don't know how many newspapers I'm going to root through online, nor what libraries I'll need to get in touch with for records I seek, or, if it is one of those presidential writing projects, presidential libraries too.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
I do know that I'm ready. I want to do this. It's going to be a lot of fun, whichever one it will be. But I have to get to work on it. After What If They Lived? was published, I vowed to be published again by the time I turned 30. I'm 27, and I'm going to be 28 in March. Two years left by then, so I still have some cushioning in these final months of 2011.
I finished reading The Men Who Would Be King early this evening, and instead of beginning The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (The switch from nonfiction to fiction and back and forth), I began The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House by Bob Woodward, documenting the first year of the Clinton administration's economic policy. I have three tall stacks of presidential books in the living room, and this one has been prodding me over the past week, even though I've had it since December 2009 (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2009/12/spontaneous-evening.html). Every book in time, I guess. As with The Men Who Would Be King, I'm reading this one to see what my enthusiasm is for those presidential writing projects. Is it higher than the Hollywood project? Or should I set it aside until I'm done with that one?
I love all these ideas, but I still have to pick one because it's the only way anything's going to be written. I don't think I could work on simultaneous projects. One book and then another. I'm not Danielle Steel.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
All It Takes is One Great Book
I have admitted before to being a lazy writer, and I stand by that. But give me one great book to inspire me, and I rush into action (as much action as a writer can be counted on for), considering so many ways that I could write a book.
I've found that great book. It's The Men Who Would Be King by master Hollywood journalist Nicole LaPorte, who documents the formation and dissolution of DreamWorks SKG, which was started by Steven Spielberg (S), Jeffrey Katzenberg (K), and David Geffen (G), all big Hollywood power players in one way or another, Spielberg most obvious.
The people interviewed for this book embrace the cloak of invisiblity, preferring to talk to LaPorte where they couldn't be seen by other Hollywood denizens and possibly ratted out to Katzenberg or Geffen. Piss off one of them, and your career is over even before you got to where you hoped you would be one day. Hollywood is a tight-knit town with sharp teeth.
LaPorte's writing is brilliant, bringing you right into the plans for DreamWorks, the press conferences held by SKG that touted how different DreamWorks would be from the Hollywood norm, how they fancied themselves the next generation from United Artists, which was begun by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. Just as United Artists existed for the artists in Hollywood, so too would DreamWorks.
But the dream came with many costs, and flops from the start, before becoming a possible shining star with the releases of Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty. The acrimonous relationships written about here are utterly fascinating, but it's not LaPorte's expose style that inspires me; it's her level of detail, how she's so thoroughly researched her subject, interviewed what must have been hundreds of people at least, and gotten every single detail she sought that there is no way another book could match. There's no way another book could be written, because I don't think any other writer would have the guts that LaPorte has. This is immediately another classic Hollywood book.
I'm only on page 200, but I've been reading it with my jaw partway to the floor. I want to write my 1930s Hollywood history book like this, with as much detail as I can find to keep it interesting. I have a partial idea of where I might like to go with it, and I intend to see if it's workable based on the records I hope to find after preliminary research with a few of the books I got about the studio system back then. But reading LaPorte's book, I feel like I can do this. The research is going to be a lot of fun, and I can feel the laziness lifting.
I've found that great book. It's The Men Who Would Be King by master Hollywood journalist Nicole LaPorte, who documents the formation and dissolution of DreamWorks SKG, which was started by Steven Spielberg (S), Jeffrey Katzenberg (K), and David Geffen (G), all big Hollywood power players in one way or another, Spielberg most obvious.
The people interviewed for this book embrace the cloak of invisiblity, preferring to talk to LaPorte where they couldn't be seen by other Hollywood denizens and possibly ratted out to Katzenberg or Geffen. Piss off one of them, and your career is over even before you got to where you hoped you would be one day. Hollywood is a tight-knit town with sharp teeth.
LaPorte's writing is brilliant, bringing you right into the plans for DreamWorks, the press conferences held by SKG that touted how different DreamWorks would be from the Hollywood norm, how they fancied themselves the next generation from United Artists, which was begun by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. Just as United Artists existed for the artists in Hollywood, so too would DreamWorks.
But the dream came with many costs, and flops from the start, before becoming a possible shining star with the releases of Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty. The acrimonous relationships written about here are utterly fascinating, but it's not LaPorte's expose style that inspires me; it's her level of detail, how she's so thoroughly researched her subject, interviewed what must have been hundreds of people at least, and gotten every single detail she sought that there is no way another book could match. There's no way another book could be written, because I don't think any other writer would have the guts that LaPorte has. This is immediately another classic Hollywood book.
I'm only on page 200, but I've been reading it with my jaw partway to the floor. I want to write my 1930s Hollywood history book like this, with as much detail as I can find to keep it interesting. I have a partial idea of where I might like to go with it, and I intend to see if it's workable based on the records I hope to find after preliminary research with a few of the books I got about the studio system back then. But reading LaPorte's book, I feel like I can do this. The research is going to be a lot of fun, and I can feel the laziness lifting.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Continuing Quindlen
Reading about Justice Harry Blackmun's overall impact on Roe v. Wade in Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse, a sentence in the first paragraph of Chapter 9, "Improbable Icon", struck me with a reminder:
"On Harry Blackmun's improbably journey, becoming a feminist icon was perhaps the most improbable destination of all."
Once again, reading one book led me to think about another author, being that Anna Quindlen, in her collection of columns entitled Thinking Out Loud, had written a touching tribute to Blackmun upon his retirement from the Supreme Court. Quindlen, a feminist, thanked Blackmun for all that he had done for women with that one opinion. And just then, I thought about how Quindlen matched the kind of writer I like to be, with it being ok to have a big heart, following your convictions with firm certainity while agreeably learning about all that's going on around you, open to other opinions.
After I finished reading Thinking Out Loud a week ago, I went to Amazon and spotted an interesting-looking cover for Quindlen's novel, Every Last One, two red flowers next to a framed photo of what looks like a woman in a willowy white slip. I read only the first page of the provided sample, and went to abebooks.com and ordered it. I didn't need to know what it's about. I wanted to see what Quindlen is like as a novelist.
I'm still waiting for Every Last One to arrive, and I may also partake of Quindlen's other novels, but now I also want to read Living Out Loud and Loud and Clear, two other collections of Quindlen's columns. And though I read How Reading Changed My Life in January of last year, I feel like I read it without really knowing who Quindlen was. I want to try again.
Before starting Thinking Out Loud, I read all of Celia Rivenbark's books from the end of September (Bless Your Heart, Tramp and We're Just Like You, Only Prettier), through four days toward the middle of this month (Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank, Belle Weather, You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning, and You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl). I liked her very funny observations, but thinking about those books, I don't remember an overall great deal of them beyond the life which I also lived in part as a resident of South and then Central and then South Florida again.
But I feel a kinship with Quindlen, observing everyday life, always wondering, always appreciative of the days given to live, with a big heart to match. I want to see what else she offers in her other columns, and now's the time.
"On Harry Blackmun's improbably journey, becoming a feminist icon was perhaps the most improbable destination of all."
Once again, reading one book led me to think about another author, being that Anna Quindlen, in her collection of columns entitled Thinking Out Loud, had written a touching tribute to Blackmun upon his retirement from the Supreme Court. Quindlen, a feminist, thanked Blackmun for all that he had done for women with that one opinion. And just then, I thought about how Quindlen matched the kind of writer I like to be, with it being ok to have a big heart, following your convictions with firm certainity while agreeably learning about all that's going on around you, open to other opinions.
After I finished reading Thinking Out Loud a week ago, I went to Amazon and spotted an interesting-looking cover for Quindlen's novel, Every Last One, two red flowers next to a framed photo of what looks like a woman in a willowy white slip. I read only the first page of the provided sample, and went to abebooks.com and ordered it. I didn't need to know what it's about. I wanted to see what Quindlen is like as a novelist.
I'm still waiting for Every Last One to arrive, and I may also partake of Quindlen's other novels, but now I also want to read Living Out Loud and Loud and Clear, two other collections of Quindlen's columns. And though I read How Reading Changed My Life in January of last year, I feel like I read it without really knowing who Quindlen was. I want to try again.
Before starting Thinking Out Loud, I read all of Celia Rivenbark's books from the end of September (Bless Your Heart, Tramp and We're Just Like You, Only Prettier), through four days toward the middle of this month (Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank, Belle Weather, You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning, and You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl). I liked her very funny observations, but thinking about those books, I don't remember an overall great deal of them beyond the life which I also lived in part as a resident of South and then Central and then South Florida again.
But I feel a kinship with Quindlen, observing everyday life, always wondering, always appreciative of the days given to live, with a big heart to match. I want to see what else she offers in her other columns, and now's the time.
Monday, October 24, 2011
"Delicious, Fresh Taste & Ready to Enjoy" - Apt Description
At the Walmart on Kelly Johnson Parkway yesterday with my family (The one overlooking Six Flags Magic Mountain), picking up a few things for lunch and dinner during the week, I reached the aisle that had canned tuna, and found the pouches that Starkist sells, including chunk light tuna salad, with water chestnuts and dill relish, among other ingredients. I bought one of these from Target two weeks ago, liked it, and wanted it again, especially since it was cheaper here.
Last night, toward 11 p.m., when the house was settling in for the night, Dad and Mom in their bedroom, Meridith in hers finishing Devoted by Hillary Duff (She's been a fan since Lizzie McGuire, and owns Elixir too), and me in the living room on the computer, I went to the fridge to get some water and looked at the pouch which was laying on top of four of the Yoplait Greek yogurts I had also gotten. I looked at the bottom of the pouch on the front, which has the only discernible copy anywhere on it: "Delicious, Fresh Taste & Ready to Enjoy." It is delicious, it tastes fresher than when my dad glops mounds of mayonnaise in the tuna salad he makes, and I would probably enjoy it again at lunch again today (I did). I liked that sentence because of its self-confidence, so sure of itself, as all products have to be when they're on the shelves. There has to be something to capture the attention of shoppers. For me, it was just that it was chunk light tuna mixed in with other ingredients without having to do all the work. And I'd never thought of water chestnuts in a tuna salad, but it works. It gives it a firmer texture.
That sentence also applied to me a little after 1 in the morning. For the past few months, I've always been on the computer until a little after 2 a.m. or about 20 minutes before 3. I don't do a great deal on it that furthers my life, at least in my pursuit of being published again before I turn 30, which is why I'm glad I'm still 27. I'm a lazy writer, but not so lazy to not realize that the next two years will not wait. I'm aware, and am reading a few books that focus on 1930s Hollywood history to see what has been done and where I want to go with my book.
I decided that I'd had enough on the computer before midnight. I love the web comic Unshelved because it takes place in a library, among patrons and librarians (http://www.unshelved.com/), but there's only so much of its archive I can read in one sitting, since I'm on May 16, 2004 all the way from Saturday, February 16, 2002 (It's posted seven days a week). And I had read the Sally Forth and Rose is Rose comics for Monday, so there was nothing else, no reason for me to stay on any longer, not even to seek out more music for my desert soundtrack. It's a better pursuit during the evening.
Last week's episode of Hart of Dixie was still on the TiVo, and I went for that, laying on the couch and watching about 20 minutes' worth before I decided to delete it. I like the concept, about Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson), a New York doctor who has moved to Bluebell, Alabama to take over the practice of a deceased man that she finds out was her father. It's Hollywood's view of the South, so I can live with that, but where is the charming, spirited show I found in the pilot? I think it left with Nancy Travis, who went on to Last Man Standing with Tim Allen after the second episode. Travis was the heart and soul of the show. She gave it honesty, and a slight, but warm edge that was a wonderful counterpoint to the miscast Tim Matheson as the owner of the other half of the practice who wants to push out Zoe and have the entire practice to himself. He was much better as Vice President Hoynes on The West Wing. I'll give this week's episode a little bit of a chance, but I can't keep going on with this and wasting my time, still hoping that I get that show that I originally saw. It was fun fluff. Now it's just a chore.
PBS aired the Ed Sullivan Comedy Special during the evening, and I TiVo'd it, so I watched about 20 minutes of Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Benny, Flip Wilson, and Moms Mabley, and had a much better time. Then I decided that it would be an interesting change to get to my room before 2 a.m., and I did. But I didn't feel like continuing Cold Souls or The Glass Menagerie, starring John Malkovich, one of my favorite actors. I just wanted to read, uninterrupted, and it was the perfect chance.
I had brought The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry with me into Walmart to read while Mom stopped to look in the cosmetics section and in pharmacy and in other parts of Walmart before we reached the food aisles to get what we needed for the week. Didn't happen. The Sunday crowd was in every aisle, and I heard one guy, probably two years older than me, say to another guy, "Walmart is always an epic adventure." I want to go to whatever Walmart he's been to. Here, it's just necessity shopping, and the bargain book selection, except for the hardcover edition of Just After Sunset by Stephen King which I picked up at the Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive, is reliably disappointing.
In my room, in that middle-of-the-night silence, I wanted to read as much of The Kitchen Daughter as I could, continuing from page 151. For me, part of the appeal of The Kitchen Daughter is that it involves details of food, and cooking. And I was completely inside the story, in that kitchen with Ginny, the main character. When I got to page 202, I saw that it was 2:51. I didn't care. I wanted to finish this. The end came at page 272, and it was 3:30. I didn't worry about it being so late, because lately, I've always gotten up at about 10:15, no matter if I go to bed at 2:20 or 3:30. I didn't think about the day to come. I only thought about having been inside this novel, having completely disappeared into the words, drinking it all up and wanting more and more and more and more. I felt totally refreshed, smiling as big as the world can make smiles. And I want to do it again. And I will. If I don't finish Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse by late tonight, my reading will likely have a different effect, one of intense concentration, since I'm still learning everything I can find about the Supreme Court. But there will still be joy, still deep satisfaction in uninterrupted reading time. In that time, I am the only one in the world, and I can travel wherever I want.
Delicious? Yes! Fresh taste? Always! Ready to enjoy? All the time!
(Addendum at 4:27 p.m.: Upon reflection in the shower (What better place to think?), my feelings about my middle-of-the-night reading are best expressed in one of the choruses of Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Schilling, my favorite song:
"Earth below us; drifting, falling
Floating, weightless; coming home.")
Last night, toward 11 p.m., when the house was settling in for the night, Dad and Mom in their bedroom, Meridith in hers finishing Devoted by Hillary Duff (She's been a fan since Lizzie McGuire, and owns Elixir too), and me in the living room on the computer, I went to the fridge to get some water and looked at the pouch which was laying on top of four of the Yoplait Greek yogurts I had also gotten. I looked at the bottom of the pouch on the front, which has the only discernible copy anywhere on it: "Delicious, Fresh Taste & Ready to Enjoy." It is delicious, it tastes fresher than when my dad glops mounds of mayonnaise in the tuna salad he makes, and I would probably enjoy it again at lunch again today (I did). I liked that sentence because of its self-confidence, so sure of itself, as all products have to be when they're on the shelves. There has to be something to capture the attention of shoppers. For me, it was just that it was chunk light tuna mixed in with other ingredients without having to do all the work. And I'd never thought of water chestnuts in a tuna salad, but it works. It gives it a firmer texture.
That sentence also applied to me a little after 1 in the morning. For the past few months, I've always been on the computer until a little after 2 a.m. or about 20 minutes before 3. I don't do a great deal on it that furthers my life, at least in my pursuit of being published again before I turn 30, which is why I'm glad I'm still 27. I'm a lazy writer, but not so lazy to not realize that the next two years will not wait. I'm aware, and am reading a few books that focus on 1930s Hollywood history to see what has been done and where I want to go with my book.
I decided that I'd had enough on the computer before midnight. I love the web comic Unshelved because it takes place in a library, among patrons and librarians (http://www.unshelved.com/), but there's only so much of its archive I can read in one sitting, since I'm on May 16, 2004 all the way from Saturday, February 16, 2002 (It's posted seven days a week). And I had read the Sally Forth and Rose is Rose comics for Monday, so there was nothing else, no reason for me to stay on any longer, not even to seek out more music for my desert soundtrack. It's a better pursuit during the evening.
Last week's episode of Hart of Dixie was still on the TiVo, and I went for that, laying on the couch and watching about 20 minutes' worth before I decided to delete it. I like the concept, about Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson), a New York doctor who has moved to Bluebell, Alabama to take over the practice of a deceased man that she finds out was her father. It's Hollywood's view of the South, so I can live with that, but where is the charming, spirited show I found in the pilot? I think it left with Nancy Travis, who went on to Last Man Standing with Tim Allen after the second episode. Travis was the heart and soul of the show. She gave it honesty, and a slight, but warm edge that was a wonderful counterpoint to the miscast Tim Matheson as the owner of the other half of the practice who wants to push out Zoe and have the entire practice to himself. He was much better as Vice President Hoynes on The West Wing. I'll give this week's episode a little bit of a chance, but I can't keep going on with this and wasting my time, still hoping that I get that show that I originally saw. It was fun fluff. Now it's just a chore.
PBS aired the Ed Sullivan Comedy Special during the evening, and I TiVo'd it, so I watched about 20 minutes of Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Benny, Flip Wilson, and Moms Mabley, and had a much better time. Then I decided that it would be an interesting change to get to my room before 2 a.m., and I did. But I didn't feel like continuing Cold Souls or The Glass Menagerie, starring John Malkovich, one of my favorite actors. I just wanted to read, uninterrupted, and it was the perfect chance.
I had brought The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry with me into Walmart to read while Mom stopped to look in the cosmetics section and in pharmacy and in other parts of Walmart before we reached the food aisles to get what we needed for the week. Didn't happen. The Sunday crowd was in every aisle, and I heard one guy, probably two years older than me, say to another guy, "Walmart is always an epic adventure." I want to go to whatever Walmart he's been to. Here, it's just necessity shopping, and the bargain book selection, except for the hardcover edition of Just After Sunset by Stephen King which I picked up at the Walmart Supercenter on Carl Boyer Drive, is reliably disappointing.
In my room, in that middle-of-the-night silence, I wanted to read as much of The Kitchen Daughter as I could, continuing from page 151. For me, part of the appeal of The Kitchen Daughter is that it involves details of food, and cooking. And I was completely inside the story, in that kitchen with Ginny, the main character. When I got to page 202, I saw that it was 2:51. I didn't care. I wanted to finish this. The end came at page 272, and it was 3:30. I didn't worry about it being so late, because lately, I've always gotten up at about 10:15, no matter if I go to bed at 2:20 or 3:30. I didn't think about the day to come. I only thought about having been inside this novel, having completely disappeared into the words, drinking it all up and wanting more and more and more and more. I felt totally refreshed, smiling as big as the world can make smiles. And I want to do it again. And I will. If I don't finish Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey by Linda Greenhouse by late tonight, my reading will likely have a different effect, one of intense concentration, since I'm still learning everything I can find about the Supreme Court. But there will still be joy, still deep satisfaction in uninterrupted reading time. In that time, I am the only one in the world, and I can travel wherever I want.
Delicious? Yes! Fresh taste? Always! Ready to enjoy? All the time!
(Addendum at 4:27 p.m.: Upon reflection in the shower (What better place to think?), my feelings about my middle-of-the-night reading are best expressed in one of the choruses of Major Tom (Coming Home) by Peter Schilling, my favorite song:
"Earth below us; drifting, falling
Floating, weightless; coming home.")
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Most Accurate Movie about Las Vegas Feels Mostly Wrong
Hollywood likes to speed up Las Vegas, portraying it as exciting, fast-moving, with such an overwhelming feeling of luck that it's possible for anyone to make it big, and those who don't are merely entertaining side characters.
Las Vegas is exciting, and depending on who you are, where you are, it can feel fast-moving, especially if you frequent its myriad nightclubs. And if you've got some really good hands going, then there can be an overwhelming feeling of luck. But Hollywood's Las Vegas is not the real Las Vegas. It doesn't move that fast. It takes time to get there, to settle in briefly before you head out on the Strip, to take in all that's around you, all the zippy colors, all the sounds, all that evidence, such as a smaller-scale Eiffel Tower that marks the beginning of Paris Las Vegas, that shows you will not find all of this anywhere else. And what you experience here is purely yours. You may be a gambler, or you may simply be content walking through the various casinos and eating at some of the buffets they offer. You may like to see some of the shows, such as Donny & Marie or Celine Dion or Elton John, or, who knows, you might be interested in the interior designs of Vegas bathrooms. Whatever it is, no two experiences are alike.
There is only one movie made by Hollywood, Warner Bros. specifically, that portrays Las Vegas with 100% accuracy. It doesn't seem like it's of Hollywood, since it was shuffled around so much on the calendar before eventually opening in a little-faith slot against Spider-Man 3 in May 2007. It's Lucky You, starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, and Robert Duvall, with supporting roles filled by Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Saverio Guerra (Remember Bob on Becker?), Danny Hoch, and a cameo by Robert Downey, Jr.
Before I go further, I saw a lot of bad movies, and was ticked off by many of them when I wrote movie reviews for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages (in the back of their weekend Showtime section every Friday) when I was in middle and high school, and for Film Threat (http://www.filmthreat.com/). The memories of what teed me off about those movies are gone. I can find my old reviews on the Film Threat website, and I can probably remember briefly why I was so mad, but that full-on feeling is gone.
There is one particular anger I remember vividly, though. I always went for novel experiences in moviegoing, especially advance screenings, which usually included movie theaters a bit of a drive from Pembroke Pines, one of which was AMC Aventura 24 on the third floor of the Aventura Mall. There was one Saturday morning screening there of Pokemon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back about two weeks before its release on November 10, 1999. I don't know why I went, but I think it was one of the first invitations I'd received to an advance screening, so I wanted to see what this was about, what great fortune there was in regularly writing movie reviews. Being on a Saturday morning, the audience was made up entirely of kids, and parents who would rather be anywhere else. Some had won their tickets on the radio, but I had no trouble finding a seat since there was a row roped off for press, which meant me and a few other critics. But it didn't matter. I was angry after it was over. I couldn't understand how movies like this could be made for kids, movies without thought. I was 15, and had been a huge fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and had liked Pogs, so I hadn't thought about the gobs of cash to be made by the studios that released these movies, Warner Bros. in this case.
After leaving the auditorium the movie had shown in and the theater itself, I went to the box office and found out on the digital showtime board there that The Straight Story was showing. This was also being featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and I was thinking of asking my parents to take me there to see it. But here it was, no film festival crowd involved. Upon meeting Mom and Dad at the Johnny Rocket's across the way, I asked them if they could wait a little over two hours more so I could see The Straight Story. Then at least, Dad didn't like to spend a lot of time anywhere, so it was big of him to say yes, and Mom did too, and I got more money, and off I went.
The chance to see a movie about an old man driving his tractor from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin to see his estranged brother, because he could not drive a car anymore, was not one I was going to let pass by, especially since it was directed by David Lynch, never known for such gentleness in filmmaking. And it was so worth it. It completely washed away the ill will I had toward Pokemon: The First Movie. It's why the anger I had then is faded today, dull. I remember it, and then it doesn't matter.
I feel a kind of anger toward Lucky You that will never go away. I know Las Vegas, and though I haven't yet been to all the casinos, give me time when I finally have the time and much closer proximity as a resident. Lucky You is the Las Vegas I know, especially in one shot. The camera focuses on the Eiffel Tower at Paris, then pans diagonally down to the waterfalls at Bellagio before settling on Huck (Eric Bana) and Billie (Drew Barrymore). There is no music accompanying the shot. It is the pure atmosphere of Las Vegas. It is exactly what it feels like at 9 p.m., at 10 p.m. There is an underlying nervous energy, but it's very faint. Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? But there is also such pervasive peacefulness. This is where you belong. Stay here. Take in the waterfalls. Listen. Listen. Look. Listen.
Lucky You is set in 2003 Las Vegas, and is about Huck, who wants a spot in the World Series of Poker, who, in the opening moments of the movie, is trying to pawn off a presumably untouched digital camera, still in the box. His monologue in trying to convince the grizzled pawnbroker (Phyllis Somerville) to take the camera is brilliant. He seems to have a confidence that shimmers around him, and yet, it's the egregious fault of the screenplay by Eric Roth and director Curtis Hanson that there isn't a great deal to him beyond what you see right there. However, the pawnbroker is one personality you're likely to see in the real Las Vegas, so that begins the movie's accuracy. When Huck drives his motorcycle to the service entrance of a casino on the Strip, that is the real Las Vegas around him, but there are no tricks to try to make it faster than it appears. Hanson seems to know intimately what Las Vegas feels like, and so it's quiet all around, save for the music during these moments.
Charles Martin Smith plays Roy, Huck's chief backer in his attempt to get into the World Series of Poker. Currently, he's better known as the director of Dolphin Tale, also released by Warner Bros. Roy wants this investment to pay off, and says to Huck at one point, "You want sympathy? You'll find it between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary." You don't have to know anyone like Roy around Las Vegas, and yet you can sense people around you that are like him. They're around. Vegas births them.
There's also Saverio Guerra as Lester, who's known for oddball bets. Before the end of the movie, he takes on a bet that he can live in the men's bathroom for 30 days at Caesars Palace without leaving it. Lester is quite possibly the most entertaining character in Lucky You. The real Las Vegas is undoubtedly stocked with Lesters. They're as numerous as the Roys.
It's always nice to see Drew Barrymore in any movie, but she's saddled with so little to do as Billie Offer, who's moved to Las Vegas to try to be a singer. She meets Huck and gets involved with him, despite her sister (Debra Messing), likely an ex of Huck's, warning her off. I don't know if there's anyone like Billie in Las Vegas, not yet, and I wouldn't actively seek them. There probably is, but surely they're not saddled by the silliness the screenplay forces Barrymore to work with, such as when Huck is teaching her how to play poker. Despite my fondness for Barrymore, more moments with Lester and Roy would have been more welcome.
Huck's chief antagonist is his father, L.C. (Robert Duvall), though L.C. isn't the antagonist type. He just wasn't much of a father, and also happens to be the greatest poker player in the world, and shows it against Huck, but that's just how the game is. In Las Vegas, you have your money, you have whatever luck you're dealt, and for poker players, that depends on what cards you get. That's just the way it goes. But there's so many scenes between Huck and L.C. like this, resentment included, that it becomes tiresome.
Lucky You is so thoroughly squandered on the dealings between L.C. and Huck, and Huck and Billie, that sometimes the real Las Vegas is lost. The golf course scenes that include Horatio Sanz as the one who bets Lester that he can't do this or that (such as the Caesars Palace bathroom bet) don't feel anything like Las Vegas. Yes, there are golf courses in Las Vegas, but this feels disjointed. And yet, Las Vegas is still there somehow. The moments are fewer and fewer as it goes on, but you can still feel it. But then, maybe that's the intent. For a visitor to Las Vegas (which Huck isn't, but in the span of this movie, we are), it is so vivid when we get there, and we appreciate it as the days go on, but when we leave, there are only bits of it that cling to us. We can remember fondly what we did, but on that last day, it's time to pack, time to go home. We have to get back on the road, have to catch that flight.
Ideally, my kind of Vegas movie would have the scenery and atmosphere as Curtis Hanson has captured it, so close to the real thing that you could jump into the screen and be there if that were possible, combined with the Las Vegas segment in My Blueberry Nights, with Natalie Portman as a poker player too, who knows more about the odds and tells than about people as they are, whereas Norah Jones sees people as they are.
I'll always somewhat like Lucky You for finally getting Las Vegas right where so many others have gotten it wrong, but loathe it because of those missed opportunities for a better story. With the exceptions of Roy, Lester, and Robert Downey, Jr. holding down a telephone psychiatry service and other businesses across many phone lines at a bar, you can find more interesting characters at Serendipity 3 outside of Caesars Palace, known for its frozen hot chocolate.
But until you can get to Las Vegas, this is as close as you'll get to it in a movie. For the most part, this is exactly right.
(I thought about Lucky You while at Walmart today, walking from the bakery with a few free samples back to Mom and Meridith at the refrigerated yogurt case, and also wondered if I should get it on DVD for the scenes I like, or buy it from Amazon Instant Video to watch online whenever I feel like it. It's cheap enough both ways, a little over $3 from the sellers at Amazon Marketplace, though a bit bumped up for online viewing at $5.99. I know those scenes well enough, but what do I need them for? Is it because I want those good feelings about Las Vegas that I get when watching it being accurately portrayed? But surely I'll be there one day to experience it again, and again, and again. I'm conflicted, and then I'm not. And then I am again. Yes. No. Or maybe I'll stick with the Henderson Press for now, downloading all the back issues from the website and reading them, paying full attention to where I'll actually be, with Las Vegas comfortably nearby.)
Las Vegas is exciting, and depending on who you are, where you are, it can feel fast-moving, especially if you frequent its myriad nightclubs. And if you've got some really good hands going, then there can be an overwhelming feeling of luck. But Hollywood's Las Vegas is not the real Las Vegas. It doesn't move that fast. It takes time to get there, to settle in briefly before you head out on the Strip, to take in all that's around you, all the zippy colors, all the sounds, all that evidence, such as a smaller-scale Eiffel Tower that marks the beginning of Paris Las Vegas, that shows you will not find all of this anywhere else. And what you experience here is purely yours. You may be a gambler, or you may simply be content walking through the various casinos and eating at some of the buffets they offer. You may like to see some of the shows, such as Donny & Marie or Celine Dion or Elton John, or, who knows, you might be interested in the interior designs of Vegas bathrooms. Whatever it is, no two experiences are alike.
There is only one movie made by Hollywood, Warner Bros. specifically, that portrays Las Vegas with 100% accuracy. It doesn't seem like it's of Hollywood, since it was shuffled around so much on the calendar before eventually opening in a little-faith slot against Spider-Man 3 in May 2007. It's Lucky You, starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, and Robert Duvall, with supporting roles filled by Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Saverio Guerra (Remember Bob on Becker?), Danny Hoch, and a cameo by Robert Downey, Jr.
Before I go further, I saw a lot of bad movies, and was ticked off by many of them when I wrote movie reviews for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages (in the back of their weekend Showtime section every Friday) when I was in middle and high school, and for Film Threat (http://www.filmthreat.com/). The memories of what teed me off about those movies are gone. I can find my old reviews on the Film Threat website, and I can probably remember briefly why I was so mad, but that full-on feeling is gone.
There is one particular anger I remember vividly, though. I always went for novel experiences in moviegoing, especially advance screenings, which usually included movie theaters a bit of a drive from Pembroke Pines, one of which was AMC Aventura 24 on the third floor of the Aventura Mall. There was one Saturday morning screening there of Pokemon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back about two weeks before its release on November 10, 1999. I don't know why I went, but I think it was one of the first invitations I'd received to an advance screening, so I wanted to see what this was about, what great fortune there was in regularly writing movie reviews. Being on a Saturday morning, the audience was made up entirely of kids, and parents who would rather be anywhere else. Some had won their tickets on the radio, but I had no trouble finding a seat since there was a row roped off for press, which meant me and a few other critics. But it didn't matter. I was angry after it was over. I couldn't understand how movies like this could be made for kids, movies without thought. I was 15, and had been a huge fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and had liked Pogs, so I hadn't thought about the gobs of cash to be made by the studios that released these movies, Warner Bros. in this case.
After leaving the auditorium the movie had shown in and the theater itself, I went to the box office and found out on the digital showtime board there that The Straight Story was showing. This was also being featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and I was thinking of asking my parents to take me there to see it. But here it was, no film festival crowd involved. Upon meeting Mom and Dad at the Johnny Rocket's across the way, I asked them if they could wait a little over two hours more so I could see The Straight Story. Then at least, Dad didn't like to spend a lot of time anywhere, so it was big of him to say yes, and Mom did too, and I got more money, and off I went.
The chance to see a movie about an old man driving his tractor from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin to see his estranged brother, because he could not drive a car anymore, was not one I was going to let pass by, especially since it was directed by David Lynch, never known for such gentleness in filmmaking. And it was so worth it. It completely washed away the ill will I had toward Pokemon: The First Movie. It's why the anger I had then is faded today, dull. I remember it, and then it doesn't matter.
I feel a kind of anger toward Lucky You that will never go away. I know Las Vegas, and though I haven't yet been to all the casinos, give me time when I finally have the time and much closer proximity as a resident. Lucky You is the Las Vegas I know, especially in one shot. The camera focuses on the Eiffel Tower at Paris, then pans diagonally down to the waterfalls at Bellagio before settling on Huck (Eric Bana) and Billie (Drew Barrymore). There is no music accompanying the shot. It is the pure atmosphere of Las Vegas. It is exactly what it feels like at 9 p.m., at 10 p.m. There is an underlying nervous energy, but it's very faint. Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? But there is also such pervasive peacefulness. This is where you belong. Stay here. Take in the waterfalls. Listen. Listen. Look. Listen.
Lucky You is set in 2003 Las Vegas, and is about Huck, who wants a spot in the World Series of Poker, who, in the opening moments of the movie, is trying to pawn off a presumably untouched digital camera, still in the box. His monologue in trying to convince the grizzled pawnbroker (Phyllis Somerville) to take the camera is brilliant. He seems to have a confidence that shimmers around him, and yet, it's the egregious fault of the screenplay by Eric Roth and director Curtis Hanson that there isn't a great deal to him beyond what you see right there. However, the pawnbroker is one personality you're likely to see in the real Las Vegas, so that begins the movie's accuracy. When Huck drives his motorcycle to the service entrance of a casino on the Strip, that is the real Las Vegas around him, but there are no tricks to try to make it faster than it appears. Hanson seems to know intimately what Las Vegas feels like, and so it's quiet all around, save for the music during these moments.
Charles Martin Smith plays Roy, Huck's chief backer in his attempt to get into the World Series of Poker. Currently, he's better known as the director of Dolphin Tale, also released by Warner Bros. Roy wants this investment to pay off, and says to Huck at one point, "You want sympathy? You'll find it between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary." You don't have to know anyone like Roy around Las Vegas, and yet you can sense people around you that are like him. They're around. Vegas births them.
There's also Saverio Guerra as Lester, who's known for oddball bets. Before the end of the movie, he takes on a bet that he can live in the men's bathroom for 30 days at Caesars Palace without leaving it. Lester is quite possibly the most entertaining character in Lucky You. The real Las Vegas is undoubtedly stocked with Lesters. They're as numerous as the Roys.
It's always nice to see Drew Barrymore in any movie, but she's saddled with so little to do as Billie Offer, who's moved to Las Vegas to try to be a singer. She meets Huck and gets involved with him, despite her sister (Debra Messing), likely an ex of Huck's, warning her off. I don't know if there's anyone like Billie in Las Vegas, not yet, and I wouldn't actively seek them. There probably is, but surely they're not saddled by the silliness the screenplay forces Barrymore to work with, such as when Huck is teaching her how to play poker. Despite my fondness for Barrymore, more moments with Lester and Roy would have been more welcome.
Huck's chief antagonist is his father, L.C. (Robert Duvall), though L.C. isn't the antagonist type. He just wasn't much of a father, and also happens to be the greatest poker player in the world, and shows it against Huck, but that's just how the game is. In Las Vegas, you have your money, you have whatever luck you're dealt, and for poker players, that depends on what cards you get. That's just the way it goes. But there's so many scenes between Huck and L.C. like this, resentment included, that it becomes tiresome.
Lucky You is so thoroughly squandered on the dealings between L.C. and Huck, and Huck and Billie, that sometimes the real Las Vegas is lost. The golf course scenes that include Horatio Sanz as the one who bets Lester that he can't do this or that (such as the Caesars Palace bathroom bet) don't feel anything like Las Vegas. Yes, there are golf courses in Las Vegas, but this feels disjointed. And yet, Las Vegas is still there somehow. The moments are fewer and fewer as it goes on, but you can still feel it. But then, maybe that's the intent. For a visitor to Las Vegas (which Huck isn't, but in the span of this movie, we are), it is so vivid when we get there, and we appreciate it as the days go on, but when we leave, there are only bits of it that cling to us. We can remember fondly what we did, but on that last day, it's time to pack, time to go home. We have to get back on the road, have to catch that flight.
Ideally, my kind of Vegas movie would have the scenery and atmosphere as Curtis Hanson has captured it, so close to the real thing that you could jump into the screen and be there if that were possible, combined with the Las Vegas segment in My Blueberry Nights, with Natalie Portman as a poker player too, who knows more about the odds and tells than about people as they are, whereas Norah Jones sees people as they are.
I'll always somewhat like Lucky You for finally getting Las Vegas right where so many others have gotten it wrong, but loathe it because of those missed opportunities for a better story. With the exceptions of Roy, Lester, and Robert Downey, Jr. holding down a telephone psychiatry service and other businesses across many phone lines at a bar, you can find more interesting characters at Serendipity 3 outside of Caesars Palace, known for its frozen hot chocolate.
But until you can get to Las Vegas, this is as close as you'll get to it in a movie. For the most part, this is exactly right.
(I thought about Lucky You while at Walmart today, walking from the bakery with a few free samples back to Mom and Meridith at the refrigerated yogurt case, and also wondered if I should get it on DVD for the scenes I like, or buy it from Amazon Instant Video to watch online whenever I feel like it. It's cheap enough both ways, a little over $3 from the sellers at Amazon Marketplace, though a bit bumped up for online viewing at $5.99. I know those scenes well enough, but what do I need them for? Is it because I want those good feelings about Las Vegas that I get when watching it being accurately portrayed? But surely I'll be there one day to experience it again, and again, and again. I'm conflicted, and then I'm not. And then I am again. Yes. No. Or maybe I'll stick with the Henderson Press for now, downloading all the back issues from the website and reading them, paying full attention to where I'll actually be, with Las Vegas comfortably nearby.)
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