huffing sharpies and dreams



Before I get to the title, I want to proudly display my badge for participating in the one page 2006 thing on friday. Don’t know if I honestly deserve a badge since it took half a second to screencap and not that much of an effort, but I participated and that’s a good start for anything.

But back to the subject of Warren Beatty- oh wait we weren’t talking about Warren Beatty were we? Well let’s do that for a moment, brought forth today because I watched Bonnie and Clyde this afternoon.  Vaguely as research- which, I’ll have you know, I do not ALWAYS invoke for the reason of watching a movie, but in this case as I’m trying to stir up some inspired new take on the execution of a heist, I’d say it counts a little. Honestly B&C is more about chaos and character than it is at slick, smart execution, so I don’t know how much it helped- but watching awesomeness like Beatty, Dunaway, Gene Hackman and Michael Pollard for any amount of time certainly can’t hurt.

What occured to me as I’m watching though, aside from ‘Damn Warren Beatty is hot!’, is that  I can’t think of any modern equivalent. Sure most modern actors can’t possibly have the same sorts of careers as those of the past, but I always keep George Clooney close to Cary Grant in my head, and there’s all this hubbub about Brad Pitt == Robert Redford, which I can see- but please, God, keep my Newman/Redford flicks safe from remake! But no Warren Beatty springs to mind.

Now the sharpies- via Fark.com, cute little short called Le Montage has fun with the squeeze-cheese awesome of montage. Nicely shot and edited, it gets in some good fluff punches and worth the watch for the soundtrack alone.

Finally, caught Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep  and enjoyed it. Lots of humor and character and fun animation. Has very dream like story progression and absurdness that quite reminded me of something. I’m not really paying attention to Cinema enough to know where the waves and realisms are right now, but it’s got one hellua review at the I’mDeb.

One page



Following the example of Pooks, the unknown screenwriter, the spanish prisoner, and Michael, (not necessarily in any order) here’s my One Page, with no explanation…

Selected for the purpose of being insane and technically not written in the last 365 days, or 1095 days for that matter. I am however, willing to post something else if anyone objects. Which of course, they won’t!

news and notes 9.29.06



from the loose change rattling around in my head…

Pooks hooked me up with a very awesome screenwriting blog that I had not stumbled across before - Mystery Man on Film - who immediately got my attention when he called out that scripts and screenwriting blogs should act more like their film counterparts. Playing it close to the vest is all good in poker - which by the way I was playing a few days ago and pulled the most amazing 5-9 straight out of my ass, it was really a thing of beauty- but close to the vest in writing can be sort of laughable. So I may try my hand at some more indepth script reviews as I read things coming across my path. Those of you only visit the blog to find out if I’m still breathing and/or in jail, mental asylum, political office will have to tolerate it. Hijinks continue to ensue at regular intervals.

I’ve somehow ended up back on Nickel & Dime, as I languidly dash for October 30th for a small NC festival. Mind recently has been geared for plotting Gallows Gulch, working out minutiua, but deadlines are kinda the godsend for actually making progress, so now drafting N&D again. It’s weird, time does some weeeird things to what you’ve written. I worked damned hard from January to April 26th 2006 to get that script in shape for Nicholl. I got coverage, workshopped, and every single day went over it. And about March, with the help of some coverage, I realized I was banking on some flawed major elements. So I start hammering out new ideas, new locales, new action, and realized that draft wasn’t going to make the May deadline, so I set it aside and worked on the flawed draft and tried to clean it up as best as possible. My eye was twitching, I was thinking all the time, and I knew I needed to let it rest for a while. This is the one thing I fail miserably at as a writer- I cannot leave anything alone. I knew I needed to take a break, but that May deadline was getting close and it wasn’t just going to fix itself- and the thought of not entering seemed like laziness and failure and blah blah blah. So. Now, after a few months of not working on it, the Nicholl dink and playing with other scripts, it’s amazingly obvious this needs to get established earlier, that needs more support, etc. And since I’m at it, I might as well gut that flawed chunk of story and replace with something hopefully stronger, better, faster, smarter… The rewrites. never. end. But there’s a new deadline in place, and so I’ll make another hefty push and hope that I’m improving it rather than tinkering it into oblivion.

It’s occured to me that Dick Cheney = Mr. Potter from ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’. Mostly due to Jack Straw’s comments about the Bush Administration working against Colin Powell in the quagmire of Iraq. The NPR report I heard made some mention of agendas and such and all of a sudden I just thought - ’scurvy little spider’. So I think it’s worth saying:

Unfortunately, I don’t see any Clarence-types floating around to change things any time soon. Heck, an Acme Safe would even do the trick.

And since it’s almost October the world of baseball seems to be forecasting the Apocalypse. I’m still going with the Mets mostly because they seem to be the only franchise left playing something that resembles baseball. I don’t know what the hell is going on with Detroit, but if the Twins fall I’ll look forward to a Tigers/Mets series. In other news the Hell is expecting a cold front next week…

House 3×03 - Informed Consent



My overdue review of Informed Consent.

Have mentioned previously that House’s new timeslot this fall was going to cause slight scheduling issues with my weekly tube radiation alottment, specifically because it now plays head to head with CBS’ “NCIS” which is a show I’ve enjoyed since it’s start four seasons ago. This didn’t come into play until last week when NCIS had it’s season premiere, so I opted to watch NCIS. Now I’d be lying if I denied that this was in part of due to the second episode of House this season, which is only a C+ on my arbitrary mental scale. It’s only September and I wasn’t expecting mind-blowing sweeps high drama. That was my mistake.

A few technical notes because credit is certainly due: the two Davids get the writing cred, Shore and Foster, with acuminate direction from ER alum Laura Innes. However, the tour de force of the episode is really guest star Joel Grey as Ezra Powell. (Briefly worth the mention that Mr. Grey has been in everything ever since the 1950s, including Buffy, Oz and Alias.)

Okay, so the short version is- the episode rocks. Like I said, unexpected, with gravity and high calibre acting. I’ve watched it twice now and what strikes me most is the subtlety in execution. One of my favorite descriptions is “the medical cases became the instrument instead of the focus of the storytelling” and it’s done well in this episode.

Starting off, the thing that is so deftly established about Powell in the opening scene, is the contradiction of the character. Dark lab, serene cello piece, working with the lab rats is this nice looking elderly gent, who seems quite frail but is still keenly sharp. Grey is earnest, even as he’s oblique.

There’s nice cinematography in the lab, as the drama of the moment kicks in juxataposed with cello music, dissected and avenging lab rats- makes a really weird, tangible irony.

But enough of that, for next House marches in with cane, disarming the concern- completely nonchalant, deflecting. Light. But the clothing is more dark than usual- he has a private little grimace, is it the pain or is he pushing the emotion down? Maybe a few months of freedom was worse than if it’d never gone away? He’s got to work for what used to be involuntary and he’s totally bandying the word ‘cripple’ around more so than usual. Poor Snarkmaster-General.

The kiddos run off to test Powell, starry-eyed after a little expostition, because apparently Ezra’s the Snoop Dogg of Experimental Medical Authors. Cameron particularly buys into Ezra’s ‘frailty’ schtick- and not that it’s a put on, but as eventually becomes clear, Ezra is anything but frail.

At one point I even wonder that maybe he’s done all the tests already and knows what he has, but he’s really only come to House to help him die. This idea will bother me throughout the episode.

In the Clinic, House sharpens his snark on a teenager, perhaps because he’s feeling out of practice, and teenagers are generally impervious to such. This is because teenagers are dumb, with no perspective on reality. But unfortunately aforemented teenager is also hawt, so everything turns into flirting. I suspect House drops the papers on purpose and Cameron makes the most perfect entrance and line delivery. Hilarious!

And then the giant neon sign of PARALLELS lights up- Powell has never given up without an answer. Sound familiar? As House delivers this fun little tidbit he does so quite interestingly… Does he loath Powell or loath himself for the attributes they share?

And this is really where the episode turns into something heavy. The morphine fakeout. If you’re a big House fan, you buy into it, this is not beyond the Greg House we know and love. But he’s refrained from broad daylight thus far. Now, informed consent and euthinasia, I imagine, are way the hell on up there in the top ten of medical controversies. One of the phenominal things about this episode is that it all plays out is the trio of younger doctors- Foreman draws his line quick and firm, Chase takes the opposite (which I wonder about given the faith backstory) and poor Cameron gets bitchslapped with whatever ‘lesson’ it is House it trying to deliver.

The repartee’ between House and Powell really abolishes the idea that Ezra has, at any point, been frail. He calls the “lungs slowly filling with fluid” bluff, points out what is quickly becoming House’s fatal flaw- “not giving up without an answer,” (which Wilson comes along and hammers home) and less we’re totally enamored with facades (House’s OR Powell’s) oh yeah, he totally irradiated some babies. It’s an Emmy performance by Joel Grey- Such a dark twist wrapped up in that force of personality and offset by his ‘frailty’. But it’s very subtle because he’s so earnest, just awfully honest and sincere.

Which is what drives Cameron nuts, to the point of unhinging her. She falls apart of the course of the episode: makeup, hair, no sleep. She will not help. They strip that character down- House does it to her, he throws out the Journal article, completely offhand which is lovely, to make a point. Why he’s picked only Cameron for this lesson… well, I think Foreman gets it a little at one point, when he calls Cameron out for running away from principle and Chase turns it around on him, but it’s really nice that it’s coming across differently.

Of course I suspect House has a veiled reason for bludgening Cameron with the lesson and I think it’s the big reaction on the “withhold treatment without killing him” comment seals it. He yells, he yells a lot this episode, and of course he should, because of what’s been happening with his leg. He’s raw. Doesn’t seem raw, but Darwin in action- he’s got to survive. Which I think, is part of the lesson- Cameron, of all of them, needs it the most. She gets so personal there’s a very real danger she’s going to destroy herself.

Stepping aside for as second, I want to point out that House gives Cameron a present in this episode. When Lolita-girl appears the second time, House buys a candy bar from the newsstand. Flirts… he figures it all out because of the underwears, and he gives Cameron the candy bar… did he buy the candy bar for HER? Or what?

Anyway, there’s also a mini lesson for House- the similarities between him and Ezra come out under the contradictions but in the end Ezra calls it and whether he’s known with all certainty from the start, House has to deal with the fact he’s prolonged the hell out the guy’s pain. And pain is huge in his world.

So everything ends with everyone traumatized, including the viewer who is treated to the most creepy dead dude shot of all time. And whether House is proud of Cameron or not, I still can’t get over the fact that he DID this to her and it was a helluva thing to do, whether it had to happen for her to be an effective doc, or it was just him trying to communicate his own experience to her. The river of character subtext and prejudice runs deep on House and that’s what makes them real and entertaining.

Phenominal overall, and one of my favorite episodes to date. Thanks for all your hard work Davids, Laura, Hugh, and everyone! You rock hard.

avast, yobs!



It be a national holiday and ye best be takin’ pride in all maritime marauders from Trinidad t’ Zanzibar!