LYT's Blog » Writing

Where do we go from here?

LYT — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 04:14:38 +0000

We’ve come a long way, you readers and I, these nine years. And if any of you are still around, you know I haven’t been updating this blog much any more. There are many reasons for this. Facebook basically destroyed the blogosphere, allowing people to interact and share items the way only folks with blogs used to. It’s notable that the blogs I still read regularly are those of people either not on FB or barely there.

Also, I have a new full-time job with GeekChicDaily and its upcoming offshoot, GeekChicLA. Unlike past writing positions, this one is centered around an email newsletter that we need eyeballs on, so I will not be linking to any of my work here. You need to sign up (it’s free). When I was freelancing, I used this site to do a links round-up of my stuff; now it’s all one place that I need you to go and get it.

I’m in a long-term relationship, so no more rants about the LA dating scene (it also means less sharing, as I have someone else’s privacy to think of now). Mainly, though, the job takes everything out of me, creative-energy wise, leaving little behind for optional writing. I have entertained the idea of guest-bloggers, but why would any of you want to do that for free?

The regular community of commenters, small as it was, hasn’t been here for a while. It was a good group, from wacky Mario to cranky Max. I basically got rid of the message board a while back, so there isn’t even really a sandbox to play in in my absence.

I’m not taking the site down – I know all too well after the last three or four years how quickly fortunes can change. It’s possible I will need it as a daily or weekly outlet once again. You see my Twitter feed there on the right of the page, and I do suggest following that. I will update the Buzznet photo blog at times also.

Life moves along, and I really miss some of the things and people I seem to have moved along from. The old Press Club crowd are scattered far and few, ditto the USC cinema/1321 crowd. Village Voice Media are no longer a company I feel any ties to (I’d prefer just to remember New Times).

I can still be reached through this site’s contact form, and I can be followed and friended other places. Maybe we’ll build a community here again someday, but for now I’m going into power-saving mode. Periodic announcements may surface, but steady updates are unlikely.

I hope and trust that the best is yet to come.

Yes, I’ve been lax: More FIRST DOLLAR GROSS shows

LYT — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 07:55:28 +0000

November 29, with Amy Nicholson and Melissa Molina:

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

December 6

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

December 13

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

December 20, with Julia Boyd and “Emily XXX”

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

Next post: catching up on a shit-ton of E! Online reviews. Sorry, readers, it has been a busy coupla months.

Some FIRST DOLLAR GROSS archived shows…

LYT — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:35:31 +0000

Be sure to watch LIVE every Monday at 4 p.m. California time.

Nov 22 (part 1)

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

Nov 22 (part 2)

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

Nov 15 (the episode where Jen falls out of her chair)

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

Nov 1st:

Watch live video from GeekWeek on Justin.tv

E! Reviews: Jackass 3D, My Soul To Take

LYT — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:26:31 +0000

MY SOUL TO TAKE:

“After seemingly selling off the remake rights to every movie he’s ever made, Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes) has taken the money and, with the freedom to create an all-new tale of terror and release it with an R-rating, he made this? A derivative day-trip to dullsville? D’oh!”

JACKASS 3D:

“Now more of a memory-lane trip than the anarchic shocker it used to be, Jackass celebrates its tenth anniversary with a new collection of the usual gleefully idiotic antics, augmented at times with 3-D.

The effect is like seeing that punk-rock band you used to adore moshing to in small clubs, now doing a big-arena reunion show with fireworks.”
Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/movie_reviews/b205876_movie_review_jackass_3d_stupid.html#ixzz12m9CUciu

My Interviews with Corey Feldman and John Malkovich

LYT — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:21:56 +0000

First, Malkovich:

Your character in Red has a unique perspective on the world, because they say he’s been fed a lot of LSD in the past. How method did you get in your research?

JM: [Laughs] I was never an LSD person, I’m not a drug person. Although pretty much most of my friends were in college in the early ‘70s. But I never was all that curious about it, really, and the last thing I need is to expand my consciousness. That could end badly.

And Corey:

The theme of The Lost Boys is eternal youth. You never seem to age. What’s the deal?

Corey Feldman: The truth of the matter is that I have a portrait in my closet. We call it “The Portrait of Corey in Gray.” Very strange. I’m joking. I’m very lucky. I’m fortunate. Good clean living is what I chalk it up to. I don’t drink, I don’t eat red meat, or any meat for that matter. I’ve been a vegetarian for 25 years, and I have a youthful perspective. I believe that age is a state of mind, and I don’t believe that we have to physically age because a number says that we’re this old. You can be youthful at heart. The more that you believe in that notion, the more it comes across physically.

Machete, Takers, The American, more

LYT — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:22:03 +0000

It has occurred to me that “Links of the Week” is a terrible title for getting traffic. From now on, actual titles in header.

I have, as some readers may be aware, joined the writing staff of Geekchicdaily.com. I will not be regularly linking to articles there, in part because every piece is a collaboration, but mostly because the site is designed not to really be a website as end goal, but a place where you sign up for a daily email newsletter. The daily email is a very quick read in and of itself (rather than just a bunch of headlines and links, as so many are), and the more of you sign up for it, the more likely I am to get a raise down the line, so please do.

I still write for E! Online, as well. Like these. Click on the all-caps headline for the full review.

TAKERS
A well-rounded cast of character actors (plus Paul Walker) tries to pull off a big robbery while obnoxious alcoholic cop Matt Dillon attempts to stop them. Very nearly a good little heist movie, Takers generates the occasional interesting plot twist but fails at the most basic level of creating characters worth caring about.

THE AMERICAN
This is the movie that was made especially for people who thought Michael Clayton was too fast-paced. If you’re reading this on a computer screen, you’re probably not one of them.

MACHETE
There’s still a lot of fun to be had when he actually does pick up that signature blade and start chopping, but when it comes to Trejo taking the spotlight, we were hoping for more snarly, less sedate.

Links of the Week 4-11-10

LYT — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:34:38 +0000

Pardon my absence. Having an actual, personal life for once means that for the first time I have to figure out how to balance it with the professional, and that’s still a work in progress.
But here’s a bunch of my stuff for you to read:

A review of McDonald’s mushroom and Swiss Angus burger:

All mayo needs in order to become something I like is a tiny tweak – add pickles to make tartar sauce, and spices to become chipotle sauce, add some onion flavor to get Ultimate Cheeseburger sauce, add I-know-not-what and you get Remoulade. But by itself, in a mini tidal wave upon the ocean of not-quite-soft mushrooms, it kicked my ass and my gag reflex. I needed the hot-sauce-spraying watch from UNDERCOVER BROTHER. But McDonald’s isn’t much for anything spicy. Damn white-people food.

A look at an unusual political T-shirt:

You’d expect shirts that sport images of Obama, as well as campaign slogans like “Yes We Can.” What I’d never have expected is one that turns an off-the-cuff remark into a catchphrase, wrestling-style (think “Layeth the Smacketh Down” or “Austin 3:16″).

Talking about KFC’s Boneless Breast Filet:

Original Recipe is a pliable term in the world of KFC. Sure, we all know what their Original Recipe fried chicken tastes like (“salty uber alles” is one way of putting it), but the chicken strips that are allegedly breaded with Original Recipe don’t taste the same to me at all. The fact that they no longer even do Extra Crispy strips is a gastronomic crime, but then, I’ve been on the Extra Crispy bandwagon since high school, possibly as a subtle form of rebellion against my father, who’s an Original guy through and through, when he’s not enjoying Hardee’s fried chicken instead.

A column about color-blind casting in movies:

When a character’s primary raison d’etre is as a sight gag, it makes a kind of sense to racially recast if doing so adds to the gag factor. I haven’t noticed any significant protests demanding that LaBute recast the Dinklage role with an actor of color. The same cannot be said for M. Night Shyamalan’s THE LAST AIRBENDER, in which characters who appeared to be Asian in the original cartoon will be portrayed in some cases by Caucasian actors. In an interview with the L.A. Times’ Geoff Boucher, Shyamalan defends his decision by saying that the characters on the cartoon are a deliberate mix of many different racial features, designed so that all kids can identify with them (he also refers it the cartoon as “anime,” when in fact that word by definition refers to Japanese cartoons, and AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER is American). Then he digs himself a little deeper by comparing racial concerns to the casting of Haley Joel Osment in THE SIXTH SENSE, in which the lead character was written as having black hair while Osment is blond.

Reviewing the CLASH OF THE TITANS remake:

Like its 1981 predecessor and other mythology-based monster epics from effects guru Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), this new Clash is basically an excuse to string together a fun series of big beastie battles in ancient Greece. Where it falters a bit is the story: The screenwriters seem to think they can improve upon classic mythological tales, but they’re wrong.

Reviewing Tyler Perry’s latest:

Traditionally, when a sequel features the word “too” rather than “two” at the end, it means an all-new cast retelling essentially the same story, with Teen Wolf Too being the classic example. Perry’s telling more or less the same story here as well, but all the original characters return, having fallen back into old patterns after what appeared to be personal growth by the end of the last film.

Reviewing DATE NIGHT:

We all love Tina Fey and Steve Carell, don’t we? So why doesn’t Hollywood love them, too? At least enough to give them a script worthy of their talents? This halfassed (but star-studded) farce from hacktacular director Shawn Levy, in which the comics play harried marrieds on a mistaken-identity run from the mob, is marginally better than the likes of Evan Almighty and Get Smart. But not by much.

And finally, LETTERS TO GOD:

Watching an earnest, maudlin cinematic sermon of this sort really helps you appreciate the fact that Tyler Perry throws some comic relief into his theatrical tracts. There are laughs to be had here, but of the unintentional kind, as when an alcoholic reaches for his fifth of Jack Daniel’s, and a song on the soundtrack loudly proclaims, “There’s no message in this bottle!”

New Round-Up…

LYT — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 20:06:38 +0000

For E! Online, a few new items. First, the top 5 worst movies made by 2010 Oscar nominees. Here’s one:

4. Gun Shy, starring and produced by Sandra Bullock (nominated for Best Actress, The Blind Side). Liam Neeson plays an undercover DEA agent with diarrhea. Sandra Bullock falls for him anyway. That is all you need to know.

Next, a review of the new Roman Polanski film:

Yep, Roman Polanski’s still got it. With dry humor and expertly timed suspense, the director throws Ewan McGregor into a conspiracy theory plot involving a Tony Blair-like politician (Pierce Brosnan) whose memoirs provide the focal point of an investigation into serious war crimes. Similarly plotted recent movies, like, say, Edge of Darkness, can only dream of being this good.

As well as the new Kevin Smith:

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Cop Out is a tribute to cop-buddy comedy sequels of the ’80s, since, when the movie opens, our bickering partners have been together nine years, and there’s no obligatory recap of how they first met, hated each other initially, and later turned out to be the perfect mismatch. This does lead one to wonder how a screeching, paranoid dork like Paul Hodges (Morgan) ever became a detective, let alone one paired with the more standard action-hero-y Jimmy Monroe (Willis), but skipping the origin story at least allows us to cut directly to the chase (literally).

Meanwhile, over at Geekweek, I reviewed SHUTTER ISLAND:

Unfortunately for the director, and the audience, SHUTTER ISLAND is a disaster. I haven’t read the Dennis Lehane novel it’s based on, but I suspect the fault does not lie with the source material, as every other scene made me think to myself that David Fincher could have directed the script better. Hell, I’m not sure but that Kevin Smith or even Uwe Boll couldn’t have directed it better – they would certainly not have wasted as much money on needless gaudiness, plus Boll would still have cast Ben Kingsley. This doesn’t feel like Scorsese…it feels like Baz Luhrmann with a bad hangover (the fact that DiCaprio spends much of the movie either puking or having headaches and hallucinations similarly suggests a kind of morning-after vibe).

I also reviewed some McDonald’s Food:

McDonald’s may not have invented the chicken nugget, but they damn sure made it famous; the McNugget is an all-time classic that belongs in any hypothetical fast food Hall of Fame alongside the French fry and nachos. Kids today often grow up eating little besides chicken nuggets (I have two younger brothers who prove the rule), so it seems a little unfair in hindsight that, when I was a wee one, they did not exist! And I didn’t like McDonald’s burgers as a kid either, so when other children would have group outings to McDonald’s, there was very little I could eat. Here, the McNugget swooped in to save the day around 1980, but I grew up in Ireland, and it wasn’t until the late ‘80s that they made it across the Atlantic and became a weekly addiction for young LYT (one of many reasons Ireland sucked).

And finally, a column about actors and directors who work together too often:

Burton, in particular, is becoming so formulaic that one can play Mad Libs with the inevitable trades announcement. Behold:

HOLLYWOOD – Johnny Depp has officially signed on for the lead role of _______ in Tim Burton’s __________, a twisted new retelling of the classic __________ story, which will take advantage of the director’s unique vision. “I’m going to approach this character as if a ________ actually existed in the real world,” said Depp. “I think it will put a really unique spin on his ________.”

Opposing Depp’s character will be Helena Bonham-Carter as _________, who becomes a formidable opponent. “My take on her is that she’s slightly misunderstood,” said Bonham-Carter. “She’s been caricatured for all these years as a __________, and it’s made her a bit crazy.”

“Growing up, _________ was my favorite thing ever,” said Burton. “I’ve always wanted to re-imagine it in my quirky style, only with a less coherent story.”

Joining Bonham-Carter and Depp in the cast will be Christopher Lee, in a menacing cameo as the intimidating _________.

So you see, I am writing…just not here as often.

The articles keep coming…

LYT — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:14:52 +0000

First, a piece I did for E! on the top 5 Oscar movies most people haven’t seen but should:

5. Food Inc. (Best Documentary Feature)

Why you didn’t see it: Because almost every exposé of the food industry ends up telling you to go vegan, and who needs that? Meat and cheese are delicious!

Why you should: Because this one doesn’t. Finally, a truly fair and balanced look at the food industry that yes, dings factory farming for its flaws and overreliance on antibiotics, but also tells you that it’s OK to eat meat if you’re smart about it, and…praises Walmart? C’mon. You have to see that to believe it.

Then, an appreciation of A-ha for Geekweek:

It saddens me to say that I’m less interested in music now than I’ve ever been. Music used to inspire me. And I used to discover good new stuff thanks to MTV, which at one point played music most of the day. Nowadays I see them talking about making an original comedy series to try and lure viewers back, and I’m thinking, “why not play music again”?

And concerts are expensive as all hell – I remember shelling out what seemed like a massive $32 to see Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and Motorhead at the Coliseum. Nowadays, good luck even seeing one decent act for that.

All of which is preamble to the fact that I was reading the LA Weekly over lunch yesterday, and saw that A-ha were coming to town.

Ten Years in Review

LYT — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:23:50 +0000

I have a large article over at Geekweek about the past decade in cinema. Here’s the lede:

(Cue Don LaFontaine voice)

“In a decade…when the world seemed led by self-righteous bullies…”

Okay, pause there for a second. I know some of you are instinctively jerking the knee, and assuming I’m going for a cheap Bush bash in a column about movies. It is true that Bush was something of a self-righteous bully, but I am by no means narrowing my focus to him. I’m talking every major world leader of the past 10 years you can think of: Putin, Ahmadenijad, Blair, Berlusconi, Kim…all convinced of their own righteousness, yet all quite transparently acting primarily in their own self-interest.

So yes, in a decade when the real world was dominated by self-righteous bullies, it is perhaps not so surprising that the reel world featured them most prominently throughout the aughts. Self-righteous heroes aren’t new, of course, nor are the bullying kind – but what was a noticeable recent development is that the movies they appeared in started tipping their hand, letting you know that the filmmakers know these heroes are often on the wrong track with their moral crusade.

Go read the whole thing. It’s good. Leave comments there too, so they know I have readers.