For those of you who didn’t see the Facebook links yet, it’s time once again to play “guess which movie is being reviewed before you click over.”
(some of these quotes are deliberately deceptive, btw, just to make it more fun)
Review #1: “And then, when there’s a sequence involving a stray dog, a bald trucker, a little person and a naked woman running around with a gun, viewers might hope that this could be the most amazing entertainment of its type”
Review #2: “Even the normally reliable Kudrow can barely disguise her contempt for the material, but then there’s Don Cheadle, playing the kids’ caseworker, whose performance here should be required viewing for all aspiring actors.”
Review #3: “…nicely shot, has some great battle scenes, beats you over the head with unsubtle emotional manipulation and in the grand scheme of things is just too damn long. That doesn’t make it bad, necessarily, but chances are you will check your watch at least once.
Review #4:“Done as an all-out battle to the death, this could have been an entertaining mix of Die Hard and The A-Team…”
Andy Klein has been let go from L.A. CityBeat. I can only assume they are in dire straits, to be losing their best writer.
If Andy can’t be a full-time critic, there’s no hope or future for any of us in the field. Sooner or later, the younger crowd will hit middle-age, and if we’re lucky, will still be able to appreciate the new movies and the populist ones to the degree that Andy still does.
I was a fan of his before I knew him — this was a critic who loved South Park and Jackie Chan every bit as much as obscure French detective movies. I knew that most critics would dismiss, say, a Michael Bay movie out of hand, but that his opinion might surprise.
In the years I’ve known him, I’ve worked as his editor and had him for my editor. He was an advocate for me to join LAFCA long before most other members agreed, and he’s been equally good at allowing other young critics a place to be heard, voices like Brent Simon and Amy Nicholson. It’s because of him that I was ever in the pages of CityBeat. The photo above is from the LA Press Club Awards a couple years ago where we were both nominated.
I don’t think there’s much of a future for alt-weeklies at this point. The best thing for Andy would be if someone wanted a film expert who actually knows his shit on a TV show (Andy should have had Roeper’s job opposite Ebert, and he could clean house on the dumbasses that show has now). Everything skews towards young pretty-faces nowadays, but Andy’s tastes are pretty damn hip (even if he still doesn’t “get” anime, something I’ve given him a hard time about). If Kurt Loder can still be employed by MTV despite being nowhere near his twenties, someone should have room for Andy Klein.
In the meantime, I urge him to get a website, at the very least. His is a voice we still need.
As many of you know, the most intimidating thing about playing a zombie is the contact lenses. Technology is at a point now where you can digitally recolor somebody’s eyes — but not on a low-budget film like SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT.
Getting poked in the eye is like having something shoved down your throat — it will most likely provoke violent involuntary reactions, which can be trained a little with time, but never entirely disappear. And getting a contact put in is like being poked in the eye.
What made it slightly less difficult than it might otherwise have been was the test shoots I did for NO REGRETS prior to leaving the project. In the scenes I did shoot, I was required to stare without blinking — first, outside on a bright sunny day; and second, in a room full of cat dander that I’m allergic to. Trying to force the eye to stay open when its inclination is not to…that actually makes for decent practice.
And then, getting them out is almost worse. The first day, it involved my eyeball being squeezed, a sensation that stays with you for a few days. But as the shoot went on, folks got better at taking them out.
So how do they feel? Like a stray lash in your eye. It’s very irritating for about a half-hour, and quite uncomfortable for about an hour after that. Then you adjust, though there’s a heightened susceptibility to headaches. And on the last day, my vision was more affected — everything looked like one of those flashback scenes on a daytime soap where there’s vaseline on the lens.
But I’ve learned some pointers for the reluctant contact wearer…
1. Take a sedative in time for it to kick in when the contacts have to go in. It slows your reactions some, even the involuntary ones.
2. Tilt your head back.
3. Try to focus on an object in the distance, like those pictures that become a 3-d shape when you alter your depth perception.
4. Close the other eye and press down on it. The eyes work somewhat in tandem, so if one doesn’t have the full range of movement, the other won’t either.
5. Prior to the project, practice staring, unblinking, for longer than you feel comfortable doing.
I don’t look forward to having them again, but on day four they went in the first time. Possibly because two people at once were holding me down.
And I have to say, I think they’re kinda sexy. They make me look better, and they looked hot on our female zombies.
So says the bus advertisement, which goes on to add: “now stop worrying and get on with your life”, Which could almost word for word be what Jesus said according to the Gospel of Matthew, where we read: “Don’t worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will look after itself” The main difference is that Jesus lists some of the things people do worry about, and says: “All these are things for the heathen to run after, not for you, because your heavenly father knows what you need. So set your mind on God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well.”
This last bit was also at the heart of a recent pronouncement by the Dalai Lama to the effect that the only sure way to achieve happiness was to work for the happiness of other people.
So who are the God fearing people who are worriers? There are probably quite a lot of them – people who are worried that they may end up in a hell of everlasting torment because they’ve not always stayed on the straight and narrow path. They don’t believe in the compassionate and forgiving God proclaimed and demonstrated in the life and teaching of Jesus.
The central common belief of all the great religions and most certainly of Christianity is that God is loving towards everyone. Indeed St John tells us that God is love and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them.
If then, as Christians believe, God is love, it would surely make sense to think that God’s existence is a certainty. Indeed I’d go so far as to say:
THERE’S PROBABLY NO REAL ATHEIST.
Now stop worrying and rejoice in the love of God.
-Peter Graham
e-mail: peter.graham[at]bucklandnewton[dot]com
Executive-produced by Mary Laurie with producers [Sean] Cain and Wes Laurie, SILENT NIGHT, ZOMBIE NIGHT “is kind of a love story between two cops,” Cain explains. “Not that they are ‘in love’ with each other, but they’ve been friends a long time, and they love each other in a manly, macho sort of way. One guy’s wife is leaving him, and his partner is about to transfer, and they are all breaking apart, and then here come the zombies.”
Portraying the central trio are TV actors Jack Forcinito as Officer Frank Talbot and Nadine Stenovich as his wife Sarah, with Andrew Hopper filling out the role of policeman Nash Jackson. All three are on hand for the day’s shoot, as are co-stars including THE ROAD WARRIOR’s Vernon Wells, WICKED LAKE’s Luke Thompson (as one of the undead), filmmaker Chris Gabriel (as “Zombie Santa”) and SLEEPAWAY CAMP’s Felissa Rose. Rounding out the ensemble are THE DEVIL’S REJECTS’ Lew Temple, THE GHOULS’ Timothy Muskatell, Domiziano Arcangeli, Ricardo Gray, John Karyus and Sara Tomko.
This is a tribute to, and expansion of, Matt Groening’s annual “forbidden words” list, which, this year, consisted solely of things McCain and Palin said.
Due respect to the man, but his list was incomplete. Here’s mine:
“My friends”
“Joe Sixpack”
“Regular Joe”
“Joe the Plumber”
“Joe Lieberman’s endorsement”
“Lipstick on a pig/pitbull”
“barracuda”
“hockey mom”
“palling around”
“black liberationist theology”
“change you can believe in”
“Baracky”
“Obamessiah”
“Walnuts”
“When I was a P.O.W….”
“McSame”
“The Surge”
“Hockey Mom”
“Trig Truther”
“We are all Georgians”
“New Cold War”
“wingnutosphere”
“Liberal Fascism”
“Pantload”
“Darn right!”
“Andrew Sullivan says…”
“Ann Coulter”
“mental recession”
“fundamentals of our economy”
“Olberdouche”
“The One”
“Derangement Syndrome”
“MSM”
“executive experience”
“community organizer”
“stealth Muslim”
“certificate of live birth”
“the jury’s still out”
“O.J. Simpson”
“Anthony Pellicano”
“Global War on Terror”
UPDATE #1 (thanks readers)
“maverick”
“you betcha”
add your own in comments, and I may update the post.
