For the Love of Movies

I have no idea what the first movie I saw in a movie theater was. I do know that I fell in love with movies very quickly as a child. I could go to a theater, be enveloped in darkness and watch a spectacle that was truly larger than I was. For a few hours, the movie was my reality.

As the years went on, the experience only got better for me. THX surround sound. Stadium seating. Captain EO. Movies became the finest form of entertainment for me, second only to girls. As filmmaking technology got better - evidenced by Jurassic Park - I believed that there was no limit to how much movies at the movie theater could entertain.

I was wrong.

The sad thing is, the plateau has less to do with the movies and more to do with moviegoers and partially with the way theaters are run.

The Problem with Movies at the Movie Theater

First and foremost, people suck. You ever use a public restroom and find that the person before you didn’t flush? You’d think that that simple action would be ingrained into everyone’s behavior since they do it on a daily basis at home. It should practically be reflexive by now. But, it isn’t. That bottom-of-the-barrel level of courtesy simply cannot be met by society and these are the same people you’ll be watching movies with.

These are the people that don’t care or don’t realize that carrying a conversation with someone next to them or on their cell phone is rude. These are the same people who kick the back of your chair or take their loud, undisciplined children in with them. Or they don’t get up to leave when their infant starts bawling.

Then, of course, there are the annoying “fringe” people who use the theater as their own private amateur night, cracking sophomoric jokes or adding witless punchlines to things onscreen.

These actions are particularly irritating in a movie theater, because they take us out of the reality of the movie and bring us back into the reality of our lives, which we are trying to escape for a few hours. Thus, the whole reason for going to the theater is negated.

The second problem with the movie theater is that when one of these offenders rears its ugly head, it’s up to the offended to resolve the situation. So now, a relaxing time at the movies has turned into a high-stress confrontation. As the offended, the chances of the resolving the situation in an adult and peaceful manner look slim, since, after all, you are dealing with a person who thinks that answering their cell phone in a crowded theater is appropriate behavior. Yeah, try convincing them that flushing the toilet is a good idea, too, while you’re at it!

So you have a couple of other options. You can try to intimidate them, which will probably make the situation far worse, unless you’re in a much bigger group. You can move seats, but that’s tricky when you’re with people and you’ll also lose the prime real estate you picked out. You can also leave and get an usher, which really sucks, because now you’ve definitely missed part of the movie and the usher will most likely be some zit-faced kid who’ll just tell the offender to “please keep it down.”

What’s a moviegoer to do?

Segregation Through Ticket Price

While everyone complains about ever increasing movie ticket prices, some theaters charge up to $20 for admission. These theaters will typically offer better seats, concession food items and generally more pleasant clientèle. One company, Village Roadshow, which is an Australian entertainment conglomerate, is upping the ante by bringing their Gold Class Cinemas to the United States.

These theaters will offer concierge service and an exclusive lounge for pre-movie mingling and drinks. The theaters will have a maximum capacity of 40 seats, grouped in two’s and spaced out. Each chair is a reclining armchair with head and foot rests as well as storage compartments built into the armrests. Each pair of chairs gets its own personal server (waiter) from whom you can order food items, including macadamia crusted chicken strips, lamb kofta and san choi bao vegetable spring rolls. You can actually enjoy a three course meal while you watch the film, with each food item paired with your choice of wine or beer.

Estimated ticket price is $35. Everything else is extra and the food items might as well be fine dining, especially when hot dogs go for $14.

While the riffraff will definitely be sorted out by the price, a friend of mine pointed out that the other end of the spectrum of annoying people may start turning up. You ever go to a nice restaurant and some person a few tables away makes a spectacle because their steak was a little overdone? They start berating the server and demanding to see the chef? Yeah, now imagine that happening while you’re trying to watch a movie.

For my part, I don’t need all of that fancy shmancy stuff. Just give me a quiet theater with other people who are there just to watch the movie. Unfortunately, all it takes is one jerk to ruin it for the rest of us. For now, I guess I’ll have to stick to the super late showings three weeks after the film has been released.

If you’d like to check out the Gold Class Cinemas for yourself, here’s the link to the Australian site for Village Roadshow Cinemas.

Can’t Stop Developing for the Web

Alright, this will be the last of the major changes for a while. I promise.

I think I’m finally happy with the layout. Version 4.0 was functionally nice, but the look of it was a little all over the place. I think this one flows better and has a nicer palette of colors that blend well. There are still a few minor changes that I need to tackle. For instance, I’m not sure that I like the bright teal color in my right sidebar. I threw that color in there for readability since the ashtray background swallowed up the text.

I’ve also changed the left sidebar nav. I’m still debating on whether or not I need to split them up with headers that say “Writing” and “Reviews” so that people don’t get confused. If you’re a new visitor, I’d appreciate your comments. I do, however, love the cool “depression” effect the buttons make.

Well, that’s it for Web design. I’ll put up some movie reviews this weekend.

This Screenwriter’s Big Break?

Not to give away too many specific details, but the actor who read my screenplay is - in his words - “[my] biggest fan.” His management is trying to get him reservations for the Speed Racer premiere tonight. If he goes, there’s a good chance that Mr. Big Name Producer will attend as well. And if he does, then Mr. Biggest Fan will pitch him my script. So, yeah, a ton of big “if’s” still stand in my way, but you know what? I’ll take it.

Anyway, I’ll keep you all posted.

Uwe Boll the Director

If you’re an avid moviegoer you’ve probably seen previews for Uwe Boll films. This goes doubly for moviegoers who are also gamers. Boll is known as the German filmmaker who adapts video games into movies. Unfortunately, these films are mere shadows of their source material and not very enjoyable to watch, to boot.

In recent years, Boll has created visual disasters such as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne, Bloddrayne II and In the Name of the King. To be fair, I haven’t seen the last one, but I imagine it to be of the same caliber. Not only are the plots ridiculous, the acting hammy at best and the dialog cacophonous, but the directorial choices are just mind-boggling. Cameras spin wildly around actors. Shoot’em up scenes last entirely too long. Flashback sequences recap bits of the film we just saw five minutes ago. There are numerous editing issues as well. In Alone in the Dark, a dead character can be seen getting up before the scene ends.

Amazingly, Boll kept making movies. With each incarnation, he seemed to get a bigger budget and bigger name actors, which left audiences scratching their heads in wonder. How the heck was he getting the funding? It turns out that Germany offered a tax shelter to investors who funded a film that lost money. In his recent interview at Fearnet.com, Boll explains:

They did, in the beginning, leverage the tax loss in Germany in a major way so you were almost covered by the tax loss. When I started raising money, it was not the truth anymore. So with my movies they have to make at least fifty percent back to get the recoupment of the investment after taxes, so the idea that was written in the U.S. press over and over again was not true—the idea like Uwe is shooting movies to destroy the money. If you see the numbers, a lot of people on the internet are writing only about U.S. box office. If you see Alone in the Dark or Bloodrayne was like number one or number two at the box office in, like, 15 other territories, like Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Thailand. And now, In the Name of the King was nearly everywhere two to three weeks in the top ten, only not in the U.S. So this together with the DVD and TV revenues is not that the movies are a total financial disaster.

Video gamers around the world despised Boll for essentially butchering the games they loved, nicknaming the director Toilet Boll or Uwe Bollocks. The name calling reflects the general age of Boll-Haters, which the director claims is a “vocal minority.”

Petition Against Uwe Boll

Earlier this month, Robert Harvey created an Online Petition, calling for Uwe Boll to stop making films. Boll touched on this topic as well during his interview with Fearnet.com:

Are you aware that there is a petition online, signed by 18,000 people, requesting that you stop making movies?

Yeah, I know that. 18,000 is not enough to convince me.

How many would it take?

One million. Now we have a new goal.

At the time of this writing, the petition has 191943 virtual signatures.

The Genius of Uwe Boll

Following the interview, Boll filmed a video response to the Online Petition. In it, he lambastes prominent Hollywood figures and dubs himself a “genius.” Here’s the full clip:

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

The Pro-Boll Online Petition has 1643 virtual signatures at the time of this writing.

Not fully realizing his catharsis, Boll created an addendum response, this time directed at Boll-Haters. Ironically, Boll’s ire seems to focus on burgeoning filmmakers rather than gamers.

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

Rip you apart? Wow. Violent thoughts aside, I can’t help but think that Boll might be on to something with his films. After watching Alone in the Dark I found myself anticipating the next Boll movie, because there was a certain “train wreck” appeal to them and I was curious to see the innovative ways that Boll would disappoint me in the next film. When it comes to movies, we want the characters to succeed, because we identify with them. When it comes to real life, there’s nothing more delicious than watching someone else fail. Is it any wonder why the viewership for American Idol drops severely after auditions? Furthermore, Boll feeds the frenzy by lashing out at his critics, which can only drive those critics to the theater or rental store to watch his next film for more ammunition. He makes a pompous remark about being a genius, challenging audiences to prove him wrong by watching his next film. Audiences go, feel validated in hating Boll and then flood the Internet with hate speech. Meanwhile, Boll has their money. Considering that people will slander you on the Internet regardless, Boll has actually managed to create a business out of it. If that’s not genius, I don’t know what is.

A Little Respect for Uwe Boll

Boll has set himself up with a win-win situation. He’s either purposefully making bad cinema and acting upset about it, which increases sales and ultimately profitable movies or he’s just a hated, sub-par director who gets paid to do what he loves. That ain’t too shabby.

The only problem I see is that Boll is slowly getting better. His movies are backsliding from “so bad, it’s good” to “so bad.” I hope he can refocus his efforts and get back to what we all know and hate him for.

Alright, as promised, here’s my acting debut (on camera, anyway). It’s called Cold Blood and it’s directed by my friend’s brother, Darren. I’m not too sure about the technical aspects, like what kind of camera was used or the editing equipment. I do know that the sound was recorded on a hand-held Olympus digital recorder. I have a very small part. Enjoy.

Whew. OK, let me help you through that incomprehensible mess. The hitman guy (whose name is Crowley) is dating this chick and they’re having problems. Crowley works for my character (whose name is René [clever, no?]) and I’m a middleman bad guy. An important package was nabbed by some counter-operative codenamed Sparrow. Crowley has to get it back, which he’s already done in the beginning of the film where he’s standing over someone’s arm, smoking. The rest of the film is comprised of disjointed flashbacks…I think. Who knows?

Anyway, I was attached to the project in a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing and I had about a 30-minute car ride to memorize some of the most unspeakable lines rivaled only by the Star Wars script. Needless to say, I botched my portion over and over again. Thankfully, the filmmakers were forgivingly patient.

I must have done something right, because they invited me back to reprise my role in the feature-length version that we’re shooting this may. I’m excited, if only to redeem myself as an actor.

I’ll keep you all posted.

First and foremost, let me just share some great news! You know that screenplay that I’ve been trying to get in front of Mr. Bigwig Producer? Well, guess what. Mission accomplished. A nice fellow that I met at this seminar this past weekend was separated by one degree from Mr. Producer and the fellow said he’d gladly pass the script along. Mr. Producer read it, loved it and had his assistant call me today to set up a pitch meeting. I’m still reeling from all of the excitement. That just goes to show you the power behind networking. I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes. Cross your fingers for me. This could be my big break.

With that said, let me tell you how the Get Your Film Funded seminar went down.

If you’ve checked out the site, you’ll see that it promises a lot. Not only will they show me how to get the funding, they’ll “introduce [me] to who can do it.” On top of that, representatives from top talent agencies in Los Angeles were going to be there, too. Being put in-touch with agents and financiers was worth the price of admission alone. Of course, I had to go.

The instructions said to dress professionally for the networking event at the end of Saturday, so I got up early to press my dress shirt and slide into my suit. I made sure to wear my trusty fedora so that everyone would remember me (especially since that’s the icon on my business cards). I hit the road by 7 and got to the WGA theater on Doheny in Los Angeles by 8. A line was already forming out front and it looked like any other line you’d see flailing out from some club entrance in LA except it was daytime and no one was really dressed for partying. Come to think of it, no one was really dressed professionally either. I’m starting to notice how burgeoning filmmakers/actors always disregard dresscode when it comes to these events.

As far as this crowd of filmmakers went, I was on the younger edge of the age pool, which was good, because that meant these were probably more serious filmmakers.

The event organizers opened the doors to check us in and hand out badges and folders. Once inside, we had about an hour to kill before the theater doors opened to us for the first speaker. And then everything started to go downhill. Not steeply, mind you, but the decline was definitely there.

The first speaker on Saturday was entertainment attorney Mark Litwak and was presumably going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages to forming a business for your film, such as an LLC or S-Corp or Sole Proprietorship, etc. The folder we had contained pictures of the slides we assumed he’d use during his presentation. Instead, the first thing Mr. Litwak said was that he’d essentially wing the presentation since he’d never seen those slides before in his life. While his presentation was informative, it definitely could have used some visual aides. The long and short of his advice is: insulate your personal assets as much as possible from investors suing you for their investment back.

Other presenters came and went throughout the day. Unfortunately, they seemed to stray from the topic they were slated to discuss. One speaker’s presentation was titled: Find Out Who Will Fund Your Film Nobody Thinks It’s Profitable. This would have been perfect for me, since I’m trying to find funding for a five-minute short, for which there are no profitable markets to sell it to. The speaker’s presentation turned out to be more about working with her particular company that specializes in documentaries. Useful for documenters, but not me specifically.

Handy information I did pick up throughout the day included finding out what states offer rebates for filming with them and how a particular law gives tax incentives to film investors. Those two tidbits could come in very handy in the future when I’m dealing with million dollar budgets, but I think I’m getting ahead of myself here.

At the end of the day, there was a cocktail networking event for about two hours. While I appreciated that I was in a room full of serious filmmakers, I also realized that these were people who were much farther along in filmmaking than I was. With that said, it was difficult to network having basically nothing to offer. Still, I made sure to shake some hands exchange cards before the seminar was over.

Day 2 didn’t get much better. It was supposed to focus mostly on how to put together a business plan. Unfortunately, it got bogged down in personal anecdotes and jokes and the “course” was geared more for people who were already working on a business plan, because I definitely didn’t come away from that workshop knowing the “essentials.” Breaking up the business plan part of the day was a brief interlude on networking, delivered by David Nour. This was probably the best presentation of them all. Despite having no visual aides, you could tell he had rehearsed what he wanted to tell us. Furthermore, his information was instantly understandable without any necessary follow-up research. But then it was back to more business plan learning with some formula number crunching thrown in for good measure. I may have fallen asleep during this time.

Then I went home.

Overall, I’ll say that the seminar was useful, but only if you already know most of the information and just need clarification or pointers. It definitely wasn’t for the uninitiated like myself. Additionally, most of the people on the list, like talent agents and business members, weren’t there, which was really disappointing. And we’re all supposed to have CD packages mailed to us, but the organizers have yet to respond to my email asking for confirmation that they’ve received my address. If I can only have one criticism of this seminar it would be that it could me more organized. It is, however, still worth a look, if for nothing more than to network with other people in the industry.

And by the way, Mr. Bigwig Producer hasn’t really read my script, nor has his assistant called me for a meeting. Happy April Fool’s Day. I thought I’d sneak one joke in before the day was over.

EDIT: One of the speakers contacted me regarding my criticism of the seminar and of this person’s presentation in particular. I have been made aware that the speakers are not compensated for their time and know-how. Moreover, my representation of this person’s presentation was inaccurate. I have edited the review accordingly. I regret the error.