Nov
5
Big box stores are the Great Satan. They just are. They’re full of a whole lot of nothin’. Do you honestly think that people went to Best Buy in droves to pick up a copy of Steve Carell’s “Get Smart” last night? No, no, they did not. But there were an assload of copies of that flick on sale. How do I know this? I was there, looking for a copy of a movie that Best Buy didn’t have in stock — the 3-hour director’s cut of “WaterWorld.”
Whether or not you’re a fan of “WaterWorld” is beside the point. This sort of thing happens to me all too often. They seemingly never, ever have movie I’m looking for. Last week, it was the 20th anniversary boxed set of “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ that was sold out; as of last night, it was still sold out. These and countless other flicks — the most painful being the 25th anniversary “Blade Runner” set last December — disappear from Best Buy’s shelves before I can nab one. Meanwhile, the store is lousy with copies of the latest POS starring Adam Sandler.
They shouldn’t call it Best Buy. It should be Best Bought.
I used to work at Best Buy. It was my first job out of college. Fun fact: when you start out at Best Buy, they don’t give you one of those blue polos. You have to “earn” yours. Yep, when you’re a noob, you have to wear a white polo — one you have to buy with your own money! — and try to convince customers that you’re actually an employee.
Another fun fact: whenever we’d stock the shelves after closing, sometimes DVD players would get dropped on the floor, and one of us would flippantly remark, “Well, that’s why we sell performance service plans.”
I didn’t last at Best Buy for very long — less than a month. I made a measley $8/hr., I hated wearing white, and one of the chicks I worked with looked like Gizmo from “Gremlins.” I also thought it was positively retarded that just before we’d open every morning, the management would gather us around and make us chant, “Whose Best Buy box?! My Best Buy box!!!” to psyche us up for the day. I think we should’ve poured water on that Mogwai-lookin’ girl to see if she’d start reproducing asexually.
Maybe the blue-shirted demon succubi that stock the DVD shelves at Best Buy are punishing me for quitting unceremoniously. They never order enough copies of something slightly culty (i.e. crap people actually purchase on DVD), so I almost always walk away empty-handed. For a long time, I stopped going to Best Buy and would only order DVDs from Amazon. And that’s where I ultimately went to pick up “WaterWorld.”
Whose Best Buy box?
Not mine, apparently.
-Brad Lohan
Oct
3
Staycation Plans
Filed Under Culture, Movies, Theatre, Theme Parks | Leave a Comment
Living in L.A., I often take for granted all the crap there is to do here. I think some of that has to do with the fact I work 40 hours a week and have a car that needs more maintenance than any number of girls I’ve dated in the past few years. That said, I don’t often have enough free time or disposable income to enjoy everything Los Angeles has to offer. But, I’ve squirreled away a little cash and requested some time off. Next week, I’m going on “staycation.”
I’ve always been a bit of a homebody. Staycations sort of make sense to me. Some people travel to all sorts of exotic locales for Christmas or Spring Break or Talk Like a Pirate Day. I, however, like sleeping in my own bed, playing with the cat and maybe hitting a theme park that’s just a stone’s throw away. I mean, it’s not like I’m a million miles from vacation hot spots; this city’s lousy with them. That said, Staycations in L.A. are far and away more exciting than the ones I went on in Spokane.
My co-people at work have been asking me what I’ve got planned. So I’ve created an action item list:
10/3 - “The Shining” at the Nuart
10/4 - Halloween Horror Nights
10/5 - “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sunday” at the Groundlings
10/6 - Disney’s California Adventure
10/7 - “Evilspeak” at the Silent Movie Theater
10/8 - Knott’s Halloween Haunt
10/9 - TBA
10/10 - “Clue” at the Nuart
Most of those activities are in the evening, leaving my days open for me to do a whole lot of nothin’. Apart from “The Shining,” “Evilspeak” and “Clue,” there are a half-dozen or so other movies I’d like to check out, too (”Religulous,” “Blindness,” “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “Choke,” “Quarantine” and “Body of Lies”). I’ll have to fit those in somewhere. I’m also about 15 pages into a script I started writing earlier this week; I’d like to keep knocking out a couple pages a day on that leviathan. And I should read at least one book, something angry and political.
I’ll try to keep up on my blog as well. Expect reviews of some of the abovementioned activities and films. Special editions of “Psycho” and “Sleeping Beauty” hit DVD next Tuesday, and yes, I’m going to buy them both because I’m just that weird. I’ll see if I can’t review those.
I seem to have a lot on my plate for my staycation. If I’m not careful, it’s going to start feeling like work.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
28
Quantum of Social Networking
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I’m about to start working on a new spy script. It’s not much of a stretch for me (I’ve already written two Bond knockoffs), but I have come up with a different approach, something I’m cagey about discussing in too much detail.
Still, if I weren’t so excited about this current project, I could find some inspiration for another script after having read this AFP article. MI6 is recruiting spies on the Intertubes — on Facebook of all sites!
I’m not into the whole social networking thing. I find it to be a really bass-ackwards way of invading one’s privacy, your own in point of fact. But people nevertheless create their own databases full of blackmail material. People love to take pictures of themselves engaged in all manner of debauchery then put them in their MySpace albums. A friend of mine was turned down for a job after her potential employers found her MySpace page. She’s since set her profile to “Private.”
I wonder how MI6 vets applicants who apply via Facebook. James Bond, though a fictional character, is rumored to have been based on an actual spy that author Ian Fleming knew during his days in the British Royal Navy. Perhaps some degree of debauchery is acceptable for a field agent. Of course not everyone who applies to MI6 is hoping for a slot in the double-o section. That said, I imagine that the turnover rate for 00 agents is pretty high, what with their being captured and/or killed rather frequently. Still, folks putting in for a job at MI6 on Facebook are probably better cut out for other positions at the intelligence agency, ones that don’t involve carrying a firearm or wearing a jetpack or working with a CIA agent named Holly Goodhead.
I must say I’m almost tempted to create a Facebook profile and see what opportunities MI6 has for us blokes across the pond. The producers of the James Bond films have considered Americanizing the hero several times. Fellows like Cary Grant and Adam West and James Brolin were all candidates for the gig at one point or another. I have plenty of experience being an American. I’m also familiar with Microsoft Office and can type 60 wpm. I think I’m more than qualified to have a license to kill. Do I have to apply for that online as well?
-Brad Lohan
Sep
17
I Don’t Approve of This Message
Filed Under Culture, TV | Leave a Comment
When I was a kid, I saw a commercial for a toy called Manglor Mountain. It was a volcano that erupted slime and came with a rubbery monster — the Manglord! — you could literally tear limb from limb. Even better, you could reattach his severed limbs. Well, I begged my parents to buy me this macabre little playset for Christmas. Sure enough, on Christmas morning, it was beneath the tree. I promptly ripped the Manglord’s arm off, but when I tried to reattach it, the damn thing wouldn’t stick. The commercial had lied to me. The toy was a big pile of suck.
I don’t watch TV anymore, and I have a special place in my heart reserved for hating television commercials. I don’t think my intense dislike for advertisements is entirely the fault of the Manglor Mountain spot. But after two decades of watching TV, I found advertisements to be more than a little disingenuous and endlessly astonished by the fact that people over the age of 5 still believe what the idiot box tells them.
That being said, I think political ads are 30-second horrorshows. I don’t see them on TV, of course, but they play the hell out of them on Air America if only to rip on all the white noise coming from the McCain camp. I’m not really interested in bashing McCain at length in this blog, though. I’d rather rip on how our culture of advertising has infiltrated politics and turned our candidates into widgets that have to be sold to the American public.
Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t Coke and Pepsi. They’re not a product or service. That we’ve become so lazy, so incurious a culture that TV spots are what decide elections, not an informed electorate, is terrifying. Commercials lie like a damn rug, folks! It’s one thing to get a shoddy toy for Christmas because you were a child and didn’t know better than to believe what you saw on TV. It’s another to spend the next four years with another dullard in the White House because he had the better commercials.
Why not just vote for the Manglord? He’s got experience.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
17
Spoil Yourself
Filed Under Culture, Movies, Spoilers | Leave a Comment
I love spoilers. I almost always spoil movies months, if not years, before they’re released. I want to know what I’m getting into — “set expectations,” as they say. I don’t think I’m “ruining” the movie for myself. By that logic, you shouldn’t read any Harry Potter books before seeing the films. The filmmakers always leave something out, granted, but they don’t deviate too far from the source material. I’ll guarantee you that Dumbledore is not long for this world in the film version of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
Most people like to remain spoiler-free. I can see where they’re coming from. It was definitely easier to remain unspoiled before the Internet took off. But at the very same time, movies have generally gotten worse. Or, maybe I’ve either become more sophisticated or more of a schmuck…or both! At any rate, I’m of the opinion that it’s not the destination, but the journey. A movie’s ending should wrap things up nicely and have a surprise or two. Thing is, filmmakers almost always screw that up. It’s why DVDs sometimes have a half-dozen alternate endings. It’s practically interactive cinema, a lame choose-your-own-adventure approach to storytelling.
To hell with that. Do yourself a favor, and ruin the ending for yourself way ahead of time. Ruin every inch of the movie. Then go in and see how much better the experience is when you’re not only one step ahead of the movie, but the audience, too. You’ll enjoy the film more, knowing what’s coming. You’re no longer worried about whether you’ll like the movie. Instead, you’ve already prepared yourself well in advance for anything that’s problematic. And, sometimes, the spoilers come from an earlier draft of the script and have since been changed. So you’re in for surprises nonetheless.
Who could’ve seen that coming?
-Brad Lohan
Aug
29
I’m not on Facebook, or MySpace, or Linkedin, or Friendster, or any of those useless social networking sites. In Communist Russia, the Secret Police compiled all sorts of valuable information about people — who their friends and family were, where they worked, what sort of crappy music they listened to. In Corporate America, we create our own databases of blackmail material. It’s as though we’ve collectively chosen to violate our own privacy, so we can have our own dopey little landing page on the Internets.
This is coming from a guy who blogs, but still. What do you really know about me apart from my taste in movies?
I’m being facetious. I used to have Facebook and MySpace and Linkedin pages. But I ultimately deleted them when I realized they were simply cataloges of high school buddies I’ve barely spoken to in 10 years and co-workers I see every single day. I’m also not much of a paparazzo, either. On my pages, there were all of two pics of me, not dozens upon dozens of albums of my friends and me in various contexts. I don’t understand why people have to create a virtual flip book of their lives, photographing their every waking moment. People do, though. And those people can get a lot more mileage out of social networking sites. I just wrote a criminally unread blog on my MySpace. I’ve clearly moved on to bigger and better things.
At any rate, in Hollywood’s continuing effort to make sure that no original idea is translated to the big screen, Aaron Sorkin — creator of television series and movies I’ve avoided like herpes — is developing a movie about the origins of Facebook. You can even visit Sorkin’s Facebook page to learn more about the project. I’d one day like to put the word “synergy” into a rocket and fire that rocket into the sun. But that’s a whole nother blog entirely.
Is there an audience for this? Web development isn’t exactly the most cinematic subject for a film. If you want to watch a helluva movie about the creation of a website and the implosion of a friendship, check out the documentary, “Startup.com.” I can’t imagine “Facebook: The Movie” will have nearly as much human drama. Now, “AdultFriendFinder.com: The Movie” might be a movie worth seeing.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
11
I’ve been looking forward to seeing “Tropic Thunder” all summer. I’ve so wanted to watch this movie, last week I said, “One for ‘Tropic Thunder,’” when I was actually trying to buy a ticket for “Pineapple Express.” I guess the titles could easily be confused. Or maybe I’m just retarded.
Wait, I can’t say the word “retarded,” can I? It’s a slur. It’s a slur against people with learning disabilities. When I use the word “retarded” to describe a person lacking in intelligence — even if it’s myself — that hurts the feelings of people who are really retarded, right? Thing is, I don’t use the word “retarded” to describe a person with an actual learning disability. And I don’t think the mentally challenged community is making any effort to reclaim the term. It should be up for grabs then. Alas, we can’t say it, not necessarily because it’ll hurt the feelings of people who have learning disabilities. No, saying it offends people who are members of advocacy groups for the mentally challenged. Those people are not retarded. They just act like it sometimes.
Take this tempest in a teapot surrounding “Tropic Thunder.” As I understand it, Ben Stiller’s character is an actor who tried to court an Oscar nomination with his role in a film called “Simple Jack;” the titular Jack is mentally disabled but can talk to animals. Later in the film, Stiller’s character is chided by Robert Downey Jr.’s character — a multiple Oscar winner — for going “full retard” in the role. I don’t know what “full retard” even means, but I know it sounds funny. I’m definitely going to see this on Wednesday. I should be able to find a good seat, too. According to Reuters, advocates for people with learning disabilities are calling for a boycott of “Tropic Thunder.” For one line of dialogue. From a guy in blackface.
I took an improv comedy class last spring. Apart from learning that I suck ass at improv comedy, I also learned about how make offensive material work. Insensitive humor only gets a laugh when the joke is on the joke-teller. You can’t make fun of people who have learning disabilities and expect audiences to double-over with laughter. You can, however, make fun of bad actors trying to gain credibility by playing mentally challenged characters. That’s what “Tropic Thunder” is doing. It’s not trying to be offensive to anyone with a learning disability. Rather, it’s trying to offend spoiled celebrities who want to win a pile of awards for pandering to audiences in actorly roles.
If anyone should be boycotting this movie, it should be celebutards.
-Brad Lohan
Aug
10
Test Audiences
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They can demand last-minute rewrites, reshoots and recasting. They can radically alter a director’s original intentions. They can fill out a detailed comment card after watching a movie, and with a few scribbles, potentially change cinematic history. But they don’t work for a major movie studio. They don’t even have full-time jobs.
They are test audiences.
When I first moved to L.A., I couldn’t find employment right away. I could, however, find several local movie theaters to patronize. I had enough money saved up to get by for a couple months before having to rely on a steady income. So whenever I was exasperated by my fruitless job search, I’d go to the movies and remind myself that at least someone was finding work making films.
That’s where I found them — test audience recruiters, handing out free passes to movies that weren’t scheduled to come out for months, movies that were in post-production, movies that were being “tested.”
Y’see, studios don’t hire writers and producers and directors because they think those people know how to make a good movie. I mean, they hope that these expensive filmmaker types have a good movie in them, but at the end of the day, they’re not 100% convinced. No, the only way to guarantee a movie will be a surefire hit is to screen it for 200 or so under-employed movie-goers — people who might have virtually no idea how to even make a movie — and ask for their feedback once it’s over. All the USC Cinema grads in the world can’t possibly know more about filmmaking than a couple hundred schmucks who show up for a free movie in the middle of a weekday.
I’ve actually been one of those schmucks more a few times. Let’s see if I can’t remember the test screenings I’ve been to. Here goes:
“Willard”
“The Core”
“Freaky Friday”
“Gigli”
“Wrong Turn”
“Suspect Zero”
“The Butterfly Effect”
“28 Days Later”
“Firewall”
Yes, I saw all those gems way before you avoided them at multiplexes. I do take some pride in having seen “The Core” twice without having paid for it either time — the first screening was of course when I was in the test audience, the second was at a press screening. No, I’m not a professional critic, but civilians like myself are often invited to press screenings in an attempt to screw with the heads of stuffy movie reviewers by laughing and cheering and generally have a good time out at the movies.
I also am not ashamed to admit that I thought “Gigli” was hilarious. I saw it a year before it came out, before everyone was all burned out on “Bennifer.” Going into the movie cold, I was pleasantly surprised by it and didn’t have many negative things to say on the comment card; I remember saying that Jennifer Lopez’s wardrobe designer deserved an Oscar — homina! In fact, I didn’t even complain that Ben Affleck died at the end. Well, he died at the end of the version I saw. An overwhelming amount of test audience members didn’t like that ending, and it was changed so that now he doesn’t die. The movie bombed nonetheless. Way to go, test audiences!
And therein lies the paradox of test screening movies. I can understand that studios think filmmakers can’t see the forest for the trees and want a third party’s opinion regarding the finished film. But shouldn’t studio executives be that third party? They are, in point of fact. Yet they still rely on test audiences as another gauntlet a movie must pass through before it’s released. I’m simply not all that convinced the average movie-goer should have final cut. Yes, they’re the ones who are going to ultimately pay to see the movie, but really, these idiots have such bizarre tastes and a tenuous grasp on how films work, it shouldn’t be completely up to them. That being said, some of these so-called filmmakers can make pretty piss-poor creative decisions, too.
During the focus group for “The Core” after the movie was over, I was able to articulate why the original ending of the movie had been mind-blowingly stupid. The original ending was as follows: After restarting the planet’s core, Aaron Eckhart and Hillary Swank’s craft has spent all its fuel tunneling back through the earth’s crust and is stuck at the bottom of the ocean. For reasons completely beyond human understanding, a pod of whales creates a whirlpool that lifts the ship to the surface, where it can rendezvous with an aircraft carrier. What the stink?!
At any rate, because I used to enjoy shoddy disaster movies like this, and because I thought going to test screenings would be a good primer for becoming a filmmaker, I didn’t just tell the folks who’d organized the focus group that the ending blows and they should change it. Aware that my statements were being recorded for the suits at the studio, I suggested that they change the ending so that the whales simply alert the nearby aircraft carrier to the general location of the protags’ craft with their whalesong. Earlier in the film, it’s established that the whales like the heroes’ submersible for whatever reason, so it seemed to make sense that they’d sing to it at the bottom of the sea. Or something.
When I saw the movie again at the press screening a few months later, guess whose ending they used? I’ll give you a hint: mine. Setting aside the fact that I’ve seen “The Core” two more times than you, and the possibility that my ending could’ve been spitballed by anyone who’s not completely brain-dead, I take some pride in helping a bomb of a movie turn out a little less crappy. And, hey, Hillary Swank went on to make “Million Dollar Baby” and win another Academy Award. What’s more, Aaron Eckhart is being partially incinerated no thanks to Batman in “The Dark Knight,” now playing at a theater near you. Who knows where they’d be professionally if “The Core” had sucked more?
I haven’t been to a test screening in a long time. I think the last one was that Harrison Ford movie, “Firewall,” back in mid-’05 when I was again sporadically employed. Going to them is always a bit of a hassle. You have to get there at least an hour in advance, wait in line endlessly and deal with the ass-heads working for the marketing firm that has organized the screening. Having been a movie theater employee myself, I’ve always been amazed by how difficult those people make the process of herding a bunch of dimwits into an auditorium and showing them a movie.
Though I enjoyed watching movies well before their intended release dates and being in an audience that collectively had the clout to improve(?) the finished product, I wouldn’t be disappointed if the test screening process went away entirely. I’m not just saying that because I don’t have the free time to attend these things anymore. I think audiences don’t know art, but they know what they like. And what they like is sometimes dookie. The artistic value of Hollywood movies can be debatable. Nevertheless, if test audiences apparently know how to make a movie better than your average film director, why in the hell aren’t they out there making movies themselves?
-Brad Lohan
Aug
5
Starving for Justice
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If I’m ever found dead, I hope whomever discovers me calls Mary-Kate Olsen at least three times. The 11-pound actress — who’s probably most famous for not being her sister, Ashley — is first person I think of whenever I stumble upon a freshly-made corpse. And why wouldn’t she be? There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “A friend will help you move. A best friend, such as Mary-Kate Olsen, will help you move a body.”
On a more serious note, I had been under the impression that the case was closed regarding Heath Ledger’s accidental overdose and untimely death. I’ll never quite understand why his twit of a masseuse called Mary-Kate Olsen thrice before dialing 911, but I guess that’s why investigators are still looking for answers. Mary-Kate, however, isn’t being so cooperative.
The AP is reporting that the creepier of the two Olsen twins won’t talk to the coppers unless she’s granted immunity. Immunity from what, Anthrax? Why would she seek immunity? I mean, it’s not like she did anything wrong, did she? Or…maybe that might explain the three phone calls — nine minutes of lost time that didn’t involve summoning EMTs and potentially saving the life of everyone’s favorite Joker.
That said, her seeking immunity suggests that she’s absolutely done something wrong, something likely related to Ledger’s accidental overdose. It’s kind of transparent, y’see. She’s simply acting like an adolescent who’s been bad and is going up to her parents and saying, “Mom, Dad, I don’t want you to yell at me, but…”
This whole case stinks. Part of what bothers me is the fact that Ledger died over 7 months ago, and it almost seems like it took the summertime release of “The Dark Knight” to remind the police that there’s still an ongoing investigation here. What’s more, I know that Olsen will get away with whatever she’s done, regardless of whether or not she’s granted immunity. When was the last time a judge threw the book at a celebutard? They’re mollycoddled.
Where’s Batman when you really need justice served? I’m sure he’d dangle her from a fire escape using his bat-rope and make her a human yo-yo and get a few answers. Maybe that’s not how the law should work. But neither’s this.
-Brad Lohan
Jul
29
Quake Me Today
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The earth shook this morning in So. Cal. just before lunchtime, and it seems like everyone but me went ape. You’d think Californians wouldn’t be quite so rattled by…being rattled. I mean, I’ve been on “Earthquake: The Big One” during the Universal Studios Backlot Tour enough times to know that the undulations we felt today weren’t nothin’. According to the AP, the quake was a meh-worthy 5.4. Back in college, I’d learned in my astonishingly boring geology class that each tenth of a point you move up on the Richer scale is actually exponential. So the difference between a 5.4 and a 5.5 is fairly substantial, but not nearly as catastrophic as when you get up into the 6’s or higher.
So why’d everybody pee themselves this morning? I understand we live in a post-”Cloverfield” America, but still. This is California. We’re lousy with natural disasters — floods, wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes, “Meet Dave.” Besides, it’s not like the earth opened up and Satan crawled out.
I’m not trying to talk tough or anything. The last thing I want to do is be buried alive in some cataclysmic earthquake. I’ve already bought a ticket to see “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” this Friday, then I want to catch a midnight screening of “The Crow” at the Nuart afterwards. I’ve got stuff lined up is what I’m saying. But today’s little event was hardly worthy of going into full on panic mode. That said, the closer we get to the release of next year’s “Watchmen,” the more paranoid I may become about seismic activity.
When I got home from work this evening, I noticed the quake had taken its toll on many of the occupants in my apartment. Nearly all of my action figures on display — save for the Ninja Turtles Leonardo and Raphael — had toppled over. There weren’t any DVDs or books littering the floor, fortunately. The cat seemed just as kooky as usual.
Everything seems to be okay, L.A. Moving forward, I’ll let you know when it’s time to panic.
-Brad Lohan