Happy New Year everyone!
This week, Cheryl and I sit down and chat about the ebbs and flows of 2013. We tackle the latest movies, the biggest flops and out own personal successes (and struggles) of the previous year.
We’re looking forward to a great 2014 and wish the best for all you creative folks out there. Just remember one thing for the new year:
Put some cheese on that cracker!
Now on to the show!
Breakin' In! 
Wow! What a podcast! I listened to it late the same night it was posted, but I was so overwhelmed by how much meaningful information and insights there were to respond to that I didn’t know where to begin.
I can’t decide if I’m more bummed to hear that things went as bad at FB as I (having worked twenty years as a computer programmer) feared they might, or that life before that at KOP was so far removed from the fantasy we outsiders like to think any production company gatekeeper position is.
In any case like Cheryl said it got you to where you are now, and (for the most part) that is a pretty good spot (especially in terms of all you have learned about writing and filmmaking) (and how you’ve already begun to pay it forward by including us readers and listeners on the journey).
And as Cheryl also emphasized, I’m glad the show has so “opened up” to be about so many things other than writing, including post-production, distribution, and producing overall.
DOCS
As one who still has his vintage 70’s vinyl copies of “Buckingham/Nicks” and “Fleetwood Mac” (the first one including them), both recorded at “Sound City”, I can’t wait to see the documentary!
And that documentary about how bad Detroit firefighters have these days sounds right up my alley too.
(And if I may make a suggestion: “Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve” which just came out recently.)
MOVIES
Kudos to Cheryl for taking any opportunity to throw Bond under the bus, and for having serious problems with “Gravity”: I agree completely (and then some!) with her criticism that “every five minutes something goes wrong”… and I would add that every six minutes something completely impossible happens to solve the problem!
And I agree that “Into Darkness” was only all right. (Nothing against the 3-D conversion of course!)
Interesting that Manny kind of liked “Gatsby” — makes me wonder if I had never read the book (back in high school) or seen other productions of it if I would have too. As it was, however, I couldn’t get into it.
I’m also tired of the device where it seems like all a movie has to do is make Nazis the villian and we’re supposed to think the movie is good.
And I am also concerned about the trend to have movies that make you walk away thinking that “we [especially white Americans] suck”. Again, I think this is a relatively easy way of making the movie seem better than it really is. (I love your observation that only the beginning and ending of “12 Years a Slave” was original, the rest was pure “Roots”.)
Alas, so long as people go to these “we suck” movies and reward them at award time they will continue to be made; I thus support them as little as possible.
Cheryl’s plea for something better made me think about how nice it would be to have a movie that focused on some of the good people in the north who refused to return escaped slaves to their “rightful owners” in the south. Some of these people were even put on trial and paid a huge price for their courage! Where are the stories about them?!
Alas, I almost fear there is a kind of conspiracy these days to make people feel that they are bad, and don’t deserve to have a decent life… in order to help get them to accept the so-called “new normal” of how extremely bad the economy is.
In fact, there is even a “Gravity” tie-in to this, in that the Chinese space station was portrayed as being wonderfully deluxe, when in reality it is far worse than the western one (the ISS). I feel certain the Chinese used the fact that they recently bought the AMC movie chain (and reportedly own significant portions of major movie studios) to influence the makers of “Gravity” to include this major distortion as part of the overall continuous effort on the part of the politicians and media to brainwash the American public into thinking they are so much worse than everyone else.
Don’t fall for it people.
P.S. Of course, if the movie is about one of their own then that’s a different story! Get a beloved celebrity to play him and make him seem like a sweet guy who didn’t run roughshod over his employees or want the creatives to remain anonymous no matter what. (If you haven’t watched it already, you have to see Harlan Ellison’s rant on youtube about how the movie so distorts reality in terms of portraying that the creator of Mary Poppins finally and happily came around to Disney’s way of thinking.)
“I WISH I NEVER SAW IT”
OMG! Speaking of “12 Years a Slave”, this just came to my attention:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2014/01/in-praise-of-armond-white-the-hilarious-renegade-c.html
http://www.nyfcc.com/2013/10/3450/
http://cityarts.info/2013/10/16/cant-trust-it/
“Some of the most racist people I know are bowled over by this movie. They may have forgotten Roots, never seen Sankofa or Nightjohn, disliked Amistad, dismissed Beloved and even decried the violence in The Passion of the Christ, yet 12 Years a Slave lets them congratulate themselves for being aghast at slavery.”
“The egregious inhumanity of 12 Years a Slave (featuring the most mawkish and meaningless fade-out in recent Hollywood history) only serves to perpetuate Hollywood’s disenfranchisement of Black people’s humanity. Brad Pitt, one of the film’s producers, appears in a small role as a helpful pacifist—as if to save face with his real-life multicultural adopted family. But Pitt’s good intentions (his character promises ‘There will be a reckoning’) contradict McQueen, Ridley and Gates’ self-serving motives.”
“The finite numeral in the title of 12 Years a Slave compliments the fallacy that we look back from a post-racial age, that all is in ascent. But 12 Years a Slave is ultimate proof that Hollywood’s respect for Black humanity is in absurd, patronizing, Oscar-winning decline.”
“Steve McQueen’s post-racial art games and taste for cruelty play into cultural chaos. The story in 12 Years a Slave didn’t need to be filmed this way and I wish I never saw it.”