Nerd Rage Retraction

It has been pointed out that Robert Patrick was the T-1000 & not the T-2000 in TERMINATOR 2 as I wrote in my earlier post. That is all. #sse #gnetx

I've developed a taste for Hannibal

"Hannibal" S1 is one of the best crime/thriller series I've seen & it highlights 3 of my personal fascinations: Cinematic Beauty, Culinary Art, & Sadistic Mind-f***ing. Mad Mikkelsen deceptively does very little except play the fulcrum for all plotting around him but he wears the infamy of Hannibal Lector like fine tailored suit. This series easily bests any of the previous films, even the original Demme film which I'm a fan of.

#sse #gnetx

ALIENS from 35mm to VHS to DVD to Bluray

I screened the ALIENS special edition extended cut Bluray for my film students which runs 2.5 hours but took 3 hours because I kept pausing it to comment on the film. I must say that I like the shorter theatrical cut better because it is concise and emphasizes the action elements while keeping the emotional ties & themes at a minimum without loosing much if you're really paying attention. Some of the suspense is drawn out in the special edition, which I still enjoyed, but it never added anything significant. 

Can you believe that I actually saw ALIENS with my dad projected in 35mm during its theatrical run - imagine the impact a film like that would have on a 10 year old! I've now seen the film on 35mm film, VHS, DVD, and now Bluray. Looking forward to 4K.

#sse #gnetx

Aliens (1986)

Directed by James Cameron. With Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser. The planet from Alien (1979) has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough?

WWW.IMDB.COM

Scared the cloud will go poof

For the 1st time in years I woke up and was unable to access my script writing files that are normally stored on a cloud server. I freaked the f*** out and when I finally was able to get to my files I pulled them all back onto my laptop and re-established my local network back up system (which I abandoned in favor of cloud storage). So now I have all my vital files sync with my laptop and workstation again which is made available on cloud storage AND is also backed up to my local network storage. 

#gnetx #sse

Trading Time

When I write I often feel like I'm trading hour for hour from reality to spend time in a written world that doesn't exist (at least not yet). And it's always been a struggle deciding which one I should spend more time in.

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Lightning Movie &TV Recollections

THE ICEMAN: Solid film with solid performances & seamless 80's production design. Though it is a bit jarring to see so many back-to-back cameos of recognizable celebs.

HOW TO TRAIN YOU DRAGON 1 & 2: 1 was really great & enthralling in unexpected ways - really does make me want to fly (on a dragon!). 2 does everything you'd expect from a sequel but focuses more on filling story gaps while the thrill of flying a dragon is not enhanced much.

Re-watched HARA-KIRI (with my parents no less): The opening mystery unravels in such a powerful turn of events but then the back story is so bleak & depressing & then the ending is a classic Miike cut'em up Samurai showdown with a reversal on the nobility of a romanticized era of old. A little bit for everyone in my family.

"Walking Dead" S4: really the best season yet. S1 sputtered, S2 meandered, S3 aggravated as characters made stupid decisions. While I was worried S4 was going to be a S2 re-do it really branched off and tried different things with each episode. Some were silly but others really hit the drama home - best of all you can see the series different things which is important as the whole zombie thing gets tired.

Re-watched SCHOOL OF ROCK (with my daughter): I couldn't quite remember if this film was kid appropriate or even interesting for kids but my daughter really liked it (she usually tunes out if it's not animated).

"The Black List" S1: Still watching it but I f-ing hate it much in the same way I hated "The Killing." It's derivative garbage that rides the back of so many other shows before it. These are supposed to be extraordinary characters with extraordinary abilities but time after time they slide through staged situations without demonstrating anything extraordinary. That's why I hate 90% of all law enforcement TV dramas.

THE SUSPECT: And now Korean action films are feeling recycled. Some stunts and car chases looked great but even with so much flying all over the screen I actually got bored. Mostly because I've seen this stuff one too many times in far superior Korean films and so there's not much that's memorable in this latest one.

#gnetx

Yes, it's a little Soft

I didn't mind KILLING THEM SOFTLY until the end - the end was a deal breaker for me. The film was like a homage to street-level mob movies of the the late 90s & early 2000s but with a bizarre political sub-consciousness and a Coen Brothers-esque talky humor about it. But the humor dissipates when the politics take center stage and talkiness becomes eye-rollable hyperbole. And another one of my filmmaking pet-peeves: if you're planning to do extreme close-ups of bullet shells ejecting don't used crimped casings, use real spent shells. I don't want to suddenly realize that the guy is shooting blanks.

#gnetx

Killing Them Softly (2012)

Directed by Andrew Dominik. With Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, Scoot McNairy. Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

WWW.IMDB.COM

Halfway Mark

Officially at the halfway mark (for a 1st draft feature script). From here the plot just escalates into madness, which I tend to have more fun with.