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LEE & LOW BOOKS celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and to recognize how far the company has come, we are featuring one title a week to see how it is being used in classrooms today as well, as hear from the authors and illustrators.
Synopsis: Born in 1905, Anna May Wong spent her childhood working in her family’s laundry in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. Whenever she could afford it, Anna May slipped off to the movies, escaping to a world of adventure, glamour, and excitement. After seeing a movie being filmed in her neighborhood, young Anna May was hooked. She decided she would become a movie star!
Anna May struggled to pursue an acting career in Hollywood in the 1930s. There were very few roles for Asian Americans, and many were demeaning and stereotypical. Anna May made the most of each limited part. She worked hard and always gave her best performance. Finally, after years of unfulfilling roles, Anna May began crusading for more meaningful roles for herself and other Asian American actors.
Anna May Wong—the first Chinese American movie star—was a pioneer of the cinema. Her spirited determination in the face of discrimination is an inspiration to all who must overcome obstacles so that their dreams may come true.
Awards and Honors:
Carter G. Woodson Award, NCSS
Children’s Books of the Year, Bank Street College of Education
Choices, Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC)
Veronicahas a degree from Mount Saint Mary College and joined LEE & LOW in the fall of 2014. She has a background in education and holds a New York State childhood education (1-6) and students with disabilities (1-6) certification. When she’s not wondering around New York City, you can find her hiking with her dog Milo in her hometown in the Hudson Valley, NY.
0 Comments on Celebrating 25 Books Over 25 Years: Shining Star as of 1/1/1900
Today, most people associate Southern California with images of palm trees, beaches, swimming pools, and the entertainment industry. If pressed to imagine an earlier era they might come up with “old” Hollywood, the Gold Rush, or even the mission era. But how much of the Golden State can be attributed to the ancient Greeks and Romans?
However, there were some great and popular diverse offerings during the 2014-2015 television season, like black-ish,Jane the Virgin, Fresh Off the Boat and Empire.
This year, we can only hope that the talent of more diverse actors, women directors and writers gets the recognition it deserves.
Without further ado, here are this year’s Women and POC Emmy nominees!
Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Taraji P. Henson (IMBD)
Taraji P. Henson (Empire) starred in the movie Baby Boy. She has also been in many other TV shows including Boston Legal and Person of Interest.
Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder) got her start in theater. In 2011, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Aibileen Clark in The Help.
Best Director for a Comedy Series
Louis C.K. (Louie) is a comedian who got his start writing for other comedians like David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock. He is the creator and director of Louie, which he also stars in.
Phil Lord (The Last Man on Earth) is one half of the team known for directing and writing films like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Lego Movie, with Christopher Miller.
Phil Lord (IMBD)
They met at Dartmouth College.
Jill Soloway was inspired to create Transparent after her father came out as transgender. She directed the film Afternoon Delight and wrote for the show Six Feet Under.
Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series
Jill Soloway (Transparent)
Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series
Semi Chellas (Mad Men) is known for her work on Restless Spirits. She is nominated with Matthew Weiner for her work on Mad Men.
Good luck to all of the nominees! Who do you hope takes home a trophy?
0 Comments on Get to Know this Year’s Women and POC Emmy Nominees as of 9/15/2015 1:45:00 PM
The latest incarnation (I chose that word advisedly!) of the Jurassic Park franchise has been breaking box-office records and garnering mixed reviews from the critics. On the positive side the film is regarded as scary, entertaining, and a bit comedic at times (isn't that what most movies are supposed to be?). On the negative side the plot is described as rather 'thin', the human characters two-dimensional, and the scientific content (prehistoric animals) unreliable, inaccurate, or lacking entirely in credibility.
Jurassic World’s ascent to the biggest box office opening of all time has everyone flustered. It’s take of $208.8 million in its first weekend beat even The Avengers which made a mere $207.4 million. (It’s still ahead adjusted for inflation but Gone With the Wind is still the biggest by that metric.) The opening shattered analysts’ projections, leading to a particularly befuddled take by Deadline:
Tracking typically wears the dunce caps in these off-kilter prediction scenarios. However, distrib chiefs sincerely swear NRG, Screen Engine and Marketcast’s systems aren’t broken, and as one forecasting insider asserts: “We’re not paid to predict box office, rather identify pockets of strength, threats and opportunities in the marketplace for the studio. … It’s a five-week journey with daily phone calls.”
Okay so you had a….threat pocket? This wonk talk is Onion worthy.
So as various execs and and analysts around Hollywood drew their own estimates, what truly happened with Jurassic World is that it became a beast unto itself. That’s when the film started over-indexing and beating everyone’s expectations. And the catalyst for the WOM heatwave can be pinned squarely to social media — which, unlike tracking, captured auds’ need-to-see vibe. Adds another Universal insider: “When you go into the weekend, you are armed with your expectations based on historical data, relying on movies released during the same time period as well as assessing different variables in the marketplace. But when the film gets a chance to be itself and grows through the weekend, you lose your historical data.”
While some are still reeling from the over-indexing, Variety had a more sensible deduction: CHRIS PRATT.
“He’s the modern action hero,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “He’s funny, he’s charming, he’s self-deprecating. I call him Jimmy Stewart in a leather vest. He just has the perfect sensibility for today’s audiences.”
Also…dinosaurs. People like dinosaurs. Bold, I know.
Jurassic World toppling the Avengers is the first blow for a world where superheroes aren’t everything, and makes the generally blah reaction to Avengers 2 look a little more serious. But Jurassic World is still a pretty bland film, as the above still suggests. I know it’s hard to act scared of a screen piece of wall, but look at the kids in that photo. I couldn’t tell if Nick Robinson as the teen heartthrob was supposed to be generally insensate to any outside stimulus, or just no one could take the time to prod him with a stick.
I pretty much agreed with everything that Beat critic Hannah Lodge said about this film. It’s got an awful script, lethargic acting, some nice dinos, and a troubling obsession with running in high heels. Like Lodge, all I could think of during the second half of the movie was whether Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire was STILL running around in high heels. It turns out Howard made a point of learning how to do it and insisted on wearing them while she was running away from dinosaurs. I knows it’s a fantasy.,.but you can’t run away from dinosaurs in high heels. And there was no internal logic. At one point Pratt’s Owen even mocks her shoes, which YOU’D THINK would set up a scene where she ditches them. I kept expecting her to find some running shoes in the old compound from Jurassic Park but no such luck. She just kept running and running. A line without a payoff…that pretty much sums up the entire Jurassic World script. The one clever thing it did was to combine the predictable roles of Feisty Girl Lead and Annoying Corporate Wonk into one role! Innovative!
Even with that, as a movie, Jurassic World, was on its own fairly low terms, a better film than Avengers 2. I hadn’t memorized the trailer for JW, so when I saw the movie at a screening, I went in thinking “This is going to be a dumb CGI fest but I’m just going to let go, let God, and give in.” I appreciated how the movie had ONE big menace, and all the action was built around a confrontation with that menace, instead of branching off to go to Wakanda to pick up some vibranium and set up three spin-offs—and perhaps audiences did as well. OTOH, if you did memorize the trailer then you pretty much saw everything cool in the movie. But that didn’t stop anyone from going to the theater. It also hit the sweet spot of millennial 90s nostalgia. All we need in the sequel when Dr. Wu pulls out his bag of Indominus Furiosa babys and sets them loose is a cameo for Dr. Ian Malcolm.
As usual the bombastic success of a film with a lackluster storyline has led to lamenting how Hollywood’s hands are tied when it comes to making anything good as Matt Patches writes for Esquire:
This is not just an issue with Trevorrow or his blockbuster. Hollywood’s cynicism is hitting peak levels and continues to trickle into our multiplexes. Movie studio executives would love to greenlight to discover the next Spielberg or nurture a moderately-sized thrill ride into a big-budget classic. But they also want to make money. There are movies that challenge the balancing act with whirlwind intensity; Christopher Nolan’s Inception takes the frustration of imagining and executing action movies and turns it into an action movie. That subtlety is hard to come by. With change and reversion seemingly out of the question, creative types feel compelled to boo and hiss in their movies. Trevorrow employs Jake Johnson to spit his fire. Last month’s Tomorrowland lectured audiences in the dangers of apocalyptic disaster movies. And on the Oscar campaign trail for last year’s Hollywood satire, Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu just came out and say what the film danced around: superhero movies are “cultural genocide.” A few months later, when Birdman won the Academy Award for Best Picture, voters could pat themselves on the back for recognizing great filmmaking. They could make Birdman—isn’t that real cinema? And then the next morning, most of the voters returned to their movie studio jobs and pushed sequels, reboots, and $150 million toy adaptions through the pipeline.
I can’t refrain from adding to the laments however, as I peruse the box office total of Mad Max Fury Road after five weeks: a relatively moderate $138.6 million. It’s made more worldwide, but set against that $200 million budget it’s still not a big moneymaker. HOW! How can this galvanizing, senses-shattering, mind-expanding masterpiece of heart and magic have made only this much when twaddle like Jurassic World is setting records? Why, oh lord, why?
Yes yes, I know, MMFR was R-rated. Meanwhile parents were secretly eager to go see JW with their kids.
Will the religious fervor for the church of George Miller pave the way for an actual sequel? Hard to tell, but I doubt we’ll see Miller allowed to spend money on that level again, alas.
In my previous inquiry into the actual reason that people found the practical effects of Mad Max Fury Road so profoundly affecting compared to CGI spectacle, I didn’t find much from a psychological viewpoint, but several people pointed me towards this Cracked piece from a few months ago, 6 Reasons Modern Movie CGI Looks Surprisingly Crappy by David Christopher Bell. This piece sums up some technical reasons for the affectlessness of CGI, using shots from the Jurassic World trailer as examples. Digital grading, unrealistic camera angles, bad physics, and things our minds just reject. For instance this shot of a helicopter falling into a dinosaur:
Sure, that looks pretty awesome, but destruction on that scale should blow our fucking minds. The response to dinosaurs wrecking a helicopter should be nothing short of paralysis, but this scene has no sense of gravity or consequence. There’s no scale to it. There’s even going to be a scene where (minor spoilers) a Pteranodon picks up a woman and literally drops her into the mouth of the Mosasaurus. It doesn’t matter how real the CGI looks, because that scene belongs in a fucking Sharknado movie. It’s an absurd cartoon orgy.
There’s some more technical discussion at a site that offers AfterEffects plug ins of all places, 10 Reason Why CGI is Getting Worse Not Better, which lays out most of the same arguments as the Cracked piece, with some more scolding over the orange-and-blue digital grading that every movie is saturated with these days, and also “ratcheting up the sequel-itis:”
The CGI in every sequel has a major goal: it has to be more impressive, complex, and crazier than its predecessor. The stakes have to be higher. Filmmakers try to create engagement with more explosions rather than letting story, plot, and character development produce interest.
Another huge issue is that in a world of endless sequels, we no longer have to worry about our main character’s well-being. We don’t need to be invested in the characters because there’s no chance they’ll die. They aren’t in any real peril. The actors have already signed up for two sequels! James Cameron is working on three Avatar sequels simultaneously! What’s happening now is that filmmakers are making scenes more and more extravagant to offset this sequel fatigue. They keep pushing the limits to keep us saying ‘well surely they can’t survive this’ until it gets utterly ridiculous.
So true. I actually felt that JW was a little moderate in its uses of CGI, but how many big bad dino-hybrids do you think will be in the sequel?
For one little moment, it seemed the rapturous response to Mad Max Fury Road might have Hollywood thinking that more is not better. The unexpected success of Jurassic World has laid that idea to rest, just like you knew it would. It would be nice to think that MMFR might influence some filmmakers to take more chances in that direction, and I don’t doubt that we’ll see endless allusions to it as we did after The Matrix and 300 came out. But given the way Hollywood plucks indie directors out of the schoolyard and gives them huge blockbusters to direct while the SFX unit handles all the action—JW’s Colin Trevorrow had directed one movie previously, and nothing in the film shows the slightest hint of style—it’s not very likely the next generation of action filmmakers will be making waves or demands. These days moviemaking is just too expensive and leviathan to take chances.
And you know, Chris Pratt on a motorcycle and his henchdinos. That’s one things CGi is good for.
18 Comments on Jurassic World is #1: you got what you deserved, last added: 6/16/2015
That scene absolutely had consequence. The owner died, it released the dinos who then killed dozens and dozens of people. The very thing I enjoyed about JW is that it DIDN’T try to make it a world-wide calamity. The danger was cramped and stuck to the island.
It was silly, some dialogue was cheesy, and it was fun. I really enjoyed it. It also captivated the children (14 yrs old) I took to see it. They were enamored by it. Mad Max wasn’t for them. This was.
Torsten Adair said, on 6/16/2015 8:59:00 AM
So the director becomes the second unit?
“Go film some location shots while we work on the CGI battle sequence.”
It’s like how the fight choreographer in a kungfu movie gets almost as much credit as the director.
But once a series is formulaic, it doesn’t matter who the director is.
Writer? Sure. Get a good script, and the directing and editing becomes a lot easier.
POP QUIZ: Name TWO directors of the James Bond movies!
Who directed the Fast and the Furious movies?
If s/he balks at the salary, you find someone else to direct.
I don’t know what the term is, but there is a fine line with CGI sequences, similar to the “uncanny valley”. “Blockbustered”?
I got tired of the blurry, rapid film editing battle sequences of The Transformers. I couldn’t keep track of the choreography, I had no sense of direction or space, or who was beating the sprockets out of whom. Man of Steel has this problem as well.
But on the other extreme, I was disappointed in both Avengers movies. The threat wasn’t that big, there was little sense of urgency or despair as the heroes have to overcome overwhelming odds to Save The Day. There’s nothing to cheer for. (And if you don’t engage the audience, then where’s the box office? If people don’t rave about this or that, where’s the word of mouth? The repeat viewings? The long tail of ticket sales, which help the theater owners pay the rent?
Jurassic Park was the Poseidon Adventure with bioengineered rats. Jurassic World seems more like a Godzilla movie (as some of my friends have suggested, and a better movie than the latest GZ). Me? I gave up after Lost World.
You don’t need a lot of CGI to make great popcorn movies. Wrath of Khan was almost all visual effects (aside from the Genesis briefing). That nebula cloud? Latex rubber and ammonium mixed into a tank of fresh and salt water. Stop motion animation. Giant models.
chris said, on 6/16/2015 9:05:00 AM
This idea that Avengers 2 failed is weird to me. It made $444 million in the US and 1.35 billion world-wide. This is terrific.
Jason A. Quest said, on 6/16/2015 9:27:00 AM
As the expository dialog went on at the beginning of the film, talking about how the public is no longer excited about mere dinosaurs, and now needs a hybrid dinosaur with mutant powers to sell tickets, I was assured that Hollywood is not only cynical about its audience, it is open about it.
And apparently correct.
Curtis Burga said, on 6/16/2015 9:48:00 AM
Name 2 Directors of the Bond Films? I can name 5 off the top of my head:
Terence Hill
Guy Hamilton
Martin Campbell
John Glen
Sam Mendes
Each of the directors had their own distinctive style in the franchise, with Mendes at the top of the list for “most artistic”.
Curtis Burga said, on 6/16/2015 9:52:00 AM
I guess I should add:
John Glen directed all the Bond films of the 80’s. He holds the distinction of directing more Bond films than any other director (the second one being Guy Hamilton). He also directed two different actors in the role of Bond, Moore and Dalton.
Curtis Burga said, on 6/16/2015 9:57:00 AM
Do’h! Where is my edit button when I need it???
I meant to type Terence YOUNG, not Terence Hill. Terence Hill was the actor in “My Name is Nobody” and “Superfuzz”.
Terence Young also directed movies such as “Wait Until Dark”.
(whew!)
The Beat Herself said, on 6/16/2015 11:15:00 AM
Curtis, the Bond franchise is 50 years old and goes back to an older style of moviemaking. And SKYFALL was my favorite movie of the last 10 years up until MAD MAX because so much of it was practical — that mind boggling Shanghai fight scene was done IN CAMERA and it shows.
R. Maheras said, on 6/16/2015 11:42:00 AM
“Jurassic World” may not arguably be a superhero film, but its certainly a comic book-style film, ala “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or Edgar Rice Burroughs-style book series such as Pellucidar.
I’ve seen tens of thousands of films over the years and I had few problems with “Jurassic World” as a solid, well-crafted action flick. It met or exceeded most people’s expectations, beat out the first two sequels story and execution-wise, and was arguably better than “Jurassic Park.”
If they keep it up, further sequels will be like printing money.
Nathan Aaron said, on 6/16/2015 1:25:00 PM
Jurassic Park will always be #1. But JW: Lost World? Ugh. Please save us all from Ian Malcom. ;) And while the third one tried to bring back the shine (and was better than #2) Jurassic World officially made itself the second best of the franchise!
My boyfriend’s niece was next to me, and after the movie I asked for a 1-10 rating. She said “7”. I said “7?! Wha?” Then I asked if it was better than the two sequels. A short pause and then a “Yes!” Also, my boyfriend (who was worried the entire movie would be nothing but people running from dinosaurs (uh, uhm, let’s not even) clapped at the end of the movie, which is his true stamp of approval. It was a huge amount of fun! Everyone is SO bitter, and jaded about everything anymore. You will NEVER get back that moment of amazement you had when you saw the first one. It’s just not possible. It’s Jurassic Park. You know what you’re going in there for.
Charlie Ryan said, on 6/16/2015 1:28:00 PM
Put me down as one of those who was completely underwhelmed by Jurassic World. Summer popcorn movies have to have a couple of things for me: thrilling action with a few twists I’ve never seen before, a couple of fun, repeatable lines of dialogue, an able, resourceful hero to follow and a single-minded villain you can hiss at. I think of all those things, Chris Pratt came to the party as that type of hero, but no one else showed up ready to play (especially the director and the many screenwriters).
A couple of things that bugged me:
– Yes, Bryce Dallas Howard running around in her all-terrain high heels drove me nuts too. In the old days of action films, finally ditching the heels would be an easy metaphor for showing how the uptight heroine was loosening up and growing as a character. Now, fashion sense rules over all?
– Vincent D’onofrio’s villian wasn’t much of one. All he did was huff and smirk a few times, call in the mercenaries and (SPOILER ALERT) die.
– Speaking of those mercenaries (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT), they’re the best soldiers money can buy and that’s the best they could do? They know they’re going up against a super T-rex and no one brings along a couple of super Jack Kirby weapons to blast it? And couldn’t any of them be more then ‘red shirts’? Where’s the Jesse Ventura-like character from Predator when you need him? At least The Lost World had Pete Postlethwaite as a gung-ho hunter to add some spice to the proceedings.
– And speaking of food additives, what made the original Park so much fun was the Jeff Goldblum character. This film disparately needed his cynical vinegar to add some bite. In the entire cast, there wasn’t a curve ball character in the bunch.
– Also, please don’t mention Raiders of the Lost Ark in the same breath as this movie. Speilberg knows how to set up an action sequence as an elaborate Rube Goldberg device — with one peril tumbling into the next. And even when we know he won’t kill a kid in a movie, we don’t have time to think about it because we’re watching him juggle so many balls in the air at the same time. Compare the sequence in the original movie where Sam Neil is trying to rescue the kids in the jeep being attacked by the T-rex and compare it to any of the scenes with the imperiled kids in this new film. It’s like comparing a ticking bomb to a cap gun.
– In fact, I thought the dinosaurs in the first film were much more terrifying! Was there any thing here to equal the menace of the Velociraptors? Or the raptors in the kitchen sequence?
– And finally, I know I need to suspend disbelief in a film like this (and I’m willing to), but even on it’s own terms it’s difficult to imagine that that raptors could be trained by Chris Pratt’s character in any way, shape or form. That works in The Flintstones, but not here. It reminds me of the documentary about the guy who tried to live in the wild with grizzly bears and be their friend — until the day they ate him.
Andrew Laubacher said, on 6/16/2015 2:04:00 PM
I think the only thing left for a sequel to Jurassic World is if Dr. Wu engineers himself some Sleestak or Silurians. I’ve been half-expecting to hear about a reference in the film to the hypothetical humanoid saurians that might have evolved if the meteor/comet had never struck the Earth.
akachris said, on 6/16/2015 3:38:00 PM
Now I’m waiting for the Marvel announcement regarding the “Devil Dinosaur” film.
akachris said, on 6/16/2015 3:44:00 PM
I was entertained by “Jurassic World”, liked it better than “Avengers: The Age of Ultron”.
For me the major plot hole is, even if discounting the two previous sequels as non-canon, after the events of the first film, would’t you implant a micro-explosive in the brain or heart of the predatory dinosaurs just in case of the emergency like they experienced in JW?
And there’s not more than 1 helicopter pilot on that island?
George said, on 6/16/2015 7:06:00 PM
I had fun watching it, but a few days later can hardly remember anything about it. It was a shallow and forgettable movie, with almost no character development.
Chris Pratt played a generic macho man. Kept waiting for him to say or do something funny, but aside from his line about being in “the Navy, not the Navajos” (which got the only big laugh at my screening), it was a dull performance. And Bryce Dallas Howard played the stereotyped neurotic, scatterbrained career woman.
No wonder it’s a huge blockbuster — especially in China, where character development doesn’t seem to matter, as long as the CGI is spectacular enough.
The Dissolve had an interesting article about JURASSIC WORLD as a “genetically modified blockbuster,” with bits and pieces (and subplots and characters) borrowed from other movies. ALIENS seems to be a favorite target for pilfering.
I spent the entire movie thinking Jessica Chastain was the leading lady. Then the credits came up and I discovered I’d been watching Bryce Dallas Howard for 2-plus hours.
Apparently I’m not the only one who has trouble telling them apart. Film critic Sam Adams jokingly twittered: “Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard are different people, but they fill in for each other at social occasions.”
George said, on 6/16/2015 7:23:00 PM
“POP QUIZ: Name TWO directors of the James Bond movies!”
Off the top of my head: Terence Young, Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert, Peter Hunt, Irvin Kershner, Sam Mendes. That’s’ five. I’m sure there are others.
“Who directed the Fast and the Furious movies?”
Rob Cohen, Justin Lin, James Wan.
All these directors have more style than Colin Trevorrow. But his first film, the low-budget indie SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, showed some promise.
George said, on 6/16/2015 7:40:00 PM
Heidi MacDonald said: “These days moviemaking is just too expensive and leviathan to take chances.”
It depends on what kind of movie you’re making and what kind of audience you’re going after. When you’re making a CGI-packed superhero or other franchise movie that costs $200M to make and another $100M to market, you’re not going to take chances. The only way the movie can make a profit is to play everywhere in the world (especially Asia) and appeal to “everyone.”
The escalating cost of moviemaking at the major-studio level is a big reason why Steven Soderbergh abandoned movies for TV. He recalled that just lighting the casino set in OCEAN’S 13 cost $30,000 a day.
Also: Soderbergh says the studios are now run by people who don’t like movies and don’t watch them for entertainment. They’re run by people like Kevin Feige: people who know nothing about movies but everything about branding, marketing and merchandising.
After what feels like a year's worth of buzz, publicity, predictions, and celebrity gossip, the 87th Academy Award ceremony is upon us. I dug into the entries available in the alphabetized categories of The Dictionary of Film Studies-- and added some of my own trivia -- to highlight 26 key concepts in the elements of cinema and the history surrounding the Oscars.
Among this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture were two films with drum scores: Whiplash, in which a highly regarded but abusive conductor molds an aspiring young jazz musician into the genius he was meant to be, and Birdman, in which an aging film actor who was never a genius at all stars in a play and possibly flies. In spite of their innovative soundtracks, neither film received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.
And then there's my Hollywood movie poster photo - of course. I first must explain I've never set foot in Hollywood. But maybe because of that I always think that adding 'Hollywood' to anything is bound to add panache... as in:
Hollywood hills
Hollywood sunset
Hollywood ending
Hollywood limo
Hollywood mansion... you get the idea.
The original photo
People no doubt thought I was bluffing when I said I'd been on a 'Hollywood photo shoot' one rainy night last December. But I really was - in the dark - on my bicycle - with my camera and tripod.
The documentary film project required a dark, gothic, edgy image. So I was out to make just such an image with my trusty Lumix.
The contact sheet
In the falling dark the rain had just stopped. It was time for my Hollywood moment. Fate had compelled me... my date with Hollywood.
It all happened when the stars aligned and by a happy twist of fate I was contacted by the art director in L.A., the amazing Dagmar Wilde, who has created dozens of award winning Hollywood movie posters. (I know it doesn't sound like I fit into this world, does it? Believe me, I don't. So I was just as astonished. But it was so much fun).
Dagmar has designed movie posters for DeNiro, Ben Stiller, Robert Altman, Mad Men, Gossip Girl along with a stunning collection of independent film projects. And she's also a playwright and writer - all leading to the 'amazing' moniker. And for full disclosure, I am honored to say that she's a friend of mine from online and life.
The film is 'The Hunting Ground' directed by Oscar nominated Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering. They've done films like The Invisible War, Outrage, This Film Is Not Yet Rated and Twist of Fate. This film is a documentary on the topic of college rape. Not a topic I knew anything about... but I guess that's the whole point of the film - to shed some light on this overlooked issue.
Since it was temporarily not raining, I shot a sequence of images, trying with intuition to make something compelling. Of course a tripod and correct exposure are requirements for night photography. It's way trickier than daylight shooting... factors like noise and blur and losing details all figure in. It can be difficult. I used a timed shutter release rather than manual, so as not to blur the image. And the mighty Lumix fz200 did it's job.
I finished snapping and biked home in the dark. Was that really all there is to a Hollywood photo shoot? I suppose so. And in short order Dagmar did the rest with her design magic, turning my photo into a real Hollywood poster. Figures were added, figures erased, branches removed, banners hung... all kinds of changes. Employing her design wizardry, Dag transformed the original to something quite different.
The final poster artfully captures a sense of edgy, dark, spooky gothic college setting, exactly filling the parameters of the poster project. So now this film is on it's way to festivals and venues everywhere... how exciting!
The Sundance photo
I was clicking around on the Sundance site and was delighted to see another photo of mine.... rubbing shoulders with the Stars! Such a thrill! Well that was my Hollywood moment! Sigh...
I wonder if I will ever really make it to Hollywood? Of course there was no cast party except in my imagination. Oh well, illustrators never get parties either.
0 Comments on My Hollywood Photo Shoot as of 2/18/2015 9:31:00 AM
If you said John has been shooting photos for a Hollywood movie poster, signing a new book contract, drawing pictures for a magazine spread, getting to know a new children's book agent and shoveling snow... you'd only be wrong about the snow. I over-exaggerated about the snow. Whew!
The photo is from last night's photo shoot. I didn't realize one could actually have a Hollywood photo shoot from a bicycle with a basket in the dark, but I guess you can. I wore my beret instead of my helmet since I'm an artist.
I quite enjoy the panache of dropping the name 'Hollywood' into a sentence.... it adds glamour. Pinch me... did that all really happen?
0 Comments on Hollywood photo shoot... how exciting! as of 12/11/2014 2:44:00 PM
One of the fun things about reading fiction is imagining what the characters would look like, sound like, and act like in real life. And with the recent spike in YA-novels-turned-movies, it’s not a stretch to wonder who might be cast to play some of our favorite characters. There have been some great movies recently based on YA novels, but few of them have featured diverse casts or characters. So we thought we’d give Hollywood a little help and showcase a few of our favorite movie-worthy YA novels, and how we’d cast them:
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Saenz
What it’s about: This tender novel looks at the deep and evolving friendship between two teen boys in 1980s El Paso.
Why it should be a movie: Although it’s not action-packed, the space this book gives to the quiet moments shared between Aristotle and Dante would make it a great character study. It won a Printz Award Honor and in the hands of a capable filmmaker definitely has potential to win awards on the movie side as well.
Who we’d cast:
Aristotle:
Ari is sensitive and introspective but also big and strong, and he has a melancholy side that comes out sometimes too. We’d cast Diego Boneta as Ari.
Dante:
Dante is endearing and earnest, even when he’s struggling with his feelings. He can be full of angst without being angsty. We think Teen Wolf’s Tyler Posey could bring to life Dante’s charm.
Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
What it’s about: A story of first love that follows two teenagers in 1980s Nebraska who help each other through difficult circumstances.
Why it should be a movie: Actually, Dreamworks jumped on the movie rights early, so Eleanor and Park is headed to the big screen already. But some readers fear that in the hands of Hollywood, Eleanor and Park could change. In the book, Eleanor is overweight and Park is half Korean, two characteristics not often seen among leading men and ladies onscreen. In a Hollywood is notorious for whitewashing, casting this movie accurately would be nothing short of groundbreaking.
Who we’d cast:
Eleanor:
So few women are allowed to appear onscreen overweight that it was really tough just to find someone who might resemble Eleanor. We thought Emma Kenney could be a good fit (though she’s skinnier than Eleanor) but perhaps there’s a great unknown actress out there waiting to be discovered, too.
Park:
So few Asian actors are given big parts that it wasn’t easy to find a potential Park. But we think maybe Sam Tan could pull off that goth exterior and super-sweet center that make Park irresistible to Eleanor.
Killer of Enemies, by Joseph Bruchac
What it’s about: In the post-apocalyptic Southwest, Apache teenager Lozen works as a monster hunter in order to keep her family safe.
Why it should be a movie: Killer of Enemies is action-packed so it could pull in a wide audience, and the fight scenes between Lozen and the genetically-engineered monsters she hunts would be incredibly fun to watch. Plus, what’s the last movie you watched with a Native main character?
Who we’d cast:
Lozen:
If finding other casting options with hard, finding a Native actress to play Lozen was near impossible. But since Hollywood has a long history of whitewashing Native characters (Johnny Depp as Tonto, we’re looking at you) it’s extra-important that Lozen be played by a Native actress. We thought Amber Midthunder, who is an enrolled member of the Ft. Peck Sioux Indian Reservation, could be a good choice. But it would be nice if she weren’t the only choice.
The model who posted for the front cover could be a pretty good Lozen, too:
Hussein:
Lozen’s love interest Hussein is a musician, a sensitive listener who’s a good counterpart to Lozen’s stoic strength. We could see Avan Jogia balancing Lozen out pretty well.
What books are you hoping to see as movies? Who’s your dream cast? Let us know in the comments!
Eleanor and Park:
Although she is British and dark haired, Sharon Rooney, My Mad Fat Diary looks the part in her flannel shirt. Never seen the show and she’d have to be able to do convincing American accent to land the role of Eleanor, but it seems like British and Aussie actors have no problem with the Yank accent.
Dennis Oh is a half Korean/half Caucasian actor who I have never seen act but he looks the part of Park.
Shelley said, on 11/6/2014 11:27:00 AM
Ki Hong Lee from Maze Runner might make a good Park.
rgarcia406 said, on 11/6/2014 1:41:00 PM
Rebel Wilson could be a tad old, since she’s 28, but she could be a good fit for Eleanor if she dyes her hair red and speaks with an American accent!
keilinh said, on 11/6/2014 2:31:00 PM
Actress Marisa Quinn is half Lipan Apache, but she might be good in the role of Lozen.
This summer saw the release of Hercules (Radical Studios, dir. Brett Ratner). Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson took his place in the long line of strongmen to portray Greece’s most enduring icon. It was a lot of fun, and you should go see it. But, as one might expect from a Hollywood piece, the film takes a revisionist approach to the world of Greek myth, especially to its titular hero. A man of enormous sexual appetite, sacker of cities, and murderer of his own family, Hercules is glossed over here as a seeker of justice, characterized by his humanity and humility. And it is once again Hercules, not Heracles: the Romanized version loses the irony of the Greek, “Glory of Hera.”
This is neither the Hercules of ancient myth, nor is it the Hercules of Steve Moore’s graphic novel, Hercules: The Thracian Wars (Radical Comics, 2008), on which the film is loosely based. It is perhaps not surprising then that Moore fought to have his name removed from the project, at least according to long-time friend Alan Moore. Steve Moore died earlier this year and buried deep in the closing credits of the film is a dedication in his memory.
When he wrote his comic, Moore strove to fit his story into the world of Greek myth in a “realistic” way. Though the story (and that of its sequel, The Knives of Kush) is original, the characters and setting are consistent with the pseudo-historic Bronze Age of Greek legend. The film jettisons much of this careful integration for little narrative gain. I am never opposed to revisions to the myth (myth, after all, can be defined by its malleability), but why, for instance, set the opening of the film in Macedonia in 358 BCE instead of 1200? It adds nothing to the story, but confuses anyone with even a passing knowledge of Greek history — our heroes should be rubbing elbows with Philip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s father. The answer to this question, I suspect, is a sort of Wikipedial historicity: Hercules and his companions are hired by a fictional King Cotys, a name chosen by Moore as suitably Thracian — and there was a historical Cotys in 358.
A cover of Dell’s comic adaptation of the Hercules myth. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The Thracian Wars is set well after Hercules has completed his twelve labors: in the loose chronology of Greek myth, we are somewhere between the Calydonian Boar Hunt and the battle of the Seven Against Thebes. Hercules arrives in Thrace as a mercenary, along with his companions Iolaus, Tydeus, Autolycus, Amphiarus, Atalanta, Meleager, and Meneus, the only character made up by Moore. (The Hollywood film production jettisons those characters who might have LGBT overtones: Meneus is Hercules’s male lover, and Meleager is constantly frustrated by and therefore exposes Atalanta’s lesbianism.) Though no story of Greek myth involves all these characters, they all belong to roughly the same generation — the generation before the Trojan War. These characters could have interacted in untold stories.
But they don’t interact well. As Moore notes in the afterword to the trade paperback, “Hercules was a murderer, a rapist, a womanizer, subject to catastrophic rages and plainly bisexual…I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much time in his company.” The rest of the band is not much better. Where the film presents a band of brothers, faithful to each other to the death, in the comic these characters loathe each other and are clearly bound not by love of each other but the need to earn a living. They are mercenaries, with little interest in the morality of their actions.
Legendary Greece, then, is without a moral center. Violence and bloodshed are never far away. Sexual activity is fueled only by deceit or lust. The Greek characters speak of their Thracian surroundings as barbaric, but we are never shown any better. The art of the comic articulates this grim reality. Eyes are frequently lost in shadow, for instance, dehumanizing the characters further. Throughout, artist Admira Wijaya deploys a somber color palette of greys, browns, and muted reds to convey a bleak world.
This, then, is the great disconnect of Greek myth with the modern world. In our times, our heroes of popular culture must be morally pure; only black and white values can be understood. So-called “anti-heroes” are occasionally tolerated in marginal media, but even here their transgressions are typically mitigated somehow (think of the recent television series Dexter, in which the serial killer is validated by his targeting of other serial killers — the real bad guys). The heroes of Greek legend — the word “hero” itself only denoted those who performed memorable or noteworthy deeds, without a moral element — often existed solely because they were transgressors. Tantalus, Oedipus, Orestes: their stories are of broken taboos, stories of cannibalism, incest, kin-slaying. Later authors may have complicated their stories, but violation is at the core of their being.
Sure, the common people of ancient Greece benefited from Hercules’s actions as a slayer of monsters, but none of his actions were motivated by altruism. Rather, it was shame at best that moved him: in most tellings, his famous twelve labors were penance for the death of his family at his own hands. Many of his other deeds were motivated by hunger, lust, or just boredom. In the film, Johnson’s Hercules finds a sort of absolution for his past crimes. In the comic, redemption is not an objective; in fact, Hercules doesn’t even seem to recognize the concept.
Hercules is a figure of strength and power, a conqueror of the unknown, a slayer of dragons (and giant boars and lions). The Hercules of Hollywood shows us strength. The Hercules of myth — and of Moore’s comic — shows us the consequences of that strength when it’s not carefully contained. There is a primal energy there, a reflection of that part of our souls that is fascinated with, even desires, transgression. As healthy, moral humans, most of us conquer that fascination. But myth is our reminder that it always, always bears watching. Hollywood isn’t going to help you do that.
Featured image: An engraving from The Labours of Hercules by Hans Sebald Beham, c. 1545. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Don’t forget: If you are anywhere near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, shape a course for The Art Center (819 Ligonier Street) where I’ll talk about illustrating pirates this evening from 6:30 – 8:30. If you miss it, I’ll be at The Art Center again tomorrow morning 10:00 – 11:00ish (we need to clear the decks before noon—when some poor lubber’s wedding takes place).
First row: Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Carribean (2006). Second row: (left to right) Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate (1926); Robert Newton as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1950); Sherman the parrot; Errol Flynn as Captain Blood (1935). Third row: Charles Laughton as Captain Kidd (1945); (Charlton Heston as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1990); Dustin Hoffman as Hook (1991); Walter Matthau as Captain Red in Pirates (1986). Fourth row: Maureen O’Hara as Prudence ‘Spitfire’ Stevens in Against All Flags (1952); Laird Cregar as Sir Henry Morgan in The Black Swan (1942); Kevin Kline as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance (1983); Graham Chapman as Yellowbeard (1983).
0 Comments on Hoist your flagons! as of 9/19/2014 11:46:00 AM
Aye, Friday: the day we’ve been waiting for all year, International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Polish your hooks and sand your peg legs! If you are anywhere near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, set a course for The Art Center (819 Ligonier Street) where I’ll talk about illustrating pirates Friday evening from 6:30 – 8:30. If you miss it, I’ll be at The Art Center again Saturday morning 10:00 – noon.
To celebrate the big day, here is an illustration from P is for Pirate—a theater full of movie pirates. They range from freebooters of Hollywood’s Silent Era to today’s swashbuckling sea dogs.
How many can you name? I’ll post the answers tomorrow, by the powers!
1 Comments on Tomorrow be the big day, belike!, last added: 9/19/2014
This fun fall illustration was sent in and created by Lisa Fields. She is an illustrator based out of New York City, who is represented by CATugeau Artist Agency. She says she loves to focus on facial expression and color in her work. LisaFields.com
Seventeen World’s Top-Earning Authors: Veronica Roth, John Green And Gillian Flynn New on List
Young adult author Veronica Roth‘s ranks 6th on account of her “Divergent” trilogy which sold a combined 6.7 million copies in 2013, earning her around $17 million from print and ebook sales between June 2013 and June 2014. She also benefited from the book’s 2014 film adaption, which grossed $270 million at the global box office. At just 26, Roth is the youngest newcomer on the ranking, and one of seven women on the 17-person list.
37-year-old newcomer John Green’s ”The Fault in Our Stars”propelled him to an estimated $9 million yearly paycheck before taxes and fees. The YA love story, which follows the trials of two cancer-stricken teens, has sold well over 1 million copies in the U.S. and spawned a weepy summer blockbuster.
Green is tied for 12th place with Gillian Flynn, who joins the rankings for the first time due to the continued success of 2012′s “Gone Girl.” While not a YA book, it is a New York Times bestseller that sold 1.2 million copies in 2013; a movie version starring Ben Affleck hits cinemas this year.
A 2012 Bowker Market Research study suggested 55% of YA books are bought by people 18 and older. Adults aged between 30 and 44 accounted for 28% of all YA sales, and the books are purchased for their own reading the vast majority of the time.
“The category has reached adult audiences and really become okay to read,” said Lori Benton, VP Group Publisher at Scholastic Trade Publishing. “Harry Potter was the very first one to reach that audience – it was quickly embraced by children, and just as quickly by adults.”
With $14 million in earnings, the original young adult tour de force, J.K. Rowling, ranks 8th on our list. She continues to earn from back sales of her iconic Harry Potter series, while Pottermore – a proprietary website she setup to sell Harry Potter ebooks – makes her a pretty penny. Unlike most authors, Rowling never signed over the digital rights to her books, so she sells directly to readers, earning far more from these digital sales than most authors do through ebooks.
JUNE 2013 – JUNE 2014 TOP SEVENTEEN BEST SELLING AUTHORS – SIX ARE YOUNG ADULT BOOKS (Bolded)
Here’s the List:
ALEX CROSS and MICHAEL BENNETT series: James Patterson 90,000 million. His books account for one out of every 17 hardcover novels purchased in the United States.
INFERNO: Dan Brown 28 million
JEWELS OF THE SUN: Nora Roberts 23 million due to paperback and e-book sales.
A PERFECT LIFE: Danielle Steel 22 million
POWER PLAY: Janet Evanovich 20 million
WIMPY KID: Jeff Kinney 17 million
DIVERGENT Series: Veronica Roth 17 million
SYCAMORE ROW: John Grisham 17 million
DOCTOR SLEEP: Stephen King 17 million
HUNGER GAMES: Suzanne Collins 16 million
HARRY POTTER: J.K. Rowling 14 million
GAME OF THRONES: George R.R. Martin 12 million
KING AND MAXWELL: David Baldacci 11 million
THE HEROS OF OLYMPUS: Rick Riordan 10 million
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY: E.L. James 10 million (Sold 29 million copies in 2012 the U.S. alone. Sales dropped off in 2013 to a combined 1.8 million, but an upcoming movie could boost 2015.
GONE GIRL: Gillian Flynn 9 million
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: John Green 9 million
You too can join the list. All you need to do is write a great book, get a great Agent, how finds a great publisher, make all the Best Book Lists, sell it to a Hollywood Studio who brings it to the big screen then becomes a blockbuster hit and repeat year after year. So keep writing, because you don’t have a chance to make that happen any other way.
Clara Bow, whose birthday falls on 29 July, was the “it” girl of her time, making fifty-two films between 1922 and 1930. “Of all the lovely young ladies I’ve met in Hollywood, Clara Bow has ‘It,’” noted novelist Elinor Glyn. According to her entry in American National Biography, “With Cupid’s bow lips, a hoydenish red bob, and nervous, speedy movement, Bow became a national rage, America’s flapper. At the end of 1927 she was making $250,000 a year.”
In recognition of the numerous leading ladies of the early days of Hollywood, the American National Biography team has put together a quiz to test your knowledge of early Hollywood and its stars. Film buff or not, the experiences of these iconic actresses may surprise you.
Sarah Rahman is a Digital Product Marketing Intern at Oxford University Press. She is currently a rising junior pursuing a degree in English literature at Hamilton College.
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2014 is being heralded Hollywood’s “Year of the Bible.” The first film to reach theaters is Son of God, a remix of material by the same producers of the History Channel’s successful miniseries, The Bible.
It seems hardly a coincidence that Son of God opened on Ash Wednesday, ten years to the day after Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released. The promotional campaigns for both movies relied less on broad market advertising in favor of creating grassroots awareness in religious circles. Reportedly, over half-a-million advance tickets were sold across the nation.
After a strong opening weekend of over $20 million however, box office fell by more than 50 percent, then dropped to just over $5 million in its third week of release. Unlike The Passion, which earned over $370 million domestically, Son of God looks destined for humbler commercial prospects.
A perennial problem for evangelical moviemakers is that their efforts to mass-market the Gospel have to please the palette of born-again moviegoers who, despite the movie’s evangelistic purpose, remain critical to the film’s commercial prospects. What distinguishes evangelical art from its secular counterpart is what I call its confessional character; to qualify as “Christian” a movie has to contain a clear presentation of the gospel message. Son of God certainly meets this criteria. The result however, is that movie ends up preaching to the proverbial choir.
What I find interesting is the way Son of God caters to the Christian faithful while also attempting to make the Messiah’s story appealing to nonbelievers. Movies have to rely on a common cultural cache—ideals, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions—in order to connect with audiences. But the communicativeness of Son of God depends to a surprising extent on viewers having ample knowledge of the Christian Gospels.
The Son of God narrative lacks coherence and clumsily advances like a checklist of “the Messiah’s greatest hits,” as a Washington Post critic put it. Scenes are underdeveloped, but contain enough information to serve as prompts for those familiar with the Gospel accounts.
Consider Peter’s initial encounter with Jesus. As the scene unfolds, the lack of verisimilitude raises questions. Why would Peter, apparently an experienced fisherman, readily obey a complete stranger, set out, and cast his fishing nets again? And even after the astonishing catch, would Peter have not as much as a moment of hesitation when invited by the stranger to follow him? “What are we going to do?” he asks. “We are going to change the world,” Jesus replies. The cost of Christian discipleship is that simple.
However cryptic this encounter, there is just enough narrative information presented for a Christian viewer to “get” the significance of the scene by filling in any gaps with a mental flashforward: Peter, of course, is the rock upon which Jesus will build His church. Without such prior knowledge however, an uninformed viewer could easily find the scene contrived, puzzling, and even unbelievable.
Part of the power of this narrative viewpoint is that it shores up communal identity among the initiated who are aware that others won’t “get” these hidden meanings by virtue of being outsiders. To use a Biblical metaphor, the effect is akin to separating the sheep from the goats. The approach works as an extended metaphor with characters, like uniformed viewers, missing meanings to which only the faithful are privy.
During Pilate’s interrogation outside a prison cell, Jesus tells him, “My kingdom is not of this world.” On that line of dialogue, the Messiah’s head drops back and is engulfed in a ray of bright white light streaming down from above; the use of cinematography to make an all-too-obvious reference to Jesus’s “heavenly” kingdom. Before leaving, Pilate, looking perplexed, glances upwards at the light. The gesture is intended, I assume, to signify that the Roman prefect doesn’t “get” Jesus’s meaning (even if it looks more like he is wondering, as I was, about the mysterious light source in the otherwise dark dungeon). That Christian spectators do understand makes for a cinematic moment of solidarity.
Wrestling with the messianic character has been the raison d’etre of Jesus movies. The ascetic depiction of Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) leans on the divine side; Jesus being tormented with fear, doubt, and sexual fantasies in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) emphasizes the Messiah’s humanity. It is fair to expect any retelling of the Christ story to justify itself by offering a new perspective. The Son of God however, provides a straightforward, simplistic, and rather unimaginative version of the Christ story, representing Jesus as entirely free of any fear, temptation, reluctance, or uncertainty. In short, there is nothing thought-provoking about this movie’s treatment of God-become-flesh. (Although I do wonder why even the most reverent efforts ignore the prophet Isaiah’s description of the coming Messiah as having “no beauty that we should desire him” (53:2).)
Son of God is not meant to be great cinematic art. Apparently, the producers’ single-minded purpose is to provide a clear and unambiguous cinematic statement so that moviegoers “may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20: 31). Unfortunately, this approach leaves much to be desired aesthetically and religiously. As the Washington Post critic observes, “Son of God is nothing if not sincere, its earnest retelling of Jesus’s life story resembling a gentle, pop-up book version of the New Testament, its text reenacted for maximum reassurance and intellectual ease.” Even a reviewer for the evangelical flagship magazine Christianity Today admits that “watching Son of God was not a dreadful experience, but it wasn’t a particularly inspirational or entertaining one, either.”
Others trace the film’s lack of originality to the merchandizing of The Bible miniseries, which is available on DVD now along with other inspired products. For that reason, Variety dubbed this theatrical spinoff “a cynical cash grab” and one religious reviewer took it to be more a “marketing ploy” than a movie.
Nevertheless, to the extent that Son of God was crafted as a matinee affirmation of the Christian faith, its success in that regard might well come at the expense of welcoming the uninitiated.
With the Oscars round the corner, we’re delving into Film: A Very Short Introduction. Here’s an extract from Chapter 3 of Michael Wood’s book. In this extract he looks at the industry and the role of the moviegoer.
Film began as a very small business, a dramatic invention but a tiny piece of the world of entertainment. It was an act among others in a variety show. Very soon, though, there were shows composed only of films, and there were special places for their showing. A cinema called the Nickleodeon opened in Pittsburgh in 1905, and by 1907 there were 4,000 such places in the United States. Something resembling an industry developed in France, Italy, England, and Germany too, and audiences grew and grew across the world. Studios were born. Pathé and Gaumont in France; UFA in Germany; Universal, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount in the USA. Hollywood itself, a small Californian town surrounded by orange groves, became a movie settlement because of its steady weather (and because California was thought to be far enough away from the lawsuits that rained down on experimenters and investors in New York). Something like the contours of later patterns of film-making began to form. Stars began to glitter. And above all, money began to gleam.
A whole support system blossomed: publicity machinery, fan magazines, prizes, record-kepping. Box-office results became the equivalent of sporting scores, or world championship boxing.
Avatar (2009) is the largest grossing picture ever made, unless we adjust for inflation, in which case the title goes to Gone with the Wind (1939), and Avatar moves to fourteenth place. The American Academy of Moton Pictures awarded its first Oscars in 1929, and has awarded them every year since. Programmes developed from sets of short films to single feature films plus supporting entries; and from there to the two film diet that was standard fare for so long. By 1929, 90 million cinema tickets were sold each week in America, with figures proportionally similar elsewhere. There were ups and downs during the Depression and the Second World War, but the figure had reached one hundred million by 1946. By 1955, however, the number was down to 46 million, not a whole lot more than the 40 million or so of 1922. Movie-houses, of which a little more later, rose and fell, naturally enough, to the same rhythm: there were 20,000 in America in 1947 and 11,000 in 1959.
Programmes often changed midweek, and shows were continuous, so you could come in at the middle of a film and stay till you got the middle again. Hence the now almost unintelligible phrase “This is where we came in”. There is a remarkable piece by the humorist Robert Benchley about a game he liked to play. Arriving, say, twenty minutes into a film, he would give himself five minutes to reconstruct the plot so far. Then he would interpret everything that followed in the light of his reconstruction. He would stay on to see how close he was – or pretend to see. He claimed many movies were improved by his method.
Theories of the Seventh Art arose, as well as plenty of attacks of the mindlessness of moviegoers. It was in reaction to one such attack that Walter Benjamin devloped an important piece of the argument of his essay “The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” (various versions between 1935 and 1939). The French novelist George Duhamel had included an onslaught on cinema in his witty and gloomy book on America, Scénes de la vie future (1930). The relevant chapter is titled ‘cinematographic interlude or the entertainment of the free citizen’, and within the text, the cinema is called, in the same mode of a grand irony, a sanctury, a temple, an abyss of forgetfulness, and the cave of the monster. Duhamel says that film ‘requires no kind of effort’ and ‘presupposes no capacity for consecutive thought’, ‘aucune suite dans les idées.’ Benjamin agrees that film audiences are distracted but claims that there are forms of distraction that may function as localized, medium-specific attention. ‘Even the distracted person’ he says, thinking of the moviegoer, ‘can form habits. ‘The audience’ he adds, ‘is an examiner, but a distracted one’.
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Twenty-fourteen is a big year here in Oil City, Pennsylvania. It was 100 years ago, just a couple of doors up from my studio address, that Charlie Chaplin signed his first movie deal with Mack Sennett. Charlie was performing at the Lyric Theater with Fred Karno’s comedy troupe and met Sennett in between acts to sign the contract. Here’s a detailed account of Charlie’s early career.
I was approached by the Friends of the Library to create a stand-alone cut-out of Charlie. They wanted him big—8 feet tall. I went over to the library to see where Charlie would be installed and discovered that there is not very much floor space but there is ample height—the main floor’s ceiling is about 16 feet high. I scrapped the drawing I’d done of Charlie standing and drew Charlie suspended, using his cane as a hook. I think this pose fits his acrobatic style.
I enlarged my drawing onto pieces of foam board. The project is 3 ply, so that I could paint front & back without it warping. His arm has a center of plywood and his cane itself is 3 pieces of plywood laminated together, since it supports the whole piece.
He is painted with acrylic in black & white, of course!
For both the reader and the writer, endings are extremely powerful things. I know I feel like celebrating when I’ve typed the words THE END on a manuscript, even though I’m fully aware that in the life of a finished manuscript the hard work has only just begun. Which type of ending did I go for? Fairy Tale, Hollywood, Bollywood or Hopeless?
Fairy tale endings represent the typical ‘happily ever after’ ending, as in the Hansel and Gretel variety.
Hollywood endings are much more sugary, (sometimes sickly) sweet happily ever after endings with everyone riding off into the sunset.
Bollywood endings are happy endings too, but tempered by the extreme tragedies that have taken place; and they’re happy because everyone, who hasn’t died, is reunited at the end.
Hopeless endings are few and far between, and rarely have a place in children’s literature.
I don’t tend to write light humorous stories, oh, okay, I’ll be honest – my writing is actually quite dark. The Long Weekend was a story of two boys who are abducted after school. It’s labelled by the publishers as ‘not suitable for younger readers’ without stating a specific age on the back of the book. The boys are eleven years old, so you might think it was suitable for perhaps ten year olds to read. Well, it might be for a few. It’s the kind of book that cannot have a hopeless ending because it is for kids and because of what happens in the book. My agent actually asked me to write an epilogue because she was of the opinion that you could not end a children’s book, particularly a book like The Long Weekend, without some element of hope for the reader to take away at the end. I think she was right.
When I read books as a child ...and they lived happily ever after, was an ending I expected. I read lots of fairy tales from all across the world and they always ended like this too, no matter what terrible things had befallen the main characters. Years later when I read books to my young son, little had changed. They nearly all had happy endings. I remember once finding a book in the library that didn’t end happily and reading it to him. When we reached the end, he was really angry at the writer for not writing a proper ending. He’s a teenager now and although he still reads teen/YA fiction, he also reads adult books. I asked him about a book he read recently – Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower, and he said, “It’s full of broken dreams,” but it’s really good. I haven’t read it yet, but I guess its ending must not be so dark, or maybe because he’s a little older he’s more ready for the occasional ‘hopeless’ ending.
I guess we’re generally conditioned to expect the happy ending. I suspect it’s what most children want, and perhaps what most adults want too. Imagine reading lots of books where the whole book is dark and grim and the ending no less so, the outcome so hopeless that you wonder what frame of mind the writer was in, or what he or she had gone through in their life, to end a book in that way.
Numerous studies have shown that a person’s reaction to a traumatic event can be significantly leavened by an ending that is positive – as long as the peak pain felt during the experience is less than the pain experienced at the end.
Recently, debate has intensified with regards to the darkness in teenage literature, specifically the supposed rise in ‘Sick Lit’. Alongside the waves of paranormal romances and dark dystopian thrillers, are readers looking for escapism or to be protected from dark issues and themes? Is it time for a return to ‘lighter’ teen/YA fiction? Or should we be encouraging authors to continue to explore the dark themes that teenagers need help coping with?
I’ll be interested in hearing what other authors and industry professionals have to say, but regarding endings specifically, I think most people would want an All’s Well That Ends Well ending.
Interesting post - I can remember reading a book, which I loved the whole way through. When I got to the ending it was 'hopeless' - it upset me at the time, although admittedly suited the book better. Perhaps all sad endings should have a warning just before you read it, or an alternative happier ending as well? x Tammie
Tolkein, in his essay 'On Fairytales' said that to be a true fairytale, there must be a happy ending.
But we are not discussing fairytales here and different rules apply. I think an ending in a children's book doesn't have to subscribe to the rules of the traditional 'happy ending' scenario - there can be more honesty than that - but it should leave the protagonist at least having learned positive lessons and better able to continue into the future beyond the end of the book.
So maybe a reasonable option is 'the positive ending' which, as a consequence of realism, need not necessarily be happy.
Austin, I agree that for certain children's stories a 'lessons learnt' ending is more honest, as long as it's generally positive. It's the desolate, 'unhappy' ending which seems to be unnacceptable to children, particularly younger ones.
Brecht said: THERE MUST BE HAPPY ENDINGS, MUST, MUST, MUST! And Catherine Storr (Marianne dreams and Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf) said: you can have a SAD ending but not a hopeless one. It was wrong, she thought. to leave kids who are reading the book with NO RAY OF LIGHT WHATEVER at the end. Which is what 'hopeless' is. Not the same thing at all as a sad ending which can be full of sadness but still leave a glimpse of a possible future/redemption etc. I like happy endings myself...don't mind people walking off into the sunset one bit. What I can't bear is books that don't end properly. Books in which it's up to the reader to decide what happens. I call that a shifting of a writer's responsibility on to the reader. Ambiguity can be a strange sort of ending too...leaving you puzzled but not satisfied. Has to be as strong as the beginning I reckon. My favourite ending of all is the Great Gatsby...
I agree that a sad ending is not necessarily the same as a hopeless one - I do think children can cope with a bit of sadness, but not total bleakness. One of my favourite books as a young teenager was Beau Geste (odd, I know, but I read it about 10 times...) I was desperately sad about the fact that Beau died, but there were other characters to identify with that made it through to the end and gave you that satisfying 'all cried out but ready to smile again' feeling.
I agree - sad is not the same as hopeless, and for me, as I said in the blog, hopeless has no place in children's literature, or even in teen literature. I think we could all cope with a sad ending - as long as there is the glimmer of hope amongst it. I would love to write 'happily ever after' endings, but my stories never seem to co-operate with me!
I think if you're telling a story to children it has to end happily. It can be as ghastly and miserable and scary as you like on the way there but it has to be resolved positively. Prefer it if characters change and grow on the way though, don't like the Hollywood formula of the status quo being maintained at the end.
For adults though, I think its different. Some of my favourite endings are ambiguous at the least. I'm thinking of Daphne du Maurier's 'The Birds' (the book not the film) which almost doesn't have an ending at all. And 'Angels with Dirty Faces' (OK a film not a book but we're talking Hollywood endings) where you never really work out what happened.
And then there are the really tragic gut wrenching endings. The last paragraph of Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' left me feeling like I'd been slapped in the face. And I still love the end of 'Planet of the Apes' (I know, another film).
I like an ending which somehow sums up the experience of the whole and leaves you with something long after you've put the book down (or left the cinema).
Anyone seen 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'? Saw it a month ago and I'm still thinking about it.
Jeremy - Things Fall Apart got me too. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is a gut-wrenching story, but if you haven't had a chance to read it I won't spoil the ending. Let's just say it's not a Hollywood ending! I agree that in kid's lit, the ending has to be positive, particularly if the story has been dark. I haven't seen Martha Marcy May Marlene, but I'll look out for it.
Today represents a red letter day — and a black mark – for US cultural history. Exactly 98 years ago, D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation premiered in Los Angeles. American cinema has been decisively shaped, and shadowed, by the massive legacy of this film.
D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) was one of the more contradictory artists the United States has produced. Deeply Victorian in his social outlook, he was nevertheless on the leading edge of modernity in his aesthetics. A committed moralist in his cinematic ideology, he was also a shameless huckster in promoting his movies. And a self-avowed pacifist, he produced a piece of work that incited violence and celebrated the most damaging insurrection in American history.
The source material for Birth of a Nation came from two novels, The Leopard’s Spots: A Romance of the White Man’s Burden (1902) and The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905), both written by Griffith’s Johns Hopkins classmate, Thomas Dixon. Dixon drew on the common-sense version of history he imbibed from his unreconstructed Confederate forebears. According to this master narrative, the Civil War was as a gallant but failed bid for independence, followed by vindictive Yankee occupation and eventual redemption secured with the help of organizations like the Klan.
But Dixon’s fiction, and the subsequent screenplay (by Griffith and Frank E. Woods), was a literal and figurative romance of reconciliation. The movie dramatizes the relationships between two (related) families, the Camerons of South Carolina and the Stonemans of Pennsylvania. The evil patriarch of the latter is Austin Stoneman, a Congressman with a limp very obviously patterned on the real-life Thaddeus Stevens. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Stevens comes, Carpetbagger-style, and uses a brutish black minion, Silas Lynch(!), whose horrifying sexual machinations focused, ironically and naturally, on Stoneman’s own daughter are only arrested by at the last minute, thanks to the arrival of the Klan in a dramatic finale that has lost none of its excitement even in an age of computer-generated imagery.
Historians agree that Griffith, a former actor who directed hundreds of short films in the years preceding Birth of a Nation, was not a cinematic pioneer along the lines of Edwin S. Porter, whose 1903 proto-Western The Great Train Robbery virtually invented modern visual grammar. Instead, Griffith’s genius was three-fold. First, he absorbed and codified a series of techniques, among them close-ups, fadeouts, and long shots, into a distinctive visual signature. Second, he boldly made Birth of a Nation on an unprecedented scale in terms of length, the size of the production, and his ambition to re-create past events (“history with lightning,” in the words of another classmate, Woodrow Wilson, who screened the film at the White House). Finally, in the way the movie was financed, released and promoted, Griffith transformed what had been a disreputable working-class medium and staked its power as a source of genuine artistic achievement. Even now, it’s hard not to be awed by the intensity of Griffith’s recreation of Civil War battles or his re-enactments of events like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
But Birth of a Nation was a source of instant controversy. Griffith may have thought he was simply projecting common sense, but a broad national audience, some of which had lived through the Civil War, did not necessarily agree. The film’s release also coincided with the beginnings of African American political mobilization. As Melvyn Stokes shows in his elegant 2009 book D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, the film’s promoters and its critics alike found the controversy surrounding it curiously symbiotic, as moviegoers flocked to see what the fuss was about and the fledgling National Association for the Advancement of Colored People used the film’s notoriety to build its membership ranks.
Birth of a Nation never escaped from the original shadows that clouded its reception. Later films like Gone with the Wind (1939), which shared much of its political outlook, nevertheless went to great lengths to sidestep controversy. (The Klan is only alluded to as “a political meeting” rather than depicted the way it was in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel.) Today Birth is largely an academic curio, typically viewed in settings where its racism looms over any aesthetic or other assessment.
In a number of respects, Steven Spielberg’s new film Lincoln is a repudiation of Griffith. In Birth, Lincoln is a martyr whose gentle approach to his adversaries is tragically severed with his death. But in Lincoln he’s the determined champion of emancipation, willing to prosecute the war fully until freedom is secure. The Stevens character of Lincoln, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is not quite the hero. But his radical abolitionism is at least respected, and the very thing that tarred him in Birth — having a secret black mistress — here becomes a badge of honor. Rarely do the rhythms of history oscillate so sharply. Griffith would no doubt be bemused. But he could take such satisfaction in the way his work has reverberated across time.
For Jim Cullen’s selection of films all history and film buffs should see, watch his video syllabus.
Noah Hawley is a novelist and screenwriter (Lies and Alibis, The Unusuals) whose latest book, The Good Father: A Novel, is the powerful story of a man trying to understand and defend his son, who stands accused of a terrible crime.
In this exclusive guest post, Hawley talks about the secret to Hollywood success and how little a pitch has to do with actual writing.
I started The Good Father in 2007. I put it down twice in order to create and run two television shows. In the fall of 2010 I finished the book. As we were about to submit the finished manuscript to publishers, a disturbed young man in Arizona shot a congresswomen and six other people in a supermarket parking lot. Jared Loughner, the latest in a long line of lone gunman that America has produced.
Immediately in the aftermath of the shooting, my agent and I decided to put off the sale.
Over the next few weeks I went back and incorporated references to Loughner’s crime into the novel. The Good Father is a novel that explores the lone gunman archetype, presenting case studies (assembled by Dr. Allen) of shooters like Sirhan Sirhan and John Hinkley. I felt I would have been remiss in not addressing this latest shooting in the novel. The truth is, it would have been the first thing Dr. Allen thought of after his son was arrested, the first case study he would have compiled. He was looking for his son in Loughner’s eyes, asking, could my son have done what he did?
This unorthodox approach to storytelling is not something you could pitch in a room full of studio executives. If you tried to sell them a story that followed both a father and a son, and also present non-fiction histories of famous assassins, they would say that it sounds very “execution dependent,” which is a phrase they use. “Execution dependent” describes a film or TV idea that can only be successful is if it is written and directed and acted well. The success of the venture, in other words, is in the execution of the material. Which, in Hollywood, is no sure thing. The Amazing Spider-Man is going to make a billion dollars no matter how good it is, is their logic. But a complicated drama told in two time periods with a history lesson to boot, requires risk and skill, and that’s a gamble.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t have to pitch this story to anyone. There was no segue, no bottled water or receiving line of handshakes with a view of swaying palm trees. I just sat down and started writing. Which is what a writer does, everywhere except in Hollywood.
STATUS: Popped in on a Saturday to finish up a few things. This afternoon Chutney and I are heading into the mountains for a nice long hike.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? THE MORE I SEE YOU by Michael Buble
Kudos to blog reader and commenter Elizabeth who manned up and explained the appeal of 50 Shades of Grey. Just in case you didn't catch her comment in that section, I'm including Elizabeth's post in its entirety.
I'll man up. I read the hell out of it. All three installments in two and a half days. 800,000 words. BOOM. Just like that. I think I gave it four stars on Goodreads or something.
And here's why: I couldn't put it down.
True, it's technically a mess. It's randomly punctuated. The dialogue is all over the place. The characters are bipolar. The sex is vanilla. Typos abound (at one point Christian stared at Ana like "a bacon in the night" which made a weird sort of sense, actually). Ana has this really weird habit of doing figure skating jumps off gymnastics apparatuses. And it started out as fanfic, which I get the impression I'm supposed to be all up in arms about. But holy cow. Do you know the last time I read that many words in such a short period of time? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Here's what I think people don't understand: Good hardly ever factors into popular or entertaining. People aren't going to youtube, for example, to watch someone do something meaningful or profound. They're going to watch some guy stick a lit firecracker up his bum. I would rather see Sharktopus than The English Patient. That's just how I roll.
So there's something to be said for things that are a little bit campy. I'm a little bit campy. So are my friends. When I got to the point in the book where I realized it was going to be one THOSE stories (I didn't see a lot of Twilight in 50 Shades, but it totally read like "crack-fic" fan-fiction), the first thing I did was go on Facebook and tell two of my friends, "Hey, you have to read this." Because it was absolutely the kind of book they would love. And they did love it.
Nine copies sold between the three of us. We all felt like we got our money's worth. Not because it was good, remember, but because it spoke that little spot in our hearts that loves those kinds of stories. The fact that it was kind of poorly written just made it that much better.
And I can't explain why that is. I don't know why this book, with its myriad of flaws, the least of which being its word count, held me captive in a way that other, arguably "better" books didn't.
I loved that she was willing to simply be honest and put her reaction to the book out there. For me, I'm thinking this book is kind of like trends that happen in other mediums. There's no easy or clear explanation. It just happens and something becomes wildly popular. For example, the phenom of Ugg Boots (which are not particularly attractive) or croc shoes for that matter. The youtube phenom for Randall's narration of National Geographic footage: The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger.
There's a spark. It taps into some zeitgeist. There's no explaining it and quite frankly, I don't think we have to. It is what it is.
For me, I'm not sure I would recognize it under all the flaws. I couldn't get past the writing and a lot of groan worthy dialogue. But in the end, who cares what I think. The public has spoken and in the end, that's the opinion that matters.
20 Comments on Slightly Less Opaque Grey For Me, last added: 4/3/2012
Back when self publishing was brand spanking new, I picked up plenty of it. I found some gems: great story and characters, mediocre execution and no editing. I recognized its flaws while enjoying the heck out of it.
Then I started writing and participating in critique groups and, lastly, working with editors. At this point it's almost impossible to ignore big errors, even for a good story. I consider this a loss for me. I'm the one who doesn't get to enjoy them.
The online publishing folks have been giving 50 Shades a lot of grief, but we were always the wrong audience.
A Curious Writer said, on 3/31/2012 1:08:00 PM
Here's my question about 50 Shades, and its viability. If there's nearly 90% similarity between 50 shades and the original fanfiction, then how is the publisher going to handle the download issue.
Fanfiction is archived where anyone can access and read it at will, for free. Master of the Universe is still available in fanfiction archives. The author's publisher can't prosecute for "illegal" downloads of a book that's fanfiction of a property owned by another publisher. So, readers can take a copy of the free fanfiction, search/replace the names and location, and they've got an instant copy of 50 Shades without pirating it.
I think the writer has taken down MOTU, I was trying to check out the fan fiction.
Although I have not read 50 Shades Of Grey I am in a writing zone in which in order to learn and grow as a writer I feel reading books that are well written will further help me develop my skills,situations like FSOG stump me, because if plenty of people like something then poor writing, editing is forgivable. =o/
I can't enjoy badly-written books. Maybe that means I miss out on some good stories, but typos, awkward dialogue, fatty sentences, and all the rest pull me out of the book. They make me painfully aware what I am reading is a book, not a world.
Cassandra said, on 3/31/2012 4:42:00 PM
To me it is appalling--and heartbreaking--that this utterly unreadable bilge has been picked up by publishers and Hollywood, for enormous amounts of money. Not because it's erotica or porn, but because it is BAD. I get that sometimes you just want junk food. But this is junk food that is spoiled and moldy, and it doesn't excuse anything to say, "Yes, but never mind--it's so spicy you won't taste the mold." I wonder whether those who claim that they've read the whole thing really read every word, or, like me with the excerpts on Amazon, began very rapidly skimming after the first chapter, looking for the hot spots among the drivel (there aren't any in the excerpts).
Because of all the money thrown at this, hundreds of vastly better books (of whatever genre) will never be published. To publishers who'll think that readers can't tell when something stinks, or that readers don't care, and will rush to pump out more works like this--well, knock yourselves out. But I won't be buying it.
Anonymous said, on 3/31/2012 5:24:00 PM
The author may have taken down MotU, but the nature of fanfiction is that it's shared and archived places the author has no ability to remove it.
It's not my cuppa, but MotU is definitely still out there, in full.
To each their own and I give props to the commenters who can own their guilty pleasures.
But as a writer, I don't strive to write popular. I strive to write quality. Of course, my goal is to be read but I'd rather leave a quality piece of writing that lives on to select few after I'm dead than write a madly popular piece of pop culture.
But again, to each their own. There is plenty of room on the book shelves for more than our individual tastes.
As Keylocke said, we don't write to follow the popular trend. We don't write to be like everything else. We write to put forth OUR visions. We write to share OUR ideas. And, all to often, we get cast adrift because we don't follow the current fad. But we don't give up, as doisheartening as it gets, we continue. Get over the fad, get over the idea of following the trend like a lemming. Be the writer within YOU.
I haven't read the book, but I have been struggling with questions like these for years. Why does one horribly flawed artist / musician / writer find success when superior craftsmen do not? It could be that there is a market for this kind of thing, or that the universe is ultimately random and unfair. Or, it could be that what she does right turned out to be more important than what she does wrong.
Look, no writing is perfect. We all have our flaws. The best we can hope for is that our strengths overpower our weaknesses. Unfortunately, the reading public sometimes surprises us with the strengths they choose to value.
For years, the best selling jazz single on iTunes was "What a wonderful world" sung by Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was a jazz legend as a band leader. But as a vocalist? Pure glottal fry. He did everything wrong as far as vocal technique was concerned. But there is something special about the way he sang that makes you want to smile. Maybe it was his enthusiasm, his honesty, or his complete lack of pretense. I don't know what it was, but it is still selling records today. Thousands of well trained classical singers can't match that.
I'm not comparing this writer to Lois Armstrong. Judging by the comments, that may not be appropriate. But, it's evident that she did something right somewhere.
I enjoyed reading all the comments and reactions. Great topic. And LOL on Ugg boots. My hubby thinks they're ugly. Yet they never seem yo go out of style do they?
Ugg boots are the best things in winter. They look shit-house and they get damn smelly, but it's all worth it for how warm your toes are kept. I guess that's what Elizabeth means when she's talking about that book. It looks bad but it's worth it for the entertainment.
I think some of the reasons people are upset about this is because we're thinking about it wrong. There seems to be a lot of response of the "oh no! How could the publishers publish such a horrible thing?" And that, in my mind, is a little foolish. Publishers are not a moral authority. When they try to be a moral authority, that's when we get censorship. Publishing is a business, and if they think they can make money off of a book, why not? It's not like they're making money hand over fist these days.
"50 Shades of Grey is trash thus Fanfiction is trash and vice versa." I'm not going to talk about the legality of fanfiction, because that's not my business, not being an IP lawyer, but the culture of fanfiction is what's really interesting. Fanfiction is what I see when I see the self-publishing boom taking off. Fanfiction.net is colloquially known as the 'pit of voles' because it is a pit, filled with obsessive people and terrible stories (and me). It is also a great place to get people to read your work, to share the thing you enjoyed writing and get more enjoyment knowing that other people liked it too. And that is the only payment you get.
There's no way to market a fic. Maybe posting in some places you get more readers. Word of mouth works really well. But unless people like it, people don't comment, and the comment is ready cash to the fic writer.
My point is that fanfiction may be poorly written, utterly unedited, sloppy, inexperienced, (and don't make me talk about the inevitable high-school AU), but it's written because the writer enjoyed it, and often that enjoyment transmits itself straight to the reader. So honestly, I'm happy for 'Icy,' because she did something she enjoyed and was a success.
Isn't that what we all want, to do something we enjoy and be successful? When we start to get bitter and upset and shrill and admittedly jealous, that enjoyment gets corrupted. And who wants to read a story that the author didn't enjoy writing? Not me, but then clearly I have no standards, because I read fanfiction.
I didn't read the book, not for any lofty reason, just wasn't interested. My to-be-read list is a mile long so if something doesn't grab me it doesn't get read.
I would however counter the argument that because this book was published other more deserving books weren't. It could be argued the opposite. This book will earn big cash for the publisher. Money they can use to invest in other projects. To me it's like when Snooki writes a book. (and by write here I'm assuming writes a check for a ghost writer to do the actual writing) That book will sell. I wish it wouldn't. I wish people were more interested in other books by less well known people, but the truth is they aren't. Sales of that book can pay for other books to be written.
Then I harbour the hope that someone who doesn't think of themselves as a reader, picks up a junk food book, decides they like it and then moves on to reading other things.
One man's trash is another man's treasure. It is that simple. Some of the most talented musicians in the world have never made a dime while lesser talents are mega rich. I have not read this novel, but from every synopsis, article, blog I have read, it has no appeal for me. I am not going to disown someone if they think it is the cat's meow.
That all being said, Kristin, love reading your blogs and how you have so many great links on here. I wish you continued success!
Readers read faster than writers write. One book's popularity does not hurt sales of other writer's books. If anything, it helps all book sales, because very few readers will read ONLY one author's work. If a novel makes people excited about reading, all writers should be glad.
That said, yes it's discouraging to struggle with improving my skills, only to see sloppy, bloated drivel catch fire with the public. Nobody said life was fair.
That book would definitely not interest me, but I understand when she says she likes campy things. I liked the movie Lost in Space, which astonished people, because I liked the kitschiness of it.
There are many wonderful books being published today. However, I have to wonder why many don't finish books they purchase, especially fiction. Many of the books I purchase I end up not finishing because the story just doesn't seem to grab me. I also must be honest and say that is the case with fiction over nonfiction. It's probably a matter of my personal taste but this is something I hear from many readers ragarding the books they read. My point in mentioning this is only to confirm the implication (in the post) that it is the reading public that really matters.
Still, we have to trust agents and others in the industry on their instincts since they know what sells based on various patterns.
STATUS: Just finished our first Pub Rants Video Webinar. I had a blast. We definitely need to tweak some things for next one though. If you were there, thank you for being our first guinea pigs!
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? SHOW ME THE MEANING OF BEING LONELY by Backstreet Boys
While on the train to Venice (and boy do I like saying a statement like that--makes me sound so cosmopolitan) Simone Elkeles's friend Nanci had a copy of 50 Shades of Grey.
You'd have to be living under a rock not to have heard about this title. But just in case you have been, here is a link to get you up to speed. It's been in all the publishing news as of late. It's an erotica novel that started life as Twilight fan fiction and then went viral a couple of weeks ago. So there was a big publishing deal and then the movie rights sold just this week.
If something is getting that much attention, it's probably worth an hour of my time to give it a look so I asked Nanci if I could borrow her copy. I read several chapters and I have to admit, I'm not getting it. To be honest, if it had come in via our slush pile, I would have passed on it without requesting a full. I didn't connect with the characters or find myself enmeshed in the writing. Now granted, this genre is not my bailiwick so that's going to be a factor.
Still, it's obviously tapping into some cultural zeitgeist and on that point, I'm curious. It obviously works for a lot of other people so I'd like to know why.
So blog readers, if you read and liked it, share with me because I'm genuinely curious to know.
28 Comments on I'd Say 100% Solid Grey For Me, last added: 4/2/2012
I haven't read it, but I have a large number of friends who have. They all find it alluring. The way Grey 'dominates,' is what appeals to them the most.
I don't think I need to read it myself, the dramatic excerpt Cookie Monster does is entertainment enough for me.
From the couple of excerpts I could read, I agree with a few of the reviews that seem to be in the minority; it is not engaging, and it kind of falls flat in storytelling. Like it's a tennis match between the characters' actions.
I was also not a fan of the Twilight series, movies or books.
In my opinion M.R. Merrick got it in one with the dominating angle.
I haven't read it either. I'm not into Twilight and haven't read that series either. It just didn't appeal to me and I don't have time to read books I don't like.
I started it for the same reason you did, and had about the same reaction. I'm guessing a lot of the hype is due to it's Twilight connection? I don't know. I don't read this genre normally, so I'm waiting to hear a friend of mine's opinion because she's more familiar with erotica.
I haven't heard of it myself, but if it started as a Twilight fanfic gone viral, then you'll probably find it's all of the Twi-hards that are going for it. If it's anything like Twilight in it's current form, I'll probably be among those saying 'meh' to it. But I guess I can't judge for myself until I read it.
I'll man up. I read the hell out of it. All three installments in two and a half days. 800,000 words. BOOM. Just like that. I think I gave it four stars on Goodreads or something.
And here's why:
I couldn't put it down.
True, it's technically a mess. It's randomly punctuated. The dialogue is all over the place. The characters are bipolar. The sex is vanilla. Typos abound (at one point Christian stared at Ana like "a bacon in the night" which a weird sort of sense, actually). Ana has this really weird habit of doing figure skating jumps off gymnastics apparatuses. And it started out as fanfic, which I get the impression I'm supposed to be all up in arms about. But holy cow. Do you know the last time I read that many words in such a short period of time? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Here's what I think people don't understand: Good hardly ever factors into popular or entertaining. People aren't going to youtube, for example, to watch someone do something meaningful or profound. They're going to watch some guy stick a lit firecracker up his bum. I would rather see Sharktopus than The English Patient. That's just how I roll.
So there's something to be said for things that are a little bit campy. I'm a little bit campy. So are my friends. When I got to the point in the book where I realized it was going to be one THOSE stories (I didn't see a lot of Twilight in 50 Shades, but it totally read like "crack-fic" fan-fiction), the first thing I did was go on Facebook and tell two of my friends, "Hey, you have to read this." Because it was absolutely the kind of book they would love. And they did love it.
Nine copies sold between the three of us. We all felt like we got our money's worth. Not because it was good, remember, but because it spoke that little spot in our hearts that loves those kinds of stories. The fact that it was kind of poorly written just made it that much better.
And I can't explain why that is. I don't know why this book, with its myriad of flaws, the least of which being its word count, held me captive in a way that other, arguably "better" books didn't.
Tori said, on 3/30/2012 8:07:00 AM
Kristin, I'm one of the guinea pigs who registered/paid but somehow did not receive the log-in info. Suggestions for how I check the program out later? Thanks!
I have to agree with Natalie--I don't have time to read what doesn't appeal to me. Nor am I someone who jumps on the bandwagon because "everyone" is raving about a book. I haven't read Twilight or Hunger Games. When I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for my book group, I got so bogged down in backstory that I stopped reading after about 50 pages. I didn't get the draw...
I write erotic romance (along with mainstream romance) so the subject matter doesn't phase me, but 50 Shades of Grey is all about hype from what I can tell.
A lot of people liked Eragon, too. The "public" isn't as fussy about writing skills as most writers, editors, and agents are. I can't get into a story when the writing is a mess, but that isn't a problem for a lot of people.
It happens in movies and television, too. Things that are critically acclaimed sometimes bomb in the ratings or box office, and sometimes complete trash becomes an overnight blockbuster.
As they say, different strokes for different folks.
This is not a genre I would normally pick up, but I just had to see what all the fuss was about. I read the sample online at Amazon and I was hooked. I downloaded the book onto my Kindle and read it in one day. The next day I bought the 2nd book. Currently I'm reading the 3rd.
Is this a well-written book by writerly standards? No. Is this great literature? Not a chance. BUT I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN. The last book I couldn't put down was The Hunger Games. That, in my opinion, makes it a 5-star read.
Why couldn't I put it down? To be honest, I'm not really sure. I think it was a really compelling character (Christian Grey) I wanted to get to know better and an impossible f-ed up relationship. And like those relationships in real life, once you get caught up in one, it's hard to get out.
Anonymous said, on 3/30/2012 9:43:00 AM
I agree with @Elizabeth. I'll own up. I think she made the argument very well. I couldn't put it down, even if my teeth hurt a bit from the sweetness afterward. It's fluff, so what? ANYTHING that keeps me reading is good for me. I can tell you that many a book haven't. I liked Twilight. I LOVED Potter. I've read it all--nora, garwood, deveraux, kresley (and loved them!). I've also read a plethora of other writers that frankly I wondered if they wrote the book in a day.
50 Shades was completely captivating and I ate up the back and forth between Christian and Ana. I read it too fast to notice/care about the typos. Not like I haven't found typos in other books. I was surprised to find out it was Twilight fan-fic…sorry, but there are too many "Alpha" "Dominant" heroes running around in YA and adult romance to make that connection.
To label this as erotica--I found funny. What erotica? I've read worse from mainstream romance. It's the story that captured me. I read it one sitting. There was another book…oh yeah.. the Da Vinci Code…I read 30 pages of that standing in the aisle of a store before I knew it (yeah, bought that one too)
You just don't know what will connect. This one did. Best 7 bucks I've spent in awhile!
Tori--send an email to [email protected] explaining what happened. We'll get you taken care of. --Kristin
Anonymous said, on 3/30/2012 10:51:00 AM
In the early 2000's, there was a boom of fanfiction writing due to the wide availability of the internet. Back then I thought this heralded a coming glorious age in publishing, where people learned at a young age through fanfiction what it meant to write for wide audiences and then grew into becoming well rounded authors with new ideas.
The first one to break out was Cassandra "Cassie Claire" Claire who got into a heap of trouble with fans when she wrote a Harry Potter fanfiction about Draco and Ginny getting together, except that most of the dialogue had been ripped from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and entire sections had been lifted off Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele. When her name became synonymous with plagarism, she disappeared for a bit. A few years later her name was on the shelves, the work itself being recognizable to many people as having simply been that same exact fanfiction except having been run through the Find and Replace function for the character's names. It was a runaway success.
The first Eragon book came under similar charges of plagarism, but luckily the author- still very young- grew up and pulled away from that habit.
Now we have this Shades of Grey. What fanfiction ultimately did is it got fans used to a 'fast food' approach to writing- they want the payoff quick and easy, no mess, and absolutely no effort. They want the two characters to get together and they want the characters to bang, that's it. They don't like conflict, they don't like build up, they simply don't want to put in the effort, you can see examples of that mentality in this very conversation. Frankly, they don't even want original characters, they want characters they can simply project themselves or their sexual fantasies into. Marketing wise, 50 Shades of Grey was a brilliant idea because it plays to that fanfiction mentality without being fanfiction. The pre existing characters may be gone but the 'instant gratification' approach to writing is basically the entire base for those books, and as such it already has a 'built in' audience of people who prefer fanfiction to actual literature (genre or otherwise.)
It's unfortunate. As much flack as Romance novels get, there's usually a plot to them, somekind of conflict keeping the characters apart that they must overcome- but we're seeing the rise of a generation that doesn't even want that anymore. It's that generation that's going gaga over 50 shades of grey. It took the draw of internet fanfiction (again, quick and easy gratification with no thought,) something that had a wide fanbase and wide appeal within it, and made it publicly markettable.
It's sad, I think. The people going on about how 'WELL NOT EVERY NOVEL SHOULD BE A HEMMINGWAY WHAT IF I JUST WANT TO READ SOMETHING FOR FUN?' are basically feeding the mentality that intelligence or depth aren't fun, and that to shun a fast food approach to writing is to shun them. I too read 800,000 words and more in just a few days, when I was in Disneyland at that, it was called the Song of Ice and Fire series. Will it change your life, is it a philosophical tome? No, but my god it's fun, and it's fun because it makes you think, it makes you wonder, and it surprises you. It involves you in its characters and its world. The fact that some people find something like that to be unaproachable in comparison to something like 50 Shades of Grey because 50 Shades of Grey is about two placeholder characters banging is just sad.
I read "Fifty" in its original form, as Twilight fanfiction, and I knew at the time that the story was something different. I never thought it was award winning literature, and I didn't expect any of this, but I'm telling you, there is a dynamic in the story between Christian and Ana that screams to me and I believe others based on this crazy success.
It's the idea that Christian is so desperately seeking love, to the point that he acts out/dominates women in a twisted attempt at revenge, even though he claims that love is the one thing he has no interest in. It's the ultimate challenge to the heroine. Love the man, and love him good. Women absolutely adore feeling NEEDED and vital to a man's emotional/physical/sexual wellbeing. This story nails all three of those...hard.
Despite the lack of attention to grammar, copy-editing, etc., the story is a romantic magnet.
I disagree with the commenter above me to an extent when they said that fanfiction as a whole avoids conflict, or is a lazy way of writing "fast food". In fact, I'm a voracious reader of all kinds, and I've come across fanfiction that has taken my breath away with its prose and story-telling. It is a way for writers to flex their muscles, and in this case, James wrote something that is speaking to the masses, to be so needed by someone with such incredible power, that he essentially becomes the weakest person imaginable.
I wish I knew, because then I might not be so insulted by the whole thing. It's a travesty!
The story is poorly-researched (let's even just say it's flat-out NOT researched). The BDSM is not BDSM. The writing is awful. The characters do not sound American. There's no plot. There is nothing appealing about any of it; I kept laughing at the terrible language! That inner goddess needs to be silenced.
There's far better fanfic out there than this. I wish someone would do find-and-replace for things that had actual plot, depth, character development, story...
I can't stop laughing about "bacon in the night," oh my goodness!
A screenwriting blog recently posted about this impending deal. The blog author didn't mention anything about Twilight, so I had no idea until just now that it was all related. The blog author did ask why it was so appealing on the Hollywood side. I was reading it in a feed without comments attached and never got around to reading the comments til just now. Comment #6 was spot-on; see it here: http://gointothestory.blcklst.com/2012/03/50-shades-of-grey-has-studios-hot-and-bothered.html
For my two cents' worth, I don't think there's any logic to this -- the Twilight phenomenon or 50 Shades of Grey -- unless it's all a subconscious rejection of fifty-sixty years of feminism's influence on our culture. When I consider how many very young women read Twilight... well, I don't know. The future is uncertain. We're not liking what we're "supposed" to like. What does that say about feminism in the 21st century? ...Do you think this might be related?: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/horrible-reactions-to-chris-brown-at-the-grammys
Anonymous said, on 3/30/2012 3:27:00 PM
"It's the idea that Christian is so desperately seeking love, **to the point that he acts out/dominates women in a twisted attempt at revenge, even though he claims that love is the one thing he has no interest in.** It's the ultimate challenge to the heroine. Love the man, and love him good. Women absolutely adore feeling NEEDED and vital to a man's emotional/physical/sexual wellbeing. This story nails all three of those...hard."
...Isn't this essentially the mentality behind abusing ones' spouse and staying with an abusive spouse? The abuser is acting out their anger, and the spouse stays with them because they think they can 'cure' the abusive person with their love? Because if so, then this novel is way creepier than I thought. Haven't read it, but if that's what makes it appealing, uh, I'll skip.
Yes, anonymous. It most definitely is eerily similar to that, except that Christian recognizes the "fifty shades of f***** up" that he is (where the title comes from), seeks professional hep for it, and changes for Ana when she is not fully comfortable being the submissive to his dom.
I'm not here to defend the ethical issues or ruffle any feathers. In fact, Dr. Drew and other notable professionals have serious issues with the theme of a powerful man manipulating a virgin with NO sexual experience into this kind of relationship, and I agree with some of those complaints. I'm simply trying to explain, per Kristin's question, my take on what has contributed to the intense popularity with women everywhere.
Anonymous said, on 3/30/2012 6:01:00 PM
If its popularity rides on this message: "It's the ultimate challenge to the heroine. Love the man, and love him good. Women absolutely adore feeling NEEDED and vital to a man's emotional/physical/sexual wellbeing." And that the story ends and the conflict is resolved by validating such a thought process and rewarding it, then I'm not sure how I as a responsible adult would feel about banking on that. Keep in mind this story will forever be remembered as having been based off Twilight, which built its fanbase off young, impressionable teenage girls (an age range also immensely prone to self esteem issues,) and an 'erotica 18+' advisory will only draw them to it more. There are many novels with detestable messages out there, sure, but this one from what you're saying seems to be trying to draw people *through* its detestable message, the "ultimate challenge to a woman is to win over a man who treats her badly and that only by loving him good can she save him." That people are okay with this doesn't make it okay.
I'm part of the erotica community where these books have been the big topic of discussion. Many erotica writers are bewildered by the popularity. Since I have not read the books, I have no opinion of the writing. But the viral popularity fascinates me. I think by connecting with the Twilight fanfic community, she tapped into a group that might not have been aware that BDSM erotica or erotic romance existed. A generation ago, it was the Sleeping Beauty series that was discovered and shared. We weren't as connected back then via internet yet word still got around and pushed those books into massive sales. (and arguably opened the floodgates of erotica to female readers and writers and led to the success of Black Lace publishing and ultimately to Elloras Cave and erotic romance). Not every book is for every reader. But every successful book helps others in the genre. In the future, she'll improve at her craft or she'll lose her readers to more polished writers. So good for her. And extra kudos to her for finding those elusive evangelical readers who hand off a book to a friend and say "You have to read this."
I read this when it was still a fanfic. However, I didn't finish it because it was repetitive and predictable, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it for the first 100k words. I believe the reason it's done so well and amassed such a huge readership as a published trilogy is because the story already had a huge legion of dedicated fans that hung on every word in every chapter that was posted online. From what I can recall, there were probably over 50,000 reviews and millions of readers before it was ever taken down. It might have been a fanfic first, but it was because of its popularity as a Twilight fanfic that made it as popular as it is today on the shelves of bookstores. And I believe that 100%.
I also think it's fantastic the author was able to publish her writing. She did the work, and she deserves the recognition of that, regardless of how others feel about it. I say: good for her!
Kristin, You advice has be invaluable! You have encouraged and inspired me. In fact, you have inspired me to create a blog to document the process for writing my first novel. I hope to not only share my experiences on writing my novel, but to gain feedback and advice from those that are in the process of writing their own novel. My blog is at: http://processedwords.blogspot.com/
Kelly said, on 4/2/2012 5:21:00 AM
I live under a rock. Haven't heard anything of it, considered reading it, then read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Kudos to the author for getting an audience, but I think I'll pass.
I did not know I lived under a rock... but I guess I do. Good thing my friends don't. My friend told me to read it so i am. The writing isn't really all that good, which you have commented on in another post so old news but I feel like should say it again. The writing is choppy but oddly enough I am still reading on. There is something that is pulling me in that I don’t want to stop. I want to know where the story is going.
So since my friend who loved Twilight and several other novels we agree on, I am reading on and so far I am getting past the writing and just reading to enjoy. I love to write and therefore I love to read, if I got hung up on all the issues in books I think I would miss out on a lot. Besides, the fact that this did get published in its current state does give me hope.
The Olympics have torch bearers who run through the streets, flaming torch held high, expressing sublime joy or intense nobility as they run. Marathon participants run for a variety of reasons, many of which express that same joy or nobility. Ordinary family members don’t do much running at all, unless one counts errands and an extracurricular shuttle service.
Throughout my growing up years, carrying a torch meant something other than its current connotation. We carried a torch for a movie star or the girl/boy at school. We carried the torch of freedom in our citizenship and moral fiber. It’s a wonder the town didn’t burn to the ground with all of those flames being held up for all to see.
Few of us got to see an Olympic torch during the fifties. Even our own Student Olympics during elementary school didn’t have a torch. Television brought the Olympic Games to average households every four years during the sixties, which is where I first saw them. Of course, the opening ceremonies, with torch-bearer and Olympic Flame weren’t as long or elaborate then as they are now. Drama and spectacle arrived during the early eighties. Leave it to Hollywood.
All of this brings us to carrying the family torch. Each family has an invisible one, though the flames may be for different purposes. For some that torch stands for pride of place within society. For others it represents the family triumph over poverty and disadvantage. Torches for those prideful of family traditions of church, home, and military honor cut across all strata of society. These are all family torches; the ones that children take from their parents, along the line of ancestral heritage.
Torches smolder at times. They can exhibit rebellion over family roots as much as the opposite. They can glow with remembered suffering from a historical past before bursting into raging flame. While each is sparked by one or more family aspect, only an individual can carry one and that for personal reasons.
People can find a family torch inside themselves, if they look for it. They can discover the personal reason for raising an arm to support that tapered torch. At some point, they must either acknowledge acceptance of “duty” or reject it and seek another.
Each of us has a choice as to which torch we carry for our family. Considering how broad the definition has become for “family,” we should marvel at how many torches one person can juggle at any given time. The reasons and purposes of torches have broadened as well.
At the end of the day, the person needs to ask herself, “Which torch did I choose today?” and “Should I choose to bear that flaming burden tomorrow?”
The Olympics have torch bearers who run through the streets, flaming torch held high, expressing sublime joy or intense nobility as they run. Marathon participants run for a variety of reasons, many of which express that same joy or nobility. Ordinary family members don’t do much running at all, unless one counts errands and an extracurricular shuttle service.
Throughout my growing up years, carrying a torch meant something other than its current connotation. We carried a torch for a movie star or the girl/boy at school. We carried the torch of freedom in our citizenship and moral fiber. It’s a wonder the town didn’t burn to the ground with all of those flames being held up for all to see.
Few of us got to see an Olympic torch during the fifties. Even our own Student Olympics during elementary school didn’t have a torch. Television brought the Olympic Games to average households every four years during the sixties, which is where I first saw them. Of course, the opening ceremonies, with torch-bearer and Olympic Flame weren’t as long or elaborate then as they are now. Drama and spectacle arrived during the early eighties. Leave it to Hollywood.
All of this brings us to carrying the family torch. Each family has an invisible one, though the flames may be for different purposes. For some that torch stands for pride of place within society. For others it represents the family triumph over poverty and disadvantage. Torches for those prideful of family traditions of church, home, and military honor cut across all strata of society. These are all family torches; the ones that children take from their parents, along the line of ancestral heritage.
Torches smolder at times. They can exhibit rebellion over family roots as much as the opposite. They can glow with remembered suffering from a historical past before bursting into raging flame. While each is sparked by one or more family aspect, only an individual can carry one and that for personal reasons.
People can find a family torch inside themselves, if they look for it. They can discover the personal reason for raising an arm to support that tapered torch. At some point, they must either acknowledge acceptance of “duty” or reject it and seek another.
Each of us has a choice as to which torch we carry for our family. Considering how broad the definition has become for “family,” we should marvel at how many torches one person can juggle at any given time. The reasons and purposes of torches have broadened as well.
At the end of the day, the person needs to ask herself, “Which torch did I choose today?” and “Should I choose to bear that flaming burden tomorrow?”
LEE & LOW BOOKS celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and to recognize how far the company has come, we are featuring one title a week to see how it is being used in classrooms today as well, as hear from the authors and illustrators.
working in her family’s laundry in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. Whenever she could afford it, Anna May slipped off to the movies, escaping to a world of adventure, glamour, and excitement. After seeing a movie being filmed in her neighborhood, young Anna May was hooked. She decided she would become a movie star!
Veronica has a degree from Mount Saint Mary College and joined LEE & LOW in the fall of 2014. She has a background in education and holds a New York State childhood education (1-6) and students with disabilities (1-6) certification. When she’s not wondering around New York City, you can find her hiking with her dog Milo in her hometown in the Hudson Valley, NY.
What it’s about: In the post-apocalyptic Southwest, Apache teenager Lozen works as a monster hunter in order to keep her family safe.
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Noah Hawley is a novelist and screenwriter (
That scene absolutely had consequence. The owner died, it released the dinos who then killed dozens and dozens of people. The very thing I enjoyed about JW is that it DIDN’T try to make it a world-wide calamity. The danger was cramped and stuck to the island.
It was silly, some dialogue was cheesy, and it was fun. I really enjoyed it. It also captivated the children (14 yrs old) I took to see it. They were enamored by it. Mad Max wasn’t for them. This was.
So the director becomes the second unit?
“Go film some location shots while we work on the CGI battle sequence.”
It’s like how the fight choreographer in a kungfu movie gets almost as much credit as the director.
But once a series is formulaic, it doesn’t matter who the director is.
Writer? Sure. Get a good script, and the directing and editing becomes a lot easier.
POP QUIZ: Name TWO directors of the James Bond movies!
Who directed the Fast and the Furious movies?
If s/he balks at the salary, you find someone else to direct.
I don’t know what the term is, but there is a fine line with CGI sequences, similar to the “uncanny valley”. “Blockbustered”?
I got tired of the blurry, rapid film editing battle sequences of The Transformers. I couldn’t keep track of the choreography, I had no sense of direction or space, or who was beating the sprockets out of whom. Man of Steel has this problem as well.
But on the other extreme, I was disappointed in both Avengers movies. The threat wasn’t that big, there was little sense of urgency or despair as the heroes have to overcome overwhelming odds to Save The Day. There’s nothing to cheer for. (And if you don’t engage the audience, then where’s the box office? If people don’t rave about this or that, where’s the word of mouth? The repeat viewings? The long tail of ticket sales, which help the theater owners pay the rent?
Jurassic Park was the Poseidon Adventure with bioengineered rats. Jurassic World seems more like a Godzilla movie (as some of my friends have suggested, and a better movie than the latest GZ). Me? I gave up after Lost World.
You don’t need a lot of CGI to make great popcorn movies. Wrath of Khan was almost all visual effects (aside from the Genesis briefing). That nebula cloud? Latex rubber and ammonium mixed into a tank of fresh and salt water. Stop motion animation. Giant models.
This idea that Avengers 2 failed is weird to me. It made $444 million in the US and 1.35 billion world-wide. This is terrific.
As the expository dialog went on at the beginning of the film, talking about how the public is no longer excited about mere dinosaurs, and now needs a hybrid dinosaur with mutant powers to sell tickets, I was assured that Hollywood is not only cynical about its audience, it is open about it.
And apparently correct.
Name 2 Directors of the Bond Films? I can name 5 off the top of my head:
Terence Hill
Guy Hamilton
Martin Campbell
John Glen
Sam Mendes
Each of the directors had their own distinctive style in the franchise, with Mendes at the top of the list for “most artistic”.
I guess I should add:
John Glen directed all the Bond films of the 80’s. He holds the distinction of directing more Bond films than any other director (the second one being Guy Hamilton). He also directed two different actors in the role of Bond, Moore and Dalton.
Do’h! Where is my edit button when I need it???
I meant to type Terence YOUNG, not Terence Hill. Terence Hill was the actor in “My Name is Nobody” and “Superfuzz”.
Terence Young also directed movies such as “Wait Until Dark”.
(whew!)
Curtis, the Bond franchise is 50 years old and goes back to an older style of moviemaking. And SKYFALL was my favorite movie of the last 10 years up until MAD MAX because so much of it was practical — that mind boggling Shanghai fight scene was done IN CAMERA and it shows.
“Jurassic World” may not arguably be a superhero film, but its certainly a comic book-style film, ala “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or Edgar Rice Burroughs-style book series such as Pellucidar.
I’ve seen tens of thousands of films over the years and I had few problems with “Jurassic World” as a solid, well-crafted action flick. It met or exceeded most people’s expectations, beat out the first two sequels story and execution-wise, and was arguably better than “Jurassic Park.”
If they keep it up, further sequels will be like printing money.
Jurassic Park will always be #1. But JW: Lost World? Ugh. Please save us all from Ian Malcom. ;) And while the third one tried to bring back the shine (and was better than #2) Jurassic World officially made itself the second best of the franchise!
My boyfriend’s niece was next to me, and after the movie I asked for a 1-10 rating. She said “7”. I said “7?! Wha?” Then I asked if it was better than the two sequels. A short pause and then a “Yes!” Also, my boyfriend (who was worried the entire movie would be nothing but people running from dinosaurs (uh, uhm, let’s not even) clapped at the end of the movie, which is his true stamp of approval. It was a huge amount of fun! Everyone is SO bitter, and jaded about everything anymore. You will NEVER get back that moment of amazement you had when you saw the first one. It’s just not possible. It’s Jurassic Park. You know what you’re going in there for.
Put me down as one of those who was completely underwhelmed by Jurassic World. Summer popcorn movies have to have a couple of things for me: thrilling action with a few twists I’ve never seen before, a couple of fun, repeatable lines of dialogue, an able, resourceful hero to follow and a single-minded villain you can hiss at. I think of all those things, Chris Pratt came to the party as that type of hero, but no one else showed up ready to play (especially the director and the many screenwriters).
A couple of things that bugged me:
– Yes, Bryce Dallas Howard running around in her all-terrain high heels drove me nuts too. In the old days of action films, finally ditching the heels would be an easy metaphor for showing how the uptight heroine was loosening up and growing as a character. Now, fashion sense rules over all?
– Vincent D’onofrio’s villian wasn’t much of one. All he did was huff and smirk a few times, call in the mercenaries and (SPOILER ALERT) die.
– Speaking of those mercenaries (ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT), they’re the best soldiers money can buy and that’s the best they could do? They know they’re going up against a super T-rex and no one brings along a couple of super Jack Kirby weapons to blast it? And couldn’t any of them be more then ‘red shirts’? Where’s the Jesse Ventura-like character from Predator when you need him? At least The Lost World had Pete Postlethwaite as a gung-ho hunter to add some spice to the proceedings.
– And speaking of food additives, what made the original Park so much fun was the Jeff Goldblum character. This film disparately needed his cynical vinegar to add some bite. In the entire cast, there wasn’t a curve ball character in the bunch.
– Also, please don’t mention Raiders of the Lost Ark in the same breath as this movie. Speilberg knows how to set up an action sequence as an elaborate Rube Goldberg device — with one peril tumbling into the next. And even when we know he won’t kill a kid in a movie, we don’t have time to think about it because we’re watching him juggle so many balls in the air at the same time. Compare the sequence in the original movie where Sam Neil is trying to rescue the kids in the jeep being attacked by the T-rex and compare it to any of the scenes with the imperiled kids in this new film. It’s like comparing a ticking bomb to a cap gun.
– In fact, I thought the dinosaurs in the first film were much more terrifying! Was there any thing here to equal the menace of the Velociraptors? Or the raptors in the kitchen sequence?
– And finally, I know I need to suspend disbelief in a film like this (and I’m willing to), but even on it’s own terms it’s difficult to imagine that that raptors could be trained by Chris Pratt’s character in any way, shape or form. That works in The Flintstones, but not here. It reminds me of the documentary about the guy who tried to live in the wild with grizzly bears and be their friend — until the day they ate him.
I think the only thing left for a sequel to Jurassic World is if Dr. Wu engineers himself some Sleestak or Silurians. I’ve been half-expecting to hear about a reference in the film to the hypothetical humanoid saurians that might have evolved if the meteor/comet had never struck the Earth.
Now I’m waiting for the Marvel announcement regarding the “Devil Dinosaur” film.
I was entertained by “Jurassic World”, liked it better than “Avengers: The Age of Ultron”.
For me the major plot hole is, even if discounting the two previous sequels as non-canon, after the events of the first film, would’t you implant a micro-explosive in the brain or heart of the predatory dinosaurs just in case of the emergency like they experienced in JW?
And there’s not more than 1 helicopter pilot on that island?
I had fun watching it, but a few days later can hardly remember anything about it. It was a shallow and forgettable movie, with almost no character development.
Chris Pratt played a generic macho man. Kept waiting for him to say or do something funny, but aside from his line about being in “the Navy, not the Navajos” (which got the only big laugh at my screening), it was a dull performance. And Bryce Dallas Howard played the stereotyped neurotic, scatterbrained career woman.
No wonder it’s a huge blockbuster — especially in China, where character development doesn’t seem to matter, as long as the CGI is spectacular enough.
The Dissolve had an interesting article about JURASSIC WORLD as a “genetically modified blockbuster,” with bits and pieces (and subplots and characters) borrowed from other movies. ALIENS seems to be a favorite target for pilfering.
http://thedissolve.com/feature…
I spent the entire movie thinking Jessica Chastain was the leading lady. Then the credits came up and I discovered I’d been watching Bryce Dallas Howard for 2-plus hours.
Apparently I’m not the only one who has trouble telling them apart. Film critic Sam Adams jokingly twittered: “Jessica Chastain and Bryce Dallas Howard are different people, but they fill in for each other at social occasions.”
“POP QUIZ: Name TWO directors of the James Bond movies!”
Off the top of my head: Terence Young, Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert, Peter Hunt, Irvin Kershner, Sam Mendes. That’s’ five. I’m sure there are others.
“Who directed the Fast and the Furious movies?”
Rob Cohen, Justin Lin, James Wan.
All these directors have more style than Colin Trevorrow. But his first film, the low-budget indie SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, showed some promise.
Heidi MacDonald said: “These days moviemaking is just too expensive and leviathan to take chances.”
It depends on what kind of movie you’re making and what kind of audience you’re going after. When you’re making a CGI-packed superhero or other franchise movie that costs $200M to make and another $100M to market, you’re not going to take chances. The only way the movie can make a profit is to play everywhere in the world (especially Asia) and appeal to “everyone.”
The escalating cost of moviemaking at the major-studio level is a big reason why Steven Soderbergh abandoned movies for TV. He recalled that just lighting the casino set in OCEAN’S 13 cost $30,000 a day.
Also: Soderbergh says the studios are now run by people who don’t like movies and don’t watch them for entertainment. They’re run by people like Kevin Feige: people who know nothing about movies but everything about branding, marketing and merchandising.