For those watching Heroes, the License plate on Hiro’s father’s car was in fact “NCC 1701”. For those who aren’t watching… Hiro’s father is being played by George Takei
All I have to say about tonight’s episode…
That’s probably going to greatly reduce the number of “Claire-Peter” ‘shippers
I’m not really going to go into the weekend concerning the Horizon Oasis officer’s retreat. I will summarize by saying it was wonderful, productive, and I have great enthusiasm for the body’s direction.
I also did a LOT of work with Eleusyve Productions producers on the upcoming Rite of Venus
I got home in time to watch the Superbowl. I really had little interest in who won. The first half was good, the second half… well, Sexy Rexy and the Bears kinda collapsed on themselves.
But of course… the ads.
This year’s winner hands down had to be “Career Builder.” The monkeys never really worked for me and this years Corporate Grind meets Survivor was stunningly well done.
2nd place goes to Budweiser (whose Bud Light feel-good ads got old) who may have been hit or miss but the King of the Crabs spot was wonderful.
Points to Diamond foods for the most surreal moment with Robert Goulet.
But a special nod to the challenging of middle America with two very non-standard sexual moments.
I believe it was snickers that showed two men kissing. (right near the beginning) but the Bulls-eye had to be an incredibly tame and entertaining Prince mini concert right down to the shadow show of his AMAZINGLY phallic guitar.
I just never noticed that in the old “Glyph” and boy did he show it on TV.
Interestingly… no news agency has commented on this.
So… quiet Superbowl. Good, productive weekend. Long week ahead.
Hopefully more soon.
I’m not going to go into a complete review of The Aristocrats which I finally saw on Netflix today while on baby watch.
Suffice it to say… It was amazing. I loved it. And I don’t recommend it to anyone unless you can transcend vulgarity to see the meta-humour.
I would like to point out 2 things from the documentary. One is an fantastically performed version of the joke as a series of card tricks.
But the most important thing is a quote from Saint George Carlin. Because it hit me on a philosophical level at the core of who I am. It’s an interesting quotation because I know it is fundamentally how I feel about the world and how I live my life. It seems to run utterly counter to the philosophy of Thelema that is also very much a piece of who I am. I see how the two paths run together in my universe. And it also makes it clearer to me when I’ve really pissed people off in my world.
I like this because it puts together an idea in a very simple and succinct way while not losing any of the impact of it’s viciously subversive nature.
I do like finding out where the line is drawn, deliberately crossing it, bringing some of them with me across the line, and having them be happy that I did. – George Carlin
Possibly, I’ll go further about “The Aristocrats” later.
My undergraduate study (well one of them) was directing for stage. This of course was complimented by classes in Musical Theatre, Radio/TV Production, Film theory…
Directing is my first love. Once I get a cast into a rehearsal hall I am in ecstasy. I can pummel 15 minutes of a show for 3 hours and find driving emotions from a performer. I can buzz thru 45 minutes of material in 5 minutes and not lose the quality of a scene. It’s all a question of focus.
But enough threats to people I will soon work with 😉
One of the things that is rare to most of us in theatre, tv, and non-professional film production is ‘pre-casting.’ Pre-casting is where one can take the media and say, “I want X to play the role.”
I actually learned the process from my father (who had pretty much 0 contact with media). His favourite book was “The Stand” {i’ve never been able to make it thru anything by King}. He’d re-read the book every 2 years to then talk about ‘who should be in the movie.’
Many people like to play the pre-cast game. Certain media begs for it. Among my favourites that are (were) continually pre-cast by the public are: “Wrinkle in Time”, “The Endless/Sandman Series”, “X-Men”… and so forth. (Note: I’ve given up on Annie Lennox playing Desire.. She’s too old now. I guess I’ll just have to go with Tilda Swinton)
Of course then you get into “Hell-casting” where you pick the worst coupling of Director and Media and then decide how they’d cast it. “Spike Lee directs The Music Man with Eddie Murphy as Harold Hill and Chris Rock as the annoying kid with a lisp that Ron Howard played.”
Try a few of these Hell Castings if you like
Stanley Kubrick directs Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
M. Night Shyamalan directs Gone with the Wind
Tim Burton directs Cats (hrmn.)
George A. Romero directs Rent
Oliver Stone directs The Crow
and of course
Steven Speilberg and George Lucas co direct Mary Poppins
But I digress.
DaVinci Code was a stickler for me. I knew before I even read the book that Tom Hanks was hands down the absolute worst casting ever done.
Well, this is if we define casting as “Who is the best actor to represent the character in the book” If we define casting as, “In the hollywood political substructure, which name will counterbalance our budget with a guaranteed return to make this an instant blockbuster in the first few weeks until the word of mouth kills our revenue flow”
But to be honest… I couldn’t find an actor that worked for me. I was happy with one choice from the film. I was begrudgingly okay with another… but I wanted my perfect cast. Who would have made the film scream for me? When I do this kind of casting I do not think of budgets, name quality, politics. I put actor vs. actor based on what I’ve seen them do.
While ranting about tDvC last night I finally got my answers:
oh yes… and before you read…
Yes, virginia. There are spoilers.
Haven’t hopped on the Heroes bandwagon?
Waiting because you’ve missed episodes?
Don’t want to pay for iTunes?
NBC has now posted all 11 episodes from the 1st half of the season.
You will have to sit thru a small commercial before each… But if you want to see the series… It’s online.
http://www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/full_episodes/heroes.shtml
Note: Mac users may have to use Firefox. Safari had some problems.
