W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Go now to this Website before 11:00 p.m. (EDT? maybe PDT?) tonight to see a SuperVillian musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillon and Felicia Day (who was an Austin person for awhile!).

For free! And it's cute! Much like, since Joss co-wrote it and the songs, the Buffy Musical episode that was so popular. And after tonight, it'll cost to download:

www.drhorrible.com

And for Joss's explanation of how it came to be:
www.drhorrible.com/plan.html

I saw HANCOCK two weeks ago -- took my brother Andrew to see it because he asked -- and have waited this long to post about it because it's so flawed. It's got a messed-up premise that's taken me awhile to puzzle out how wacky and messed up it is. And even now, I bet more stuff occurs to me. Now my brother said it wasn't a great movie, but it was fine entertainment. So there you go -- confirming that one of the downsides of writing and analyzing screenplays and story structure is that it makes you too picky of an audience.

The good stuff about Hancock: Some scenes and set-ups at the beginning about the premise "What if a superhero wasn't a hero? Not a super villian either -- just a drunken asshole?" Surely there have been many 3-panel comic strips, drawn by witty teenage boys I would assume, that have covered this territory. You can probably find them in school notebooks going back 50-60 years. With today's CGI, and Will Smith's undeniable charisma (Smith is Good Stuff No. 2, even with his cracked lips, stubble and gross tissue-less way of clearing his nose), this movie makes scenes of those that have action, reversals, false defeats and false victories. Those are fun! Hollow, but fun!

The problems with the movie are mostly two-fold: it starts with a tone and scenes that promise a different story so it has to do a major shift in the middle to a different movie, and then it maninpulates us with a false tragedy. I'll cover these behind the break, but there really are not many reasons to see HANCOCK, and the blame for that lies with the lazy sceenwriting.

( Why is Hancock a drunken asshole...? )

Saw MAMMA MIA today -- in an almost full theater! And the line to get in was also really long! And THIS was on the opening weekend of THE DARK KNIGHT --! There cannot be two more different movies to get buzz on the same opening day, I say, as a person who's only watched endless TV coverage of The Demise of Heath Ledger and not the real Batman movie yet...

Meryl Streep, as the multiply award-winning actress that she is, does a really good job as Donna, the main character. I'm reminded of a play in the park she did 20 years ago where she wore a romper and long hair and played Alice in Wonderland. She's supposed to be an ex-hippie trying to run a broken-down hotel on a beautiful but remote Greek isle. She's slim and has lots of lovely energy, and while not the most wonderful singer, can belt out a song when she has to. Trivia on IMDB says she did "The Winner Takes All" on her first pass. Amanda Seyfried as the irrepressible and affianced daughter Sophie is a magical creature, with her big blue eyes, gorgeous glowing complexion and rivers of blonde curls. And she can sing! I've seen her in VERONICA MARS and BIG LOVE, and had no idea! She spends half the movie in a swimsuit, and she's just perfection.

Plus, Colin Firth! Any movie with the once and always Mr. Darcy is worth seeing just for him, in my book. And he acquitted himself well with the singing and guitar strumming. All the 3 guys were good sports about the singing and, as needed, dressing up in 70s glamour wear. Stellan Skarsgard does fine, but poor Pierce Brosnan sings like a bear who discovered English. Poor guy, and he has several solos.

But the big flaw -- and I cannot stress this strongly enough -- is, OMG, it's ALL ABBA MUSIC! That stuff REEKS! There's no lyric too banal, no emotion too shallow, no melodic line too derivative! I thought the beautiful Greek scenery* and fine actors would offset the ABBA stuff (like it couldn't in the plays; I've turned down going to the musical on Broadway and on the London stage, as well as traveling shows). It didn't; it ruined the movie for me. Awful sucky songs. Just awful. And once they started one, they didn't use a few stanzas for color. No, we had the whole fricking lame-ass song to listen to. In successful musicals, the song portions are where emotions are revealed or let loose. In this story, which was fun and schlocky but had some emotional power, no, the music stopped all the progress and created anti-emotion moments. Weird.

There was another weird development with Colin's character and his awakening. By the end, he was shirtless, wet and embracing a beautiful Greek man. But in earlier scenes, that same Greek man had a weird dark shadow across him to fade him into the background. Colin refers to Donna as the first and last woman he ever loved, and then he minces on about his two doggies... I think there was a coming-out that they decided to put back into the closet or something. It sure made for awkward story stuff at the end...

*A friend from work and I are thinking of joining a 12-day cruise in the Mediterranean that my friend Janine put together. Man, if swimming is that great around a Greek isle, I'm interested!

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY was fun, but not such a great story. The biggest cool thing is the art direction. The creature design, the sets, the costumes -- gorgeous to creepy. But ultra-fascinating! It was funny how there were so many shots of eyes -- looking longingly or lovingly -- and they were non-human. Big preponderance of orange or amber colored eyes too. And Abe Sapien, who I loved in the first one, has even more character development in this. His face is so fishlike yet is played so well by Doug Jones that he comes off as an endearing and more butch version of Niles Crain.

Of course, Ron Perlman as HellBoy, or "Red" as they call him, is another awesome characterization. His personality, his romantic immaturity, his wishing for acceptance by humankind, all wonderful. And Perlman pulls it off behind 20 lbs of makeup, sawed off horns and red body paint. He claimed his torso musculature was all real too.

But the story sort of misfires. The problems of the parapsychology group are described awkwardly -- like, there's no way they can be working for the government on these jobs AND be totally secret. They're going into places where the media and crowds are already standing and staring. And getting a new boss? Their ineffective old boss stays there and bumbles around so you can't see that life has changed for them much. Plus the new boss is a confusing character who's voiced in overdone Nazi by the much-loathed Seth McFarlane. Then Hellboy and his sweetie start off in full fight mode, and we don't see shades of relationships. He's obviously adoring her but he's too awful and uncouth to live with -- that never gets a resolution, new info just comes in.

The more compelling emotional story is that of the royal elf twins. They're magically connected, and sometimes it seems even sexual. It's a problem for a script to make the most heartbreak come from the bad guys...

But it's Guillermo del Toro, so the directon and visuals make it worth a movie ticket. It's No.1 at the box office right now, which proves it!

... as in Jabba the Hutt. Tucker is 10 years old, 26 pounds, and 36 inches from nose to tip of tail. He's a BIG boy!

Because he's so big and old, he can't groom his long fluffy hair like he needs to. So summertimes, he gets shaved down. It makes him a little chilly, but he seems to love the freedom.

He's been spending 90% of his time on the sofa these days. Sometimes when he props himself up to lick his belly, he just kinda slumps there, watching TV. Like a chubby human, or Jabba the Hutt. Check it out:

A friend sends a link to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, as covered in Wikipedia. Justin O. Schmidt, of the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, seems to have a way with describing multiple sensory input -- he could have a career in wine tasting or erotic literature! The scale goes from 0.0 (no effect) to 4.0 (worst pain). Some examples:

1.0 - Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
1.2 - Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
1.8 - Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
2.0 - Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
2.0 - Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
2.x - Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
3.0 - Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
3.0 - Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
4.0 - Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

With a cast of traditional and western musicians -- awesome! I love the guy with the wide open mouth, singing!

(Enjoyed even though it made my headachy head pound even worse.)

So lately I've been watching stuff on YouTube.com that is freaking me out -- ! These are real British shows on BBC, too. With some of the weirdest, oddest stories and character. Foremost among these, is a "cult favorite" show on BBC3 that stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt called THE MIGHTY BOOSH. It appears to have started as a comedy skit (won the audience favorite award at the Edinburgh Fringe -- yay, the Fringe!) and a radio show. Now on TV, with remarkably lovely production values -- check out the interior and exterior shots of the "Nabootique" which is a shop owned by Naboo the shaman, a deadpan short man in a blue turban -- but with odd stories and weirder music. Lots of humor and songs are like something a five-year-old would sing on the swings. But done by adult people and very deadpan! A few highlights:

• Howard and Vince argue about his long jazz trances and not getting work done (they're supposed to be zoo workers).
  
• Howard and Vince arguing about what music to play while driving: jazz-funk! "Jazz's deformed cousin!"
  
• Vince meets the Crack Fox (also played by Julian); now it gets weird and even has animation! "It's blood from a cat's face!"
  
• The New Rave song ("Eels!") -- check out the interesting makeup, hair and costuming... trippy
  
• Sometimes the moon speaks (Noel), and for some reason sounds like a low-IQ frenchman...

I found out about the Mighty Boosh while looking up Russell Brand -- who I mentioned as being interesting as the tall, flamboyant, 12-step-working rockstar boyfriend in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Brand himself, with his looooong skinny legs squeezed into tight black jeans, black boots, jewelry and Dickensian way of speaking, is a treat. He and Noel Fielding are HUGE in the UK. HUGE! Here, not so much. They're good buddies and appear together a lot. Brand does a sort of stream-of-consciousness silly talk that can be quite witty, and then go silly and offcolor, and fills Albert Hall to the brim when he performs! And at the ripe old age of 36 (or so) he wrote a best-selling biography, mostly about how he kicked booze and heroin.

• Here's Brand at the Albert Hall; he's talking about Woody Harrelson.
  
• Here's Brand on his TV show PONDERLAND.
  
• Here's Brand on one of his radio shows.

But then I found Brand and Fielding were partners on this fascinating annual TV quiz show, THE BIG FAT QUIZ SHOW. I was hooked on the quit wits of the six competitors (Brand and Fielding were actually childish and silly compared to the others), and watched all of 2007 and 2006. That's where I saw Johnathon Ross was one of the smartest guys there, and he's the husband of Jane Golden, who I just saw is also the producer of the quiz show. Jane is the screenwriter of STARDUST, the movie based on the book by Neil Gaiman and my friend-of-a-friend, Charles Vess. That's my small world story for tonight!

Just finished a 2-day, intensive screenwriting workshop with Blake Snyder, Hollywood guru and recipient of two million-dollar paydays on his scripts. He told us he's had a 25 year career in screenwriting, and has written 78 scripts and sold 38 (or so). More about Blake and his method at www.blakesnyder.com.

What was fun was starting off Saturday morning with just vague ideas. The class was kept to 12 max so that these ideas could be worked into a logline and analyzed. Then a 2nd pass at the logline. Then we learned about the 15 beats in a well-structured script (which form part of the 40 scenes in an average script, per Blake). Our next assignment was to come back from lunch with 3 beats worked out: 1st scene, last scene and the midpoint. Then overnight we were to write out all 15 beats and share them. And the final exercise was getting up and doing a 10-min pitch of your story!

That was fun -- seeing these ideas go from vague and fuzzy to real, fleshed out, well-structured stories. We also brainstormed and questioned each other to make the works better. Several people got better screenplay names than what they'd had. (Blake suggested I call HEAVEN & NELL a different name -- ANGEL FALLS. But that's not gonna happen. My story name is fun and has a history.)

Mostly I worked on the comedy script I plan to write next: CAN'T SAY NO. Logline: A shy engineer invents glasses that give him such charisma he can convince anyone to do anything. But then his evil Shopping TV Channel bosses use them to take over cable TV -- and next, the world!

Oh, and fun surprise: Robert Rodriquez's cousin Al who co-writes most of Robert's stories with him was there. He already has some script credits, including FROM DUSK TO DAWN III (I didn't even realize that movie got sequels).

( Here's Blake at Dinner... )

I remember telling a gay gamer friend about this study a few years ago, and him getting a surprised and interested look on this face:

"I think it's almost beyond a doubt that genes have some influence," said Ray Blanchard, a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, who studies the effect of birth order in predicting whether a male will be born homosexual. "My personal view is that there is probably more than one biological mechanism contributing toward homosexuality. I think it's also safe to say that there is at least one non-genetic influence."

Blanchard found that with each older brother in a family, the odds increase by about a third that a boy born later will be gay. This effect is not thought to be caused by genetics, but rather by antibodies produced by the mother's immune system during pregnancy.

This aside about birth order was embedded in a study report about how one theory of "the gay gene" is that it makes the females/daughters more prolific, while it makes the males/sons gay. This model addresses the nature versus nurture questions about "how can homosexuality be inherited; it should have died out if so."

It was interesting about my gamer friend because he is Sibling No.8 in a family with 8 kids, many of whom are boys. Sibling No.7 is also a gay son, and Sibling No.6 is a son who "sometimes has feelings like that." The Blanchard study showed how a woman gets progressively more estrogen with each pregnancy, so that once past the 4th baby, the fetus is typically awash in it. The likelihood of the boy baby growing up to be gay is way more than the norm.

When I read about the study, the thing that occurred to me was all the Catholic and fundamentalist religions with an emphasis on large families. Especially macho Latin cultures. So those poor boys; biology combined with religion pushed them to have a certain orientation. But that very religion often required that they be closeted.

So misguided. I'm glad that the youth of today are being a lot more color blind and accepting of orientation...