I've watched a handful of rental movies lately. Here they are:
Hitch: They tried to advertise this as if it's not a traditional romantic comedy, which is exactly what it is, albeit one that is watchable due to Will Smith. He gives a charasmatic performance and it's really hard not to like him. Kevin James was decent too, as was Eva Mendes, but the script was absolutely paint by numbers. Grade: B-
In Good Company: Another mediocre movie made watchable by a great cast. Topher Grace is really good and Dennis Quaid is great too. I'm not really sure how they got Scarlett Johansen for this, as she's basically wasted. And the ending of the movie is completely flat with not nearly enough resolution for either of the two young leads. All in all, pretty disappointing. Grade: C+
Coach Carter: Overlong and predictable, but made somewhat entertaining by the always-brilliant Samuel L. Jackson. It's a theme that's been done a million times before (and done better): the hard-ass coach who comes in to fix up the messy situation, but only if he can do it HIS WAY. Of course, the punkish players are resistant, but then buy into it. Yeah..."Hoosiers" called, and they want their story back. But I'd watch Sam Jackson read the phone book, so...Grade: B-
Team America: World Police: Okay, I had really high hopes for this one. After all, the theme song alone is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. But the movie just wasn't that great. it had its moments, and if you're looking for hot marionette sex then this is the film for you. But comedy-wise, it certainly didn't reach the peaks of "South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut." Grade: B-
Ocean's 12: I had to save this review for last. It warrants mentioning that the Ocean's 11 remake is one of my favorite films ever. In fact, I think it is literally perfect. It's funny, cool, and clever. That being said, I got a really bad vibe about Ocean's 12 just from the ad campaign. It just didn't look good and somehow, despite loving the first one, I waited until video for this one. And when I do that, unfortunately, I usually turn out to be right. This is one of the most disappointing sequels in the history of film. There's bad, there's really bad, and then there's the likes of Caddyshack 2, Rocky 5, and now, sadly, Ocean's 12. It was just dreadful. No humor, no spark, and a muddled, unengaging story including a "plot twist" so ludicrious an ill-conceived that you have to wonder what has happened to the writers and producers who came up with it and allowed it to be filmed. Just horrible. Grade: D-
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Not much happening
I've only got one more physical therapy session scheduled and they moved it from Friday to next Tuesday. Then I see the doc on Wednesday morning, and I really hope for full clearance at that point.
Got the script down to 107 pages with a little tweaking. The problem is that there are a couple of scenes that we want to add, so I haven't decided if we'll just put them in or if we really need to cut something else first.
The Spurs will win tonight. So will ASU in the college World Series.
Started season two of "Alias." Getting full seasons of good TV shows that you've never seen on DVD really is a beautiful thing. I think I might do that with "24" when we finish these. Another supposedly great show that I've never seen.
Sox are red hot. Just wait until we get Schilling back too. Back to back champs? It could happen!
Departure to Vegas countdown: 12 days. I can't wait!
Got the script down to 107 pages with a little tweaking. The problem is that there are a couple of scenes that we want to add, so I haven't decided if we'll just put them in or if we really need to cut something else first.
The Spurs will win tonight. So will ASU in the college World Series.
Started season two of "Alias." Getting full seasons of good TV shows that you've never seen on DVD really is a beautiful thing. I think I might do that with "24" when we finish these. Another supposedly great show that I've never seen.
Sox are red hot. Just wait until we get Schilling back too. Back to back champs? It could happen!
Departure to Vegas countdown: 12 days. I can't wait!
Monday, June 20, 2005
Whiffleball first draft
We finished the first draft of the "Whiffleball" screenplay. It clocks in at a beefy 111 pages and the first thing I need to work on is cutting it down a bit. In screenwriting, there is a vague but generally accepted rule that movies time out to one minute per screenplay page on average. So 111 would be fine for an action movie or a drama, but it's definitely a little long for a comedy. I'd like to trim at least 5-6 pages, which might be tough. Other than that, we just need to whip it into shape and get it as funny as it can be before we check in with that producer. It was really fun to write--Johnny and I had an absolute ball with it, continually e-mailing and text messaging back and forth with notes, comments and jokes. And if the angle with the producer never works it, we really could strip it down some and make it ourselves.
I'm scheduled for my last week of physical therapy this week. I'm hoping that the three sessions are all that I'll need but I should get the definitive word from the doctor on the 29th. But right now, I feel good. I can walk without the crutches and I'm sure I can bend it enough to fly, although it starts to hurt and get pretty stiff after a while. But that's nothing that will hold me back.
Other random thoughts to start off the week ( in classic, cliched writer/dot dot dot style): we've been watching season one of Alias on DVD and it's fun and entertaining. A lot of the plots are pretty goofy but you just have to have an active imagination, suspend disbelief a little, and buy into everything they are selling. From what I've heard, the storyline of the show takes lots of big, broad turns so it will be fun to be able to fly through those on DVD, as opposed to waiting all summer to see how things turn out...(*cough*..."Lost")...my favorite show on TV this summer has to be "Entourage" on HBO. I loved season one and season two is off to a great start. Jeremy Piven as Ari the agent is one of the best characters on the tube right now...conversely, the worst show I'm watching is "The Comeback" on HBO with Lisa Kudrow. I love the idea of the show a lot, and the format. But her character is just brutal to watch and it makes the entire show painful and annoying. And yet, I'm still giving it a chance...I predict that the Red Sox will be in first place before I get dealt my first hand at the WSOP...I still haven't pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book yet because I don't know if I want to go get it at midnight or just have it mailed to me. I must be getting older. That, and just being in bookstores now feels different after B&N...Robert Horry is pretty damn clutch...I think it's going to be dreadfully humid here in Arkansas this summer, and that's something I haven't had to deal with lately. Although it probably won't hit 120, either.
That's it from me for now. As usual, nothing exciting going on.
I'm scheduled for my last week of physical therapy this week. I'm hoping that the three sessions are all that I'll need but I should get the definitive word from the doctor on the 29th. But right now, I feel good. I can walk without the crutches and I'm sure I can bend it enough to fly, although it starts to hurt and get pretty stiff after a while. But that's nothing that will hold me back.
Other random thoughts to start off the week ( in classic, cliched writer/dot dot dot style): we've been watching season one of Alias on DVD and it's fun and entertaining. A lot of the plots are pretty goofy but you just have to have an active imagination, suspend disbelief a little, and buy into everything they are selling. From what I've heard, the storyline of the show takes lots of big, broad turns so it will be fun to be able to fly through those on DVD, as opposed to waiting all summer to see how things turn out...(*cough*..."Lost")...my favorite show on TV this summer has to be "Entourage" on HBO. I loved season one and season two is off to a great start. Jeremy Piven as Ari the agent is one of the best characters on the tube right now...conversely, the worst show I'm watching is "The Comeback" on HBO with Lisa Kudrow. I love the idea of the show a lot, and the format. But her character is just brutal to watch and it makes the entire show painful and annoying. And yet, I'm still giving it a chance...I predict that the Red Sox will be in first place before I get dealt my first hand at the WSOP...I still haven't pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book yet because I don't know if I want to go get it at midnight or just have it mailed to me. I must be getting older. That, and just being in bookstores now feels different after B&N...Robert Horry is pretty damn clutch...I think it's going to be dreadfully humid here in Arkansas this summer, and that's something I haven't had to deal with lately. Although it probably won't hit 120, either.
That's it from me for now. As usual, nothing exciting going on.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Long time, no blog
Hi there!
I haven't updated the blog in a while mainly because there isn't a ton of stuff going on. I can't do my blog like Kevin Smith does his and tell you what I had to eat every day and stuff like that. But the last couple of weeks have been fairly interesting, so I'll get caught up now.
A couple of weekends ago, my friend Johny Kinsman and his girlfriend Lindsey came through town and stayed here for a couple of nights. He is a buddy of mine from back in Massachusetts. He's an actor living in L.A. now and they had gone back to Boston to pick up some stuff and a car that they were driving back to California. John co-starred in and co-produced the movie that we made in New York almost three years ago. Anyway, we always like throwing around new movie ideas and things like that and I had one that I had been saving because I thought it was something we could produce ourselves very quickly and very cheaply if we could just take a week or so and go to Cape Cod at some point. It's a goofy comedy idea about some friends that put on a whiffle ball tournament.
Well, John loved the idea. We ended up staying up until 4 AM on that first night, just throwing out ideas, characters, and scenes. Then he stayed an extra day so we could work on it even more. Although the more we worked on it, the bigger the whole thing became. Then he got back to L.A. and met with a new friend of his, another writer. Apparently this guy knows a producer who makes straight-to-video movies with budgets of a few million bucks, and this producer is actively looking for scripts right now (comedy and horror). So that's what we're aiming for now. Meanwhile, the story itself has gone from a subtle, pseudo-documentary small movie to a much broader, wilder, "Dodgeball," type story. We've been working on it essentially every day since John left here, with me writing script pages and e-mailing them to him, with him sending back changes, comments, etc. It's working pretty well, as we're almost done with a first draft. I think we're on page 73 of what will probably end up being a 100 page script. And we're already planning to write a vampire flick as a follow up after we sell this one for a few hundred grand. Piece of cake!
Other than that, the physical therapy has been keeping me busy. I go three times a week and the knee is gradually getting better. I still can't bend it as much as I'd like, but at least it's stronger than it was. I hope that it improves even more over the next few weeks, especially the range of motion. I have two more P.T. appointments this week and three scheduled for the following week, with a follow up doctor's appointment after that. I hope that it just keeps getting better...since the WSOP Main Event starts three weeks from today.
I've been playing a lot of poker too, with mixed results. There are two things that bother me about it: first off, there is just no way to simulate the actual tournament. Any on-line tournament just moves too fast compared to what the structure will be like at the real thing. For example: in No Limit Hold 'Em tournaments, there are two forced bets called "blinds" on every hand. They are at a set amount and they go up in stakes periodically. In any on line tournament, the blinds go up somewhere around every six to ten minutes. At the Main Event, they only start at $25-$50 (out of $10,000) and go up every two hours. This means that players can be patient and wait for good hands, which is a style that fits well with how I play. But on line, I can't do that at all. The other thing is that I'd really like to log some time at real-life tables before the tournament starts. But as it stands now, it might have to wait until I get to Vegas. I definitely plan on playing some warm up action out there on July 5 and 6. And in another week or so, I should find out what my first day will be for the tourney: July 7, 8, or 9.
So that's what I've been up to. Nothing really new or earth-shattering. I'm starting to get pretty stir cray at home and I really hope the doc clears me to start driving again after I see him on June 29. I've lasted this long, so I guess I can make it a few more weeks.
I haven't updated the blog in a while mainly because there isn't a ton of stuff going on. I can't do my blog like Kevin Smith does his and tell you what I had to eat every day and stuff like that. But the last couple of weeks have been fairly interesting, so I'll get caught up now.
A couple of weekends ago, my friend Johny Kinsman and his girlfriend Lindsey came through town and stayed here for a couple of nights. He is a buddy of mine from back in Massachusetts. He's an actor living in L.A. now and they had gone back to Boston to pick up some stuff and a car that they were driving back to California. John co-starred in and co-produced the movie that we made in New York almost three years ago. Anyway, we always like throwing around new movie ideas and things like that and I had one that I had been saving because I thought it was something we could produce ourselves very quickly and very cheaply if we could just take a week or so and go to Cape Cod at some point. It's a goofy comedy idea about some friends that put on a whiffle ball tournament.
Well, John loved the idea. We ended up staying up until 4 AM on that first night, just throwing out ideas, characters, and scenes. Then he stayed an extra day so we could work on it even more. Although the more we worked on it, the bigger the whole thing became. Then he got back to L.A. and met with a new friend of his, another writer. Apparently this guy knows a producer who makes straight-to-video movies with budgets of a few million bucks, and this producer is actively looking for scripts right now (comedy and horror). So that's what we're aiming for now. Meanwhile, the story itself has gone from a subtle, pseudo-documentary small movie to a much broader, wilder, "Dodgeball," type story. We've been working on it essentially every day since John left here, with me writing script pages and e-mailing them to him, with him sending back changes, comments, etc. It's working pretty well, as we're almost done with a first draft. I think we're on page 73 of what will probably end up being a 100 page script. And we're already planning to write a vampire flick as a follow up after we sell this one for a few hundred grand. Piece of cake!
Other than that, the physical therapy has been keeping me busy. I go three times a week and the knee is gradually getting better. I still can't bend it as much as I'd like, but at least it's stronger than it was. I hope that it improves even more over the next few weeks, especially the range of motion. I have two more P.T. appointments this week and three scheduled for the following week, with a follow up doctor's appointment after that. I hope that it just keeps getting better...since the WSOP Main Event starts three weeks from today.
I've been playing a lot of poker too, with mixed results. There are two things that bother me about it: first off, there is just no way to simulate the actual tournament. Any on-line tournament just moves too fast compared to what the structure will be like at the real thing. For example: in No Limit Hold 'Em tournaments, there are two forced bets called "blinds" on every hand. They are at a set amount and they go up in stakes periodically. In any on line tournament, the blinds go up somewhere around every six to ten minutes. At the Main Event, they only start at $25-$50 (out of $10,000) and go up every two hours. This means that players can be patient and wait for good hands, which is a style that fits well with how I play. But on line, I can't do that at all. The other thing is that I'd really like to log some time at real-life tables before the tournament starts. But as it stands now, it might have to wait until I get to Vegas. I definitely plan on playing some warm up action out there on July 5 and 6. And in another week or so, I should find out what my first day will be for the tourney: July 7, 8, or 9.
So that's what I've been up to. Nothing really new or earth-shattering. I'm starting to get pretty stir cray at home and I really hope the doc clears me to start driving again after I see him on June 29. I've lasted this long, so I guess I can make it a few more weeks.
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