One Rare Moment Of Flowing Thoughts

I am Nobody. My non–physical characteristics are, as of this moment, Blur and Vague. I am neither Sane nor Insane. I am neither Popular nor Completely Unpopular.

Then my brain hangs. I was supposed to write a lot more than that, then stop at the sentence 'I've lost my Inner Voice'. But inspirations have a way of fizzing out when one gets distracted. Never mind, a different stream of thought flowed in for a while, which I jotted down – in the form of an MSN conversation.

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
hoi

Illusionary says:
yeah, what's up

Illusionary says:
was falling in and out of sleep and having adventures in deep dreams

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
really?

Illusionary says:
yeah

Illusionary says:
am reading the contemporary classic Sophie's World at the moment, that might be why

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
ahhh

Illusionary says:
have you read that one

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
nope

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i read three chapters

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
felt it was too heavy

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
so put it aside

Illusionary says:
is it? it's very light

Illusionary says:
i mean, try telling the history of philosophy and not scaring ppl off

Illusionary says:
by presenting it from a child's point of view … it's brilliant

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i was 16 when i picked it up

Illusionary says:
i see

Illusionary says:
hmm, i had something to blog about just a moment ago

Illusionary says:
now i lost it

Illusionary says:
typed only three or four sentences and it dried up

Illusionary says:
was flowing just now

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
darn

Illusionary says:
i was thinking about the idea that perhaps i lost my 'inner voice' (for the lack of a better phrase)

Illusionary says:
am i unique, original? in such a way that i was comfortable with myself?

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
you might have

Illusionary says:
hell yeah, i once was, up till early sec school

Illusionary says:
i get embarassed by some events, by some things ppl say, but on the whole i was proud to be myself

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
really?

Illusionary says:
along the way, more and more ppl begin to ask, why are you like this, or say, i cant understand you

Illusionary says:
but even until towards the end of high school i still felt proud to be weird (emotional and hormonal fluctuations aside)

Illusionary says:
by uni time i was convinved by ppl that i need to change

Illusionary says:
that i cannot go on not knowing how to drive, that i cannot be stuck to just liking to watch movies, that i must learn how to deal with ppl (to socialise)

Illusionary says:
which, by all reasonably standards of society's conventions, makes simple sense

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i can't drive either

Illusionary says:
so i guess i did try to change … while strongly resisting it at the same time, questioning those ppl, why, saying, i am happy to be myself

Illusionary says:
so now, the question is, did i change or not?

Illusionary says:
i think i did, i was more aware of The World, of Reality (as perceived by immediate friends)

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
you sold out.

Illusionary says:
and perhaps, that revealed how high the possibility is that i will fail as a human

Illusionary says:

• as a human/person living in current circumstances, at this epoch, this stage of history

Illusionary says:
did i forget to stay stubborn? current conventions would question, must you stay stubborn? stubbornness is bad, means inflexibility

Illusionary says:
current conventions voiced by the liberal (logical? what i mean to say is the doctrine of 'question everything') mode of thinking i suppose

Illusionary says:
so, a) should i go back to being 'myself'? b) is it still possible for me to go back to being 'myself'? c) who was 'myself'? how was it like? is it actually better

Illusionary says:
what did i used to strive to do? i strived to stare at the face of unexpected/surprising/dire/unusual circumstances and say: that is normal, that is okay

Illusionary says:
this becoz it is impressive to others … it perplexes others

Illusionary says:
i wanted to be knowledgeable, more so than any others … and i think for a long time i was quite ahead of others

Illusionary says:
then uni changed all of that

Illusionary says:
no, wait, that started in high school

Illusionary says:
high school showed me someone who could think more maturedly than me

Illusionary says:
a–levels showed me someone who knew more than i could possibly know (in philosophy and ideas of the antiquity and history)

Illusionary says:
uni showed me someone who can demonstrate how much more right (correct) than i am in virtually every issue we dont agree with

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
hmm

Illusionary says:
(in short, someone who is more clever than me)

Illusionary says:
so since high school i have to admit that my life is in a descending shape of decline

Illusionary says:
theory of relativity … who moved? did i stay still (stagnant)? or is it The World who left me behind?

Illusionary says:
(logically i suppose both could be true, but i was going for something else)

Illusionary says:
so anyway … my mind is trickling out now

Illusionary says:
i think that's the end of pseudo–psycho talk

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
you gotta put this in your blog

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
sorry about my lack of response

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
was writing a desperate email to recruit this cinematographer

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
had to sound as sincere as possible

Illusionary says:
well, about half way through writing that i realised i WAS writing for the blog … so your lack of response was kinda inconsequential

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
oh, all right

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
anyway, going to uni doesn't really make me feel anylesser

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
in fact, it kinda boosted my ego

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
made me realize how unique i can actually be

Illusionary says:
maybe going to US will be that experience for me … though somehow i feel like loud and boisterous americans will just scare me off

Illusionary says:
coz the english are reserved … and that's partly why i feel compelled to stay on in london

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i think it's better for you too

Illusionary says:
well, i dont really want to be loud and boisterous … unless i might enjoy it later, but that's hard to imagine

Illusionary says:
i mean, all i need to be confident is to be sure of myself

Illusionary says:
the reason in the past i am confident is becoz i was sure of myself, even though my ideas and train of thoughts seemed insane to other ppl around me

Illusionary says:
so i didnt really care what other ppl were thinking, all i knew was i was right

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
just try to reclaim that confidence, man

Illusionary says:
and that was probably when i could have directed stuff … coz i was SURE

Illusionary says:
well, it's not just a simple act of reclaiming confidence … question is how, and i need to do this 'right', as in in a manner natural to me

Illusionary says:
not following what other ppl say like what everyone said i should do … and not following self help books (maybe that ruined me for the last ten yrs?)

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i never read selfhelp books

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
i just believe what is right for me

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
my ego makes me think a lot about myself

Illusionary says:
heh, that's not hard to believe about you

Great Swifty (Edmund) ??? says:
definitely

Okay, some parts were kinda irrelevant. In case you're interested, you can visit the Ultimate Narcissistic, Great Swifty at swiftywriting.blogspot.com.

: 14 Jul 2006 16:21 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Audiences Are Stupid

There, I've said it.

Okay, fine, I'll say it more accurately. Audiences …

I can't. I don't know how.

Anyways, it was something that got me thinking. There are a lot of movies out there, like The Fast and the Furious which was perennially agreed to be one trash of a movie, and yet the bloody thing has spawned a second sequel set in Tokyo. Who wants to watch stuff like that? Trashy stuff like that?

Apparently, lots of people.

Instead, there are lots of intelligent films, films where both critics and audiences can agree are quality films, and they tend to … earn less. Much less.

(Things are never simple of course. M:I–III was generally well–received – compared to other blockbusters – by both audiences and critics as well. But I'm blogging, if I don't generalise, I don't get to put across what I want to say. In fact, do you know that probably half of the argumentative comments generated from any particular discussive blog post are pedantic 'corrections' about what the commentator says the blogger said wrong, and the counter–arguments to that, and … you get the picture. Generalisation is essential. There a whole paragraph just to clarify that. What was I talking about before this?)

I was thinking about … films about historically traumatising events. United 93 was just released in the US, and the film will not earn a lot of money becoz it was ... a well made film. As in, critics all said that the film was even-handed, did not preach, nor comment, did not even dramatise the events, did not give the characters heroic characteristics, did not demonise the terrorists, did not milk or manipulate. It just shows it as it is.

That the experience was too recent and hence too painful for certain sectors of the population aside, the audience for this movie should still be huge. There isn't a lack of publicity for this. But no, people are avoiding this.

Instead, movies like Pearl Harbor get their audience easily. And this one seems to be fairly unanimously rejected as a quality movie.

Notice what I'm saying. I'm not saying that all films should be true–to–life, realistic, grim and depressing – gosh, what an extreme. (Commentators online have a tendency to do that as well. Blogger expresses one viewpoint against a certain extreme, commentator retaliates by saying the blogger must logically belong to the other extreme. The concept of middle ground and spectrum of opinions seem alien.) I do like to enjoy films that are all for entertainment and escapism. The Scary Movie franchise, for example.

What I'm unhappy about is the fact that films that are well made like United 93 don't earn much. Why is this relevant? It's relevant coz I'm not actually thinking about all of this in relation to Hollywood. I'm thinking about the film industry back home, in Malaysia. The industry is still lying at the gutter, but is slowly making it's way up, hampered by heavy stones in the form of politicians and the censorship board (though, kudos to the board, they are making changes for the better). Still, there is potential for the industry to rise up magically, wipe the dust of its shoulder, wear a suit, and run to the world and show what it can do.

But no. Silly, ridiculous, melodramatic, sappy, basically low quality films tend to be the ones filling the theatre seats. Films that try to be different, that are actually worth watching, will, at this point, never see itself garner more than a few thousand audiences. Instead, they have to rely on overseas market just to break even, with no profits left over such that more ambitious films can be made.

Again, keep in mind that I'm generalising. I suppose one reason why the audience is not to be blamed is becoz of the problem of adverse selection. If one were to pick between Malaysian indie films in the cinema, say, The 3rd Generation and Gubra, by just looking at the titles – how would you know which one is better? Only the urban professionals who read a lot and spent time online who knew a lot about the director behind Gubra would say I'd rather see Gubra. (In fact, The 3rd Generation turned out to be the worst, most pretentious arthouse shit I've ever heard.)

I may come to regret typing out this post in the future. I may change my mind and say that bad films need to be made along the way, for filmmakers – especially in a young industry like Malaysia – to make mistakes to get better.

But, at this moment, I feel like there is nothing to watch at the cinemas. Neither in Hollywood nor a home.

: 13 May 2006 14:04 |  Tags: Rant |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Top 5 Films Of 2005

So many films that popped out in the last quarter year or so, that it took a long time to get through it all. I find that overhyped films that other people seem to enjoy don't persuade me, seemed more like they wanted to enjoy it because it makes them feel highbrow or something, I don't know – that's generalisation. What I do know is these – I've finally found my own perfect list. The others that people talk about, like Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, & Good Luck., Munich, Crash and The Constant Gardener did not get to me.

Instead, films which were truly emotional, which heavily affected me, caused me to think about it days after, the kind that sucks one into the screen and refuses to let go, in ways that I do not know how to explain they way I usually can for other films where my tendency to analyse prevails – these films are:

1. CINDERELLA MAN

This could have so easily been the most boring concept, most unnecessary film of the year, but under the inexplicable je ne sais quoi that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer puts into it, add to that the more than competent acting that the cast put into it, and with the combination of a creative cinematographer, excellent sound mixing and the services of the incredible talents of Thomas Newman for the score – the film actually made me tear up for the first time in a long time at a cinema.

2. WAR OF THE WORLDS

Lots of people don't get it – I shan't address that for fear of insulting anyone. But I think Spielberg delivered one of the most frightening films. I don't care about frightening films in the horror or suspense genre – what this film did is to convince that all that is happening is real, and that the characters would do what they did. In effect, they are like billiard balls, being knocked around, and they react the best that they can – a metaphor applied to Crash, but apparently no one sees it here. Perhaps I have a higher capacity to suspend disbelief than others – I understand the flaws in the ending, some apparent 'plotholes' (they're not), but I think this came out a better film than most last year.

3. THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

Sure it's a kids film. What I like about it: depiction of the elder brother's sense of responsibilities, medieval knights, the dated way in which the kids speak, the way the film can be touching in unexpected ways (the scene at the train station), the brilliant shot when the two armies approach. Now, there are lots of films with clashing armies nowadays – but this one did it in momentous silence. The film is without its flaws, but it is forgivable as the undertaking was huge. For example, I thought the kids were potentially great – they just need someone to tell them to cut down on the pouting and the insecure mannerisms.

4. SYRIANA

The most important film of the year. Frightening in the way it reveals how ignorant all of us are, and why. Depressing in its truthful conclusion that nothing will change because that's the way it is. We are all heading towards the precipice; some of us see it, but we cannot turn back because we are tied to those who don't see. A sincere but violent look at the realities of our hopelessly capitalistic world.

5. PRIDE & PREJUDICE

Period dramas get me – except when they're boring like Ang Lee's Sense & Sensibility. Director Joe Wright infuses this with such furious passion that every single nuance and subtlety is highlighted to the audience – if the audience fails to perceive it, it is no one's fault but their own. Less about telling the story and more about making the audience feel every single idea and emotion that the characters go through. Every single one of the cast turned up top notch performances. As I haven't seen the BBC one I cannot say whether I'd ever think the BBC version of Darcy and Bennet are better. Chances are I won't – MacFadyen and Knightley were completely compelling.

: 20 Feb 2006 20:26 |  Tags: Film Movie |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Watch SYRIANA

FROM DIRECTOR Stephen Gaghan

AND STARRING George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Siddig, Amanda Peet, Chris Cooper, Christopher Plummer, William Hurt, and so on …

What is it about? It's about the world we live in today. It's about oil, corruption, the Middle East, terrorism, capitalism, fundamentalism, unemployment, American corporations, the CIA.

Who's in it? Everyone. It's about fathers and sons. The disillusioned CIA undercover agent. His son. The idealistic energy analyst. His wife and son(s). The reformist Arab prince. His father and brother. The quiet oil lawyer. His father. The Pakistani boy trying to ekk out a living in the Persian Gulf. His father. The corrupted heads of corporations. The old man behind the whole thing. The invisible heads working inside the CIA. The ulamas spreading the word of Allah. The anonymous-looking Chinese who are taking over firms one by one.

What's the point? Everything is connected. Who's right, who's wrong? You're asking the wrong questions, baby.

This film is about oil, but not a single drop of it is seen anywhere, the same way oil lawyers never came across the commodity they're defending. The movie keeps moving forward, so fast that if you miss a beat you realise you suddenly don't understand the whole story. And even if you were following the story carefully you may not be able to hold the entire thing in your head.

Because such is the current state of our modern capitalistic world. The film is based on a book, which is based on true events; however, everything in the film is fictional. What writer-director Stephen Gaghan (who won an Oscar for Traffic) tried to do was to present a film that reflects the way the world is, without any political bias or opinion – and he spent a couple of years just to research and write the movie. I trust him. The world he presents is a scary place. It's scary because we've been so ignorant of what's going on, most of us.

Gaghan is aided by a great cast – every one is a bit player, but they are all well-portrayed, and many will leave their impression on you. The cinematography and music are kept simple, chaotic only when it needs to be. All of this helps, because the story is complicated enough as it is.

Film is not just entertainment. Does this entertain? Depends on who you are. But if you want to have an understanding of how our world works – do yourself a favour.

Deserves Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (for Alexander Siddig and Jeffrey Wright, not Clooney), Best Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Original Screenplay.

: 05 Feb 2006 16:03 |  Tags: Film Movie Oscars Review |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Final Blog Entry

Everything needs a good title.

The screenplay just isn't working, and the reason the film project isn't working is that I don't know how to write the next draft. The last six months working on the screenplay – well, it's like chewing gum. You chew gum for flavour. So you chew and chew, and then the flavour gradually fades away but you continue to believe that you're squeezing out more coz of the residual flavour stuck inside your mouth. At some point even those are gone and you begin to think that you should spit it out – but then people encourage you to keep chewing, "don't give up".

But eventually, you realise that it is completely pointless to continue chewing on a flavour-long-gone gum, no matter how much you delude yourself, how much you want to delude yourself.

And even though this is supposed to be my way out of a boring existence in uni and a way into the film industry – well, I suppose the message is, get real, idiot.

Not that I didn't get the message. Obviously it was obvious that I was just deluding myself the past half year. But when you're trying to write, you tend to throw those thoughts out as far as you can.

So the story of Jeremy Wakeham ends here. He will not appear on celluloid, because he has failed as a sympathetic character, and his story is apparently not worth telling.

And the two things a film must have to succeed are a great script and a great cast. I didn't even get past Test No 1.

And to be honest, even if I do punch out a great script, I'm not confident about getting the right actors. It's not like I have a chance to employ James McAvoy, Jordan Metcalfe or Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

I feel like a fool, even though I'm making this decision with a clearer mind than when I was trying to create scenes in my head. This is how it feels like to have Loser and Failure written on your forehead.

And Peter Jackson gets to make King Kong.

Final Rants And Observations

Malaysia is one of a few non-Western countries with a great love for cinema (what a lie – a great love for movies) with a reasonably high command of English who heard, in KING KONG, Jack Black as Carl Denham uttering the words "I'm a movie producer, you can trust me" and not have any inkling that that was supposed to be funny.

And, as much as I like to see Jamie Bell as rising young star – what the hell is the Jimmy subplot doing in King Kong?

Just went to Australia. The country sucks. I could write a long paragraph about why – or I can keep it to myself.

Chances of more entries appearing in this blog due to sudden influx of inspirations that allows the screenplay to continue to be written, or as a useless site for rants: 50/50.

: 26 Dec 2005 06:36 |  Tags: Blogging Filmmaking |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

University Sucks

I've been trying to consider the problem of why university sucks. I know I don't like it, but the more I try to reason it the more I find that I can't. This probably isn't of importance for most students – the majority seem to be enjoying their time here, whether it's those who are really here for that studying shit (the ones who are scribbling throughout lectures … scribble scribble, fucking annoying, no?) and the ones who slack and party their way through and do weird stuff like walk on the lecture tables to get from one end to the other because it's cool. And everyone else in between (life is a spectrum/continuum).

It is important for me for another reason – I need to be able to answer that question if I am to write my screenplay.

I tried googling to see whether anyone else agrees. Well, I came up with some random sites denouncing certain specific US colleges … which is irrelevant of course. When I do find others who agree … well, the guy also realised he doesn't have a coherent reason why he hates university.

Particularly for me, I guess it's because I'm not doing well here, academically. Used to be one of those A students – and the thing is I never had to try to get an A. I just do. Here, somehow things are different. Friends seem to enjoy being all righteous, saying the right thing - university is different from high school, mate. So what?

Then there's the loneliness. The boredom. The going to lectures wondering what for, when all I do is fall asleep. The assignments … the frustration for doing something that seems somewhat important yet so pointless.

As you can see, not exactly good reasons to denounce university.

I'd really like to know – and I know I will never find out, coz statistics is such a big fucking lie – what proportion of the student population have the same sort of thoughts. It might be surprisingly huge. But as I said, on the surface, everyone else seems to be enjoying their time here.

In which case, I'll be told to just shut up and get on with it.

If I ever thought out the reasons, though – the film is potentially huge. If only I can remove everyone's dependency on university … suddenly things like top-up fees and various other arguments become irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

: 26 Nov 2005 01:29 |  Tags: Blogging |  Comments (176) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Downfall – A World Gone To Hell

Der Untergang, or Downfall, portrays the final days of Hitler and the Third Reich. Basically, what you see is an empire on its downfall, a once glorious vision reduced to fantasies, an ambitious man reduced to ruins without ever fully realising that he cannot control the world, a group of people forced to make choices for which most of them didn't realise they have in the first place … a world gone mad.

Last week I saw the Korean war drama Tae Guk Gi Hwinalrimyeo (Brotherhood), which tells of two brothers during the 1960 Korean civil war. That one sees a country tear itself apart, people killing their own people, most of them not even knowing at an intellectual level what they were fighting for. It's almost as if everyone's brainwashed, and the result is hell on earth.

Der Untergang does this with a terrible sense of dread. The dread is mostly on the audience, and does not fully descend on the characters (and we are introduced to at least a dozen main ones, which I found very impressive, even in a 156-minute movie) until the final third of the movie. We sense that dread because of what we know today.

We know that Hitler was a monster, and that Berlin would fall.

And in the movie, we are wondering what the hell these people are doing there.

The film is essentially based on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, who serves as a makeshift lead character here, allowing us to see the event through her eyes. At some point we realise that we need to understand her urges to see Hitler as a great man. She was giddy with excitement when she found out that she was to be Hitler's secretary. The less intelligent of the audience members will probably think she and the others are buffoons.

My point is, what is going through the head of Hitler? I think the film brings us closer to understanding it. As many have pointed out, the film humanises Hitler. Now, 'humanising' someone doesn't mean making him nice. It just means that it's showing the fact that YOU COULD HAVE BEEN HIM AS WELL. It all comes down to this fact - Hitler was an ambitious man. (Now, before I continue, let me just say that this is what I think from watching the film ... is Hitler like that in real life? well, history as we know it is never, ever actual truth … do you understand what this means?) He had a grand vision, and I actually found myself thinking, what IS that vision? What does he see in that head of his? Why does it have to involve killing millions of Jews? I'm not a historian so I don't know the context, and I don't really care (really, this film is only gonna occupy my entire being for a rather short period of time, a matter of hours).

Certainly I can understand the feeling when EVERYBODY is letting you down. That is how Hitler sees his world in his final days. Everyone is either betraying him, or not able to execute his orders. Extreme and intense disappointment sets in. He goes into one of his depressive moods – all is lost, it's over, yada yada. So he brings Eva in and they kill themselves. And a scapegoat is born.

I like that the film did not exactly concentrate on him. There's Eva Braun – how is it that she can remain so calm? Cheerful, even. Is she really just chronically naive? And there's Goebbels and his wife – and in this movie, Frau Goebbels really steals the limelight. She insists on staying with Hitler, like many others – along with her kids. 6 of them. All seem to be below the age of 12. She's is a determined woman – my, in today's world, in another movie, she'd be someone you would admire.

She brought the kids there so that she could kill every single one of them. Poison. She could not live in a world in which the Third Reich and the Nazi doesn't exist. A very disciplined woman. She'd rather Hitler live, they might be able to salvage the remains of their world some other time; but if Hitler wants to commit suicide, she would have to bring the kids along with her down with him. I'm sure most of the audience are shocked at that scene, played out over many minutes, yet each minute is compelling. One by one she poisons them.

Among the generals, you see some who seem like they have common sense, who actually considered the consequences on the people of Berlin. And then you get those who only knew how to obey Hitler. To suggest something else is like forcing someone to think out of the box – have you gone mad? Out of the box? Most of the latter committed suicide in the end. So many of them, you get the feeling of them 'dropping like flies'.

And then you get the youth army. So loyal and courageous. They really believed in it all, and were prepared to die defending the city. Such an honourable (read: fun) privilege. So you see this girl with pigtails telling her comrade to shoot her. He shoots. Then he shoots. Two bodies lying on the floor. What would become of them had that not happened?

I doubt anyone would read till this point … in which case, I don't know why I just typed that. When I saw The Pianist for the first time, I was left with feeling like I was about to collapse. Most people saw that film and thought, 'meh, Schandler's whatever was better'. (Fuckers, can't even pronounce the title properly.) However, for me I was really in the moment … every step the pianist took, especially outside, he could be shot for no particular reason. That was frightening … frightening in a way that most of you won't understand because you don't take films as seriously as I do.

Watching this one reminded me again of that fear.

Why?

Because this will probably happen sometime from now. I'd like to find out whether I will be able to live through it.

(Who will start the next war? Corporations? It will probably not be obvious that it's WWIII. You drink your milk and then you fall over dead – chemical in products. Things like that. Basically, something we cannot imagine yet.)

(Can you survive that?)

: 24 Nov 2005 23:30 |  Tags: Film Movie Review Reviews |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I Am Such A Loser

Just saw Jerry Maguire.

I realised that my script is not compelling enough.

Shit.

: 23 Nov 2005 22:27 |  Tags: Filmmaking |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Film Score Albums

The following are film score albums where I thought every single track just worked, as whole. There are very few such albums – most albums contain a few brilliant tracks accompanied by some meandering or filler tracks. Pretty much all Thomas Newman scores are like that, a few good ones, so good you'll remember them for the rest of your breathing lives, but the rest of the album … meh.

The Bourne Supremacy (John Powell)

My … Starting from the first track, Goa, which introduces a breezy melody accompanied by strong percussions, all the way to the end, the score basically never lets up. Half the tracks here are action tracks, based around seemingly chaotic percussion beats which races forwards and brakes at random, like a car throwing you forward and back, and you can actually feel the inertia of it listening to it. In between, some relatively quieter tracks blend in and then leave, not intruding the pacing at all. It all builds up the climax which begins with the determined-sounding Moscow Build Up and lets out in full blast for 6 minutes in Bim Bam Smash. As I keep saying, if only all action scores are like this …

The Four Feathers (James Horner)

The film deserved a few Oscars, in my opinion, but most of the world has never even heard of it. Could have been the Lawrence of Arabia of this century – I'm not kidding. The score itself … well, not everyone is going to like it, but I love it! An adventure story about a British finding redemption in the Sudan, what the score does is to have Western epic orchestral music play out, then North African wailing music, then when the battle sequences begin, mesh them together, twisting in and out of each other, sometimes competing with each other. It was a brilliant concept (also done in Black Hawk Down) and what really works here is that both aspects were so strong. I love the Qawwali wailings – it's coarse and rough and out-of-tune and, for most of you, irritating. Maybe that's why I like it, I can bear things you guys can't. The Western orchestral bits – wow … Seriously, the romantic parts were so damn heartbreaking and poignant – and Horner achieved that with 6 piano notes, that's it – while the epic bits were so classical and grand. You must hear it to understand what I mean.

Mighty Joe Young (James Horner)

This one sees Horner doing something he normally never touches – African music. What is surprising is that he did it SO well. While it's still recognisably Horner, the African parts of the score, which includes the percussions and the vocals, are so well used and they create really nice melodies. The first track, Sacred Guardian of the Mountain, is Horner's usual way of starting films, where percussion build into a crescendo, gets more chaotic, climaxes, then softens it. Works really well here. The next track, Poachers, starts in mysteriously, and then very unique and never-heard-before percussion builds its way in, and then the music turns sad when you hear two soft voices singing the main theme (actually when the part when the little girl's mother dies slowly in front of her), and then it blasts off into a strong African choir. The rest of the score is either tender music, which are mostly variations of the rather beautiful main theme, or they're the action bits, taking up most of the second half of the album. The action bits contain lots of very interesting inventions of percussion beats and structures which have never been heard and never heard from again. Strange how much effort went into this forgettable film. The final track ends with the Windsong, and the song was just so beautiful I couldn't get it out of my head for MONTHS. I can even sing the song, which may be Swahili but I'm not sure. (Imba wimbo wa-uh peh po … wakati una ju-wana …)

Under The Tuscan Sun (Christophe Beck)

I've talked about this score before. Basically a dramedy score – and I've never heard any other score balance it so well in between. Many of the tracks leave with you a feeling that's half wanting to break into a smile and half poignant in a way that makes you feel like you're not yourself anymore. Don't know what more to say except that you must hear this one.

Gladiator (Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard)

Come to think of it, this one also works in its entirety. Not a single boring track. Obviously the score is one of the best in the last decade.

American Beauty (Thomas Newman)

Okay, so I was wrong about Newman. There was this one where every single track worked. Most people only know the Dead Already track though, thanks to some electronic DJ or something converting the score into a dance track.

: 23 Nov 2005 19:11 |  Tags: Music |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Screenplay Done

Yeah, it's finally done. I don't know why I feel so happy – it's not like it's the best ending I could punch out, and for most of the last week I just kept thinking the things I thought of just doesn't work. At this point I don't know whether it works, but still, I feel happy.

The bloody screenplay is done.

Now all I need to do is to polish it, and send it off to the relevant people. I hope Bea's done with her own film's post-production …

UPDATE: I've finished my screenplay and now I'm listening to depressing music. What does that say?

: 22 Nov 2005 20:51 |  Tags: Film Filmmaking Movie |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem