You Can’t Polish a Turd; Or can you?

You Can’t Polish a Turd

Ninja Assassin (2009)

You may have heard the expression, “You can’t polish a Turd” or maybe another version of the phrase that I can’t state here due to my audience. The old proverb means one will never be able to make excrement appealing. No matter how good they are at polishing; it is still poop and no one wants it.

This script, Ninja Assassins, was absolute poop. It was full of cheesy lines and a couple of weak actors. However, I do want to stick up for our lead hero, Raizo, played by an Asian actor named Rain. Yep…Rain. You can IMDB that if you don’t believe me. Rain, as well as the other lead characters did very well for what script they were given. I’m sure that it would be difficult to turn down any script with this kind of budget if your not already a big star. We can blame the script on none other than the producers Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski who hired J. Michael Starczynski as their new writer. According to IMDB.COM they decided six weeks before shooting that it was necessary to have Starczynski polish the script that Matthew Sand wrote. Within a fifty three hour time frame, he re-wrote Sand’s version and started shooting. Now, I have not read Matthew Sand’s version, but it is hard to believe it could have been worse. Starczynski has been around a while writing for TV shows like  the 1980′s cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, The Twilight Zone, The Real Ghost Busters, Murder She Wrote,  Walker Texas Ranger, Babylon 5 and Jeremiah. Personally I may have chosen a different writer to rewrite this script. However, he’s been in the game for quite a while and he should have been a good choice.

Props to Director of Photography, the Director, Fight Choreographer, and Special Effects team! They MADE this movie! It was full of amazing gore,  baffling fight sequences accented with perfect scenery, and impeccable lighting techniques. The film making kept the audience intrigued and interested in the character’s well-being. Well done Director James McTeigue for making lemon-aide out of lemons! He has worked alongside directors from movies like The Matrix trilogy, Star Wars Episode II, and Speed Racer. ……your right. I shouldn’t have mentioned Speed Racer. You may also remember McTeigue as director of V For Vendetta.

It was this technical team who actually polished a turd and is to credit for its $37.9 mill gross earnings as of January 19, 2010. Congrats!

Philosophical Implications

On a normal basis we would discuss the story line and how to redeem it to make sense regarding every day life. Today’s post is more about making you think about taking a challenge. If you are not in a place in your life where you are challenged then you are a coward. I find myself here at this place from time to time. I am a coward more often than I’d like to admit. I have to remind myself that it is forward motion that yields consistent progress. It is failure that reminds us why success is so sweet. Challenging yourself begins with the question “Why?” and it’s followed by the question “How?”.

Go out and do something you’ve never done before! Hurry! No one guaranteed you tomorrow. Do it today!

Daybreakers (Jan 2010)

What can Lionsgate do with only about $20 million dollars?

Daybreakers

This horror flick features Ethan Hawke, Willam Dafoe, Sam Niell, and uuhh….I think there was a girl involved.

Due to the introduction of The Twilight Saga our film community has embraced a new era of vampire lovers! Hollywood decided not to slowly dip there toes in the water but to go headfirst making a splash about the kind of vampires we all grew up watching. You and I remember watching Buffy take down some nasty vampires(but mostly demons) and we watched Angel struggle through the most depressing yet fulfilling non-life ever! However those stories, as clever as they were, never deemed worthy a $20 million budget!

Brothers Michael and Peter Spierig directed the film and they must be ecstatic for it to have grossed over $15 million and hit #4 on IMDB on it’s opening weekend. Oh and by the way…this istheir 3rd movie to direct! WOW! Way to go guys! Too bad the momentum has slowed down severely. As of Jan 18th over 59% of their total gross was made opening weekend.

I must admit that I LOVE vampire movies! I love the idea of a creature dealing with a “blood lust” not easily subdued. It is an extreme representation of the Human Condition. Have you ever wondered why you get so angry for no legitimate reason? Have you ever considered why you might “get up on the wrong side of the bed”? Lets face it, some days we just don’t feel like dealing with things the way we should. Some days Gandhi woke up saying…”whew! These political activists really piss me off!” …….Well, ok……you know he at least thought about it and then retorted to himself why he was being ridiculous. It’s just like you; when you pass a homeless guy. A part of you wants to help, and the other part of you wants to condemn him for the situation he’s in. So you do nothing. Oh wait…my bad! You’re not the person who struggles with that? We all struggle with something on this level. You’ll know what you struggle with when you start a conversation with, “It might be wrong of me to think this way, BUT…” and of course we ALL help you justify your ethical fallibility. This little rant was all to say that maybe I relate to a vampire. Maybe you relate to them too!

Skip to Next section to avoid the spoiler

A vampire needs blood to survive. It’s biology requires it. The vampire can’t change this. However in Daybreakers, they do end up with an alternative! A salvation! Or is it a regression?

Sam Niel’s character would have died of cancer if it weren’t for the advantage of a vampire’s immortality. In this case being a vampire saved his life from being snatched away. However there were many people who became immortal vampires, couldn’t continue to fulfill their blood lust, and it caused them to become something worse than death. Sam Niel’s blood lust ultimately drove him to kill his own daughter whom he genuinely loved. The world became overrun with Vampires of a sophisticated mentality rather than the animals scurrying the underworld like we’re used to. These were intelligent business men/women, artists, Doctor’s, and politicians. These were people, not much different than you and I, struggling with blood lusts of their own.

HOW DO WE REDEEM A SILLY VAMPIRE MOVIE TO BE RELEVANT TO OUR LIVES?

Anyone who has spent time in a third world country will tell you of the horrors of starvation, genocide, and relentless war. Vampires require blood for survival. They will do anything to get it! In this movie there are a few vampires who have a bad conscience about killing humans and so they sacrifice themselves as way of starvation. Regrettably most of the vampires are not so considerate.  Let’s set up a scenario; If the Vampires are the bigger, stronger, selfishly aggressive, and the Humans are the oppressed, weak, and chaotic….

who is:

American Society in regards to 3rd world starving nations?

British Empire as is to Native Americans?

Technology to old generations?

You’re front yard to your neighbor’s front yard?

The SAT way of looking at this is: Vampires are to Humans as ___You______  are to _Your neighbor _.

Get it? Got it? Good!

The Book of Eli; Pt 1:Before It Begins

“The movie is about personal faith and purpose when all is lost.”
~Co-Director Allen Hughes

Since the beginning of written fiction literature mankind has been expressing concernes about the end of time. Each ancient story is about preserving legacy through battles of great evil and overcoming supernatural deities in hopes to keep our lives meaningful and remembered for all eternity. Modern stories have proven to be no different.

~Watch the Trailor (HD)~

The Book of Eli is a post apocalyptic drama of one man holding the key to the rest of mankind’s survival. Man’s evil has prevailed over their good conscience as the world was spun into chaos. The tag line that is becoming so intriguing from the film is “Some will kill to have it. He will kill to protect it.”

I haven’t seen this movie(release date: January 15, 2010), but from what little I can gather, I don’t know that we will ever know what is actually in Eli’s book. So to stay true to our philosophical approach to films and stories, what does this say about mankind? More specifically, what does this say about our culture today?

Was it not enough to have a

Mad Max? Water World?

28 Days Later? The Postman?

I am Legand?   Wall-E?

Have we not used this genre of films to state every political and nonconformist party line and each bohemian manifesto already? What else could possibly be said? As we discussed in our last blog post, “what has been is what will be”.

Whew….glad we got that out of our system. The Elephant in the room has been addressed and we can move on! To answer our philosophical inquiries, we must first watch the movie with our presuppositions aside.

My challenge to you is this:

While the next week passes, and you approach the opening weekend(Jan 15) of The Book of Eli, let us forget that we have been betrayed by apocalyptic movies in the past. Lets forget that they seemed to have had a underlaying theme of persuasion and you felt duped when in the end, it was just another political satire . When you sit down in that theater next to good friends and good popcorn, remember; It’s just a movie. Let the Hughes brothers, who directed the film, take you on a journey. Forget your stance on things for a moment, and try to relate to the characters. Don’t let your overgrown ego get in the way of great story telling. We’ll talk more about the film after I’ve seen it!

Feel free to post comments. as you may see it before I do. But be kind and don’t spoil the movie on my blog. Bash it! Love it! Just don’t spoil it!

Reference:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24325

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/

The Art and Philosophy of Telling a Story

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.  Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been m already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after. 

These words, uttered by the wise and famous King Solomon, were exclaimed thousands of years ago in frustration. It was the dissatisfaction of breathing the same air over and over again; The irritation of hearing the same instruments play the same tunes in the same rhythms; the disgruntled soul longing for neoteric poetry, fresh entertainment  and something or anything new. The sun rises and the sun falls. Yet the moon, with its cool blanket, continues to give us hope that the next day will be better than the last. Each morning’s sunrise is followed by the disheartening fizzle of the yet another sunset. So as the new moon begins to erase our fears of hopelessness in anything new, we must ask ourselves a question. If these feelings, that were promulgated thousands of years prior to our own, are still prevalent in our minds today…why are you further dismayed at the sunset rather than awed by this ancient ritual?

You may be wondering how this is related to film or even my company Storied Productions. That’s a great philosophical question! This blog will help us analyse this particular art of story telling regarding film and video. Let us take an objective look at movies together and consider two things. The first being that you already know the plot. Lets not get caught up in the cliché of being “original”. Rather, lets talk about how creative the story tellers are as they’ve worked hard to tell the million year old story. The second consideration I will ask of you is to observe the technology and acting skills of the hundreds of people involved in one film. Let’s look into the philosophical, economic, and emotional implications of films and ask ourselves…if there is nothing new under the sun, how can I better enjoy the things that are?