I had the following conversation with my parents:

Mom… Dad… please, sit down… there’s something I have to tell you…no, Dad, you don’t need a cigarette.  Mom… yes, you need a drink.

The last few years have been a whirlwind… and in that time, many things have happened to me that I’m not so proud of… no seriously, Dad, no cigarettes.  Go get Mom a shot though…

(Dad comes back with two shots of Maker’s Mark.  Mom shoots ‘em both like she’s saying ‘what else ya got?’)

So anyway… here goes… I hope you still love me…

I haven’t been watching LOST.  Not since the second season.

Mom, no, don’t cry… it’s nothing that you did… Dad… please… will you look at me?  I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean for it to happen.  i just fell from the path.  I watched BATTLESTAR GALACTICA – doesn’t that frakking count?  I regret it horribly.  It’s not like I chose to be this way…

And then Dad threw me out.  Saying I was no son of his until I got myself back into LOST.  From that moment forth, I swore that I would do all I can to make penance to the hordes of LOST fans out there.

So… that leads me to introduce the man from Wilmington… Chad Handley.

Chad Handley’s into LOST – like a million other people smarter than me.  He’s a great writer with a lot of wit, and he’s got a little something for all the fans of Oceanic Flight 815.  I copied and pasted it for your enjoyment.

HOW LOST WRITERS DAMON LINDELOF AND CARLTON CUSE PLAY POKER

Damon Lindelof and Cuse share a hand on one side of the table. Their poker opponent holds his hand on the other side.

POKER OPPONENT: Okay, you’ve been telling us you have a great hand for 5 rounds now. Let’s see it.

LINDELOF: Oh, it’s fantastic all right.

CUSE: Wait until you see it.

POKER OPPONENT: Well, everybody’s shown their cards, so… It’s time to show yours.

LINDELOF: Oh, we’re going to show them.

CUSE: But first, let’s see what was going on before we had this hand.

FLASHBACK SCENE: Lindelof and Cuse sit at the table as the cards are shuffled.

BACK TO SCENE:

POKER OPPONENT: I know that happened. I was there. But if you could just show us your cards, we could move on.

LINDELOF: Don’t be so impatient.

CUSE: When we show you our cards, it’s going to blow your mind.

LINDELOF: But first, let’s see what happens 5 years after this hand.

FLASH FORWARD: Lindelof and Cuse sit around on their couches, running loose bills through a money-counter, watching a re-run of Lost.

BACK TO SCENE:

POKER OPPONENT: I really don’t see how this at all adds to the strength of your hand. If I’m being honest, it’s just making more upset that you’re making me wait. At this point you better have a royal flush, otherwise you’re just being a dick.

LINDELOF: Trust us.

CUSE: We’ve known what we were going to do with this hand for 5 rounds.

POKER OPPONENT: And does that plan involve showing your cards at some point?

CUSE: Don’t get hung up on what our “actual cards” are.

LINDELOF: Exactly. This hand is about the journey.

POKER OPPONENT: But see, the journey’s over. This is the final round of betting. This is the part where you kind of have to show us your hand.

LINDELOF: And we’re going to. And you’re going to love it, probably.

CUSE: But first, picture if you will what this round of poker would have been like if all of us had slightly different hands.

FLASH SIDEWAYS: All the guys silently look at their hands. They look pretty much as bored as they do in the actual game.

END FLASH SIDEWAYS:

POKER OPPONENT: What was that, now?

CUSE: A flash sideways! Boom!

LINDELOF: No one’s ever done that!

POKER OPPONENT: Yeah. Think there might be a reason why nobody’s ever done that?

LINDELOF & CUSE: Because it’s GENIUS.

POKER OPPONENT: Maybe. Or maybe it’s because it adds no information about your actual hand. I mean technically the stuff before your hand could give us insight into your hand, and the stuff after your hand could tell us something about the hand you had. But telling us about other hands you could have had, what does that do?

LINDELOF: He’s not getting it.

CUSE: I don’t think you understand what we just did. We just showed you other hands that we don’t have, but that we could have had.

LINDELOF: How is he not getting this?

POKER OPPONENT: But where is that going?

CUSE: Again, don’t get hung up on “where our hand is going” or “does our hand make sense” or “isn’t pretty much everything we’re now saying about our hand in direct contradiction to every previous statement we’ve ever made about our hand”. All that “head-thinking” will just keep you from enjoying our hand.

POKER OPPONENT: To be honest, it wouldn’t have bothered me so much if you didn’t waste more than half of the final round of betting telling us about hands that don‘t have anything to do with this one.

LINDELOF: What are you trying to say?

CUSE: You didn’t enjoy that?

POKER OPPONENT: It just took up a lot of time during the round in which you are supposed to be showing us your actual hand.

LINDELOF: But if we just showed you our hand, it would be over.

POKER OPPONENT: It is over. This is the last round. There’s no point in bluffing anymore. This is the part where you either have the cards or you don’t.

LINDELOF: What is with this weird obsession about what our “actual cards” are?

CUSE: Is that all this is about to you?

POKER OPPONENT: Yes. Mostly because you’ve been telling us for 5 rounds that you knew exactly what your hand was and that it was this great, incredible hand. So now we want to see it.

LINDELOF: But when we were telling you how awesome our cards were, we weren’t talking about how awesome our actual cards were.

CUSE. Right. We were talking about how awesome the journey to seeing our cards would be.

POKER OPPONENT: No you weren’t. Because that’s not what those words mean.

LINDELOF: Okay. Before we show this hand, we’re just going to do a quick one hour recap.

POKER OPPONENT: I’d rather you didn’t.

CUSE: Bear with us. Just a quick hour long run-down of everything that happened before, after, during, diagonally, and sideways from this hand.

LOOOONG RECAP MONTAGE of cards being shuffled, dealt out, bet, folded, etc.

BACK TO SCENE

POKER OPPONENT: Oh. My. God. Will you please just show your damn – What is this now?!

Lindelof and Cuse are now holding UNO cards.

LINDELOF: What?

POKER OPPONENT: Where did those cards come from?

CUSE: What are you talking about?

LINDELOF: These are the same cards we’ve always had.

POKER OPPONENT: I was here for entire hand. I remember what happened. You can’t play with cards from one deck for half of the round and then switch decks at the end and hope everybody doesn’t notice.

LINDELOF: Well let me answer your question with a question. Uno!

Lindelof lays his final card down on the table.

CUSE: How you like us now, bitch?

The Poker Opponent stares at them in blank disbelief. Stands away from the table.

POKER OPPONENT: Done.

Lindelof and Cuse sigh in relief.

LINDELLOFF: Thank God.

CUSE: Thought he’d never leave.

Lindelof tosses their actual hand, a busted straight, onto the table.

LINDELOFF: We might have actually had to show this piece of shit hand.

FIN

Lost Art of Filmmaking represents my attempt to highlight examples of film language that no longer seems to appear on the radar of a majority of working filmmakers.

Each column, I’ll choose a clip from a movie that demonstrates a ‘lost art’ of some sort, ask you to watch it, and then go into detail about why this particular slice of movie is worth bringing back into focus…

This is what I’m talking about.  This is what the LAOF series is all about.

OK Go is a band that became famous for its’ viral video “Here We Go Again.”  That video was genius in its’ simplicity.  Choreography on treadmills.  If you need a reminder… take a look.

Here It Goes Again – OK Go Treadmill Video

Simple, right?  I would’ve embedded it, but couldn’t find a clean version for y’all.

Now, they’ve come up with another one.

You know how James Cameron ripped off THE TERMINATOR from Harlan Ellison, and made a really great movie out of a not-so-large budget?  Then when he made a sequel, he made (at that time) the most expensive movie in history and and topped his first one ten times over.  Remember that?

That’s how I look at this video for This Too Shall Pass. Well, except for the plagiarism.

It emphasizes everything I look for in a terrific fluid master shot: creativity, motivated camera movement, lack (or apparent lack) of CGI, great blocking, and an excited feeling of “how did they do that?” It’s also a dream video for Rube Goldberg fans.

Here’s the video.  Enjoy it five times in a row.

I love that. I love how they smash the t.v. while their old video is playing. I love how they give the crew props at the end. I love the attention to detail. Love it.

Break it down. The band members have to reposition themselves to their next mark without the camera seeing them. I have visions of them running over cables and props, out of breath, and trying to appear completely composed and lackadaisacal when the camera pans over them.

Break it down. Think of the sheer logistical and technical effort involved in building these Rube Goldberg contraptions and having them all interconnect in such a way as to support a fluid camera shot.

Break it down. Think of what happens when just ONE of ANY of those contraptions doesn’t perform correctly. A domino doesn’t fall right. A thing doesn’t hit another thing correctly. And what about those human contraptions – what if they mess up the words? What if the illusion fails because they just miss a word? I mean, just how long would it take to reset all that stuff? How many times did they have to DO this before it worked???

(It also points out the lack of creativity the Goonies showed when building their doo-hickeys… although they might’ve made up for it with the Truffle Shuffle… but I digress…)

A MINOR EPILOGUE

Now, someone’s going to be a fartknocker and say “how can this be a ‘lost’ art if it’s brand new?”

There are many definitions of the word “lost.” The one that I think applies best to this columns is as follows:

lost: (adj.) not used to good purpose, as opportunities, time, or labor; wasted.

Music videos often represent the perfect arena for filmmakers to challenge themselves and push the envelope. It’s hard to be able to do that in a long-form feature. Many videos feature musicians strutting for the camera, with big booties rubbing on the lens, flashy lights and quick cuts… and they all amount to a juxtaposed cacophony of chaos (say that three times fast).

But some directors use this opportunity… and never forget, it is ALWAYS an opportunity… to push their boundaries and try to define their true voice of personal expression. Spike Jonze… Michel Gondry… David Fincher… Mark Romanek… and yes, even Michael Bay.

They used their videos ‘to good purpose.’

Now go back up and watch that video again.   You know you want to.

THAT WAS THEN…

…THIS IS NOW.

What a difference a decade makes…

A friend of mine who endures the corporate hell of my day job alongside me informed me that his roommate has insomnia.

Through his insomniac lifestyle, he has been able to indulge his love for ‘best of’ montages. Whether or not the value of winning an Academy Award has fallen or risen… I think it’s fair to say that we all enjoy the montage moments, where we look at cinema’s great achievements pertaining to a theme… perhaps they’re Martin Scorsese’s accomplishments… great moments of cinematic writing… astounding examples of cinematography… special effects compliations from Melies’ to Cameron… et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The insomniac roommate decided to do his own ‘best of’ series. As with all things, his choices are personal ones, and you can feel his love of actors permeates the most through his choice of selections.

The look back at the seventies provides some great stuff… so check that out for sure… check them all out and see how many movies you can recall… and his take on the nineties is just as good… but they’re all great… it’s just a matter of personal taste and nostalgia, I suppose….

…but for now… as Oscar night approaches… I thought we’d all get a kick out of a look back at our last decade… the decade without a clear name… so here you go… his look back at a Decade in Film from 2000 – 2009. Stay tuned through the credits for an extra little clip, and if you like, scroll on down below to check out the links for his other look-backs.

Enjoy, and please comment below to let us know which films YOU felt should’ve been on there…

1960-1969: A DECADE IN FILM

1970-1979: A DECADE IN FILM

1980-1989: A DECADE IN FILM

1990-1999: A DECADE IN FILM

A lot of Viking projects floating around… heard Mel Gibson wants to make a Viking epic with Leonardo DiCaprio doing dialogue in 9th century English and Old Norse.

Now there’s this viking movie here, called VALHALLA RISING.  From the director of a movie called BRONSON (a movie I haven’t seen yet but have heard is pretty damn terrific). Actor Tom Hardy apparently tore the shit out of the character Bronson (a famous British convict known for his violent behavior). Tore it so well that it seems George Miller has cast him as Mad Max in FURY ROAD (Father Time, get your ass-a-moving so this film can be here sooner).

Here’s the official synopsis for VALHALLA RISING (according to CHUD):

One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen), a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the chieftain Barde. Aided by a boy, Are, he kills his captor and together they escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight from bounty hunters, One-Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that first disintegrates as they sight an unknown land. As the new land reveals its secrets and the Vikings meet a ghastly fate, One-Eye discovers his true self.

Here’s a two minute sneak peak at the movie – with special attention to the kind of violence we can expect. It is brutal. Not kidding. I love it. Be warned.

Thanks to CHUD for bringing it to my attention so I can bring it to yours.

Michael Douglas.  I have missed you.

I have had to endure your semi-retirement since marrying the lovely Zeta-Jones.

I have had to suffer through your buffonish ‘beneath-you’ roles in THE IN-LAWS and GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST and mourn the loss of one of my favorite actors.

If I wanted a Michael Douglas fix, I’ve only had HBO on my side.  They’ve been playing FATAL ATTRACTION and BASIC INSTINCT on repeat lately, and I’ve been tuning in to them each and every time.  HBO – where’s my BLACK RAIN repeats?  Why can’t you put on WONDER BOYS so I can re-visit that goodness?

And then… of course… if  WALL STREET comes on… I cancel my plans.  I stick with the Gekko.  And I get my fix of  ‘Michael Douglas the Badass.”

Then I heard… the Gekko was returning.  So was Oliver Stone.  A sequel.  It was called WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS.

And I thought… not a great title.  And then I thought even further back… I was also supremely excited about the return to greatness of one of my former matinee heroes… and that resulted in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

I really would hate the idea of Michael Douglas ‘nuking the fridge’ with a return to WALL STREET.  Then I saw this teaser:

I couldn’t help myself. I started to feel pumped. It felt like this old Michael Douglas was finally returning to the ‘old Michael Douglas.’

Then I remembered INDY 4. Shia LeBeouf was in that. INDY 4 sucked. Shia LeBeouf was in this. Yes, he looked cocky. But he also came across as a bit of an asshole. Which would be great for the movie if he was… but still… could Shia curse this one for me too?

Then… today… the international trailer came out over in the UK on Sun TV. This trailer embed comes from www.traileraddict.com

So now I’m in. Full-on in. Great use of the Stones song. I love how Gekko hasn’t reformed and still appears to be the master manipulator. I love that Gekko seems to be coaching Shia to compete with Josh Brolin, but that Gekko could be using him to get to Brolin’s money. And yes, he’s got Carey Mulligan as a daughter… but I feel that it’s not out of place here, as she’s trying to warn Shia about getting into business with her dad.

But goddamn… I missed this Michael Douglas. Welcome back.

So yes… I’m in. Opening day. If I had hair to slick back, I would do so. If I could go to the movie in a limo with a huge-ass cell phone, I would. I’m in.

Now… let’s just hope Oliver Stone doesn’t blow the whole thing… yes he directed both Michael Douglas and Josh Brolin to career-great performances… but ALEXANDER? F–k off. (Great elephant setpiece though…)

Oliver Stone. I have missed you…

What kind of flipbooks did you used to draw?

Just the other day, a co-worker and I were reminiscing about when we were young, and how we could keep ourselves entertained without a ton of gadgets.

Like tossing a coin to see who could get closest to the line.  Like bouncing a racquetball against a brick wall and playing ‘homerun.’  Like making those paper fortune tellers that looked like AUDREY 2 to see who you were gonna fall in love with.

Like flipbooks.

Mine were generally idiotic and involved dramatic car crashes or some perverted genitalia adventure or some such stuff.  Whatever I could do during a school day – that was the length of my flipbook passions.

I was such an amateur.  Check out what this teenager did.

It proves that we don’t need a whole lot of gadgets to make a movie.

I’m glad I learned how to edit by mastering the ‘pause’ and ‘record’ button between two VCRs.; but even so,  I wonder what I would’ve created in my backyard if I had the luxury of today’s technology.

Sure, it’s a lot easier now to make quality product, and I’m glad for that.  It’s a great unifier for many people, and I love how it evens the playing field for many of us.

But then again… if you really had the passion… you didn’t really need a whole lot of gadgets.

You didn’t need much at all.

All you’d need would be a pen and paper and a whole lotta time.

Good stuff.

Lost Art of Filmmaking represents my attempt to highlight examples of film language that no longer seems to appear on the radar of a majority of working filmmakers. Each column, I’ll choose a clip from a movie that demonstrates a ‘lost art’ of some sort, ask you to watch it, and then go into detail about why this particular slice of movie is worth bringing back into focus.

This episode of LAOF is kinda-sorta dedicated to a friend I’ve known going on sixteen years now. 

We’ve talked about fluid masters and blocking in the past, and he brought up one of his favorite fluid master shots. I was surprised he said SNEAKERS, because it’s a movie I was very familiar with and didn’t know what he was talking about.

So he popped in the movie. Very odd that I’d missed it, but there it was, right in front of me.

The scene was a really nifty and subtle piece of filmmaking that had eluded me until he ‘discovered’ it for me. It’s nice when that happens – when a friend discovers something for you and lets you in on it. So I thought that maybe you’d enjoy ‘discovering’ it as well.

SNEAKERS

SNEAKERS is about a highly trained group of men (led by Robert Redford) who use their individual skills to break (or ’sneak’) into their clients’ businesses to test the efficiency of their security systems. 

Redford is soon compromised by two NSA agents who have learned his true identity: he’s a fugitive from justice.

He’s been wanted for hacking the system and committing serious crimes against the government for the betterment of humanity. 

Although he got away, his best friend and partner did not… and he’s lived with that guilt ever since.

In the clip below, Redford arrives to hear out the agents’ proposal.

They explain that there’s a little black box that the Russians are looking into, and want Redford and friends to steal it for the NSA. If he does, they’ll pay him well… and clear his name.

Pay attention to the way the the camera movement is motivated by the actors’ movements, and not random ’steadicam swirling.’ The actors’ ‘pull’ the camera instead of the camera being an omniscient force that just moves for no reason.

Pay attention to the blocking. The actors move about naturally, but the shots never suffer for it. Perfectly balanced within the frame.

Also pay attention to how that camera placement sells the drama of the scene. At the front of the scene, Redford enters the room ‘large and in charge.’ At the tail end of the scene, Redford’s swagger is gone, and the two NSA agents clearly have the upper hand.

I’d seen this movie many times. It was even one of the first reviews I ever did that saw print – back at SUNY at Purchase for an alternative college paper called THE LOAD. But I never noticed the subtle artistry involved in the scene until recently when my friend ‘educated’ me about it.

It’s the perfect example of how a fluid master doesn’t have to be ’showy’ to be effective.

On to the clip.  Enjoy.

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Even a badass can get mushy-eyed.   Damn you, Lloyd Dobbler.  You can turn a boombox into a lethal weapon.

I went looking for that clip online.  You know the one.  Ione Skye has just lost her mind and said ‘F–k off, John Cusack.’  But John Cusack says ‘F–k you, Ione Skye, I’ll still be working in twenty years.’  And then he whips out his boombox to prove his power over everyone.

I couldn’t find that clip. 

At least one that I thought was right.

But I did find this puppet.

But the Dobbler puppet didn’t give there.

He didn’t let Ione Skye ruin everything.

He took his message to the streets. And the streets were thankful.

So if you’re feeling wonderful today… or looking for a reason to feel wonderful… just know that everyone out there has their own Dobbler puppet…

…and he’s coming after you. When you least expect it.

I just… I don’t know what to say.

It appears that Dolph Lundgren has gone insane.

And I mean Hasselhoff insane.

This is Dolph performing on one of Sweden’s top shows.  Yes, he sings Elvis.  Yes, he plays the drums.  And yes, he karate-chops ice.  All in one clip.

Thanks to FilmDrunk for bringing this to my attention so I can bring it to all of yours.

Dolph will take a break from his singing career to appear in one of my most anticipated films of 2010. Click here for the badass trailer for THE EXPENDABLES and thank me later.

A little something to inspire you through the rest of the week… in other words, here’s Morgan Freeman shouting a lot. Enjoy!

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