politics of life
I've noticed particularly in the last week or too how much stress and negative effort goes into politics around peoples lives, especially where you happen to be working. Thankfully I've been only an observer on all this and not directly involved in any way which I am extremely relieved about!
One of the main problems seems to be the talking behind people's backs. Everyone will bitch about other people at some point, it's only natural and everyone does it, even me. The key though, seems to be in two things.
1: The people that you bitch at know either not to pass it on or that you're just blowing off steam.
2: Make sure you don't actually mean it unless you really really do, and then you should say it to their face instead.
My life goes a lot smoother and simpler when I don't gossip about people and I don't bitch unless I'm really annoyed about something, which isn't that often on a personal level with something, more on a world-is-going-shit level but I'll enjoy my corner of it. In between my little existential musings.
I'm learning a lot about how to deal and not deal with people whenever I might be in a position of being in charge of something. I find it amusing as well how people can never imagine me getting angry or shouting at someone. In a way it's quite flattering that people see me as nice enough to not do that.
Also I like this little article and it expresses a lot of what I think about current movies.
www.langleyadvance.com/issues07/071207 /opinion/071207op2.html
Painful Truth: Bring on the blockbuster summer
by Matthew Claxton
Coming to theatres this summer! It's the tale of a young ogre bitten by a radioactive spider, who sails the high seas in search of pirate treasure before befriending an alien robot that transforms into a car, and travelling to Las Vegas where he robs a casino with a boy wizard, a talking rat and George Clooney. Starring every movie star you enjoy seeing, and also Chris Tucker!
Ah, summer movie blockbuster season. The smell of popcorn mingles with the slightly rancid scent of desperation as Hollywood rolls out its most expensive films and hopes they rake in giant piles of cash.
Understand this: I love movies. I love westerns, classic films, Shakespeare adaptations, subtitled samurai flicks, 1950s B movies with giant insects, hard boiled crime dramas, movies where everybody dies, movies where everybody lives happily ever after, and movies in which cartoon animals sing.
Unfortunately, about five minutes after the Lumiere brothers screened their first moving picture, someone was calling to ask how many francs the audience had forked over.
The rules of the movie game are not like the rules we earthlings play by. A movie that is made and promoted for $100 million, and which makes $110 million, is considered a dud, a bomb, a stinking, dead albatross hung around the neck of the director.
You or I would probably dance naked in the streets if we were told our business venture had just made $10 million in profit. But movie studio executives don't want the same things we do from a film. We want to see a good movie. They want enough cash to add a second solid gold bidet to the guest house.
This has made them cautious, and paranoid. So this summer, we get almost nothing other than the third part of an existing franchise. Most of them are not only sequels, they are also one of the following:
A) a remake of an existing film
B) adapted from a book
C) adapted from a comic book
D) adapted from a cartoon created to sell a toy line
Fortunately, some creative people labour mightily on these films, and some will actually be watchable. Some of them will even be downright good, fun popcorn movies.
There's nothing like the feeling of being in a crowd that loves the movie it's going to see. I've been at a few movies that drew cheers, even standing ovations from their audiences as the end credits rolled. At a recent screening in Vancouver of the cult science fiction movie Serenity, the proceeds went to charity, the fans dressed as the characters, and one of the stars signed autographs.
Even Transformers, based on a 1980s cartoon, was twice as much fun because of the audience. At a packed opening night screening, I sat three seats over from a woman wearing an Optimus Prime mask. A significant number of people wore shirts with old Transformer logos, or carried props from the cartoons. They laughed and cheered when their favourite lines from the cartoon were repeated.
On one level, Transformers is the epitome of a Hollywood money grab. It's a cynical attempt to harness childhood nostalgia. It's the fans who can make it more than the sum of its assembled parts. And it's the fans, especially the younger ones, who will turn around and start making more movies in a few years. There's no better place to start that than in the glow of the silver screen.
So bring on the blockbusters. Turn down the lights, pull up the extra large tub of popcorn. The show's about to start.
published on 07/06/2007
One of the main problems seems to be the talking behind people's backs. Everyone will bitch about other people at some point, it's only natural and everyone does it, even me. The key though, seems to be in two things.
1: The people that you bitch at know either not to pass it on or that you're just blowing off steam.
2: Make sure you don't actually mean it unless you really really do, and then you should say it to their face instead.
My life goes a lot smoother and simpler when I don't gossip about people and I don't bitch unless I'm really annoyed about something, which isn't that often on a personal level with something, more on a world-is-going-shit level but I'll enjoy my corner of it. In between my little existential musings.
I'm learning a lot about how to deal and not deal with people whenever I might be in a position of being in charge of something. I find it amusing as well how people can never imagine me getting angry or shouting at someone. In a way it's quite flattering that people see me as nice enough to not do that.
Also I like this little article and it expresses a lot of what I think about current movies.
www.langleyadvance.com/issues07/071207 /opinion/071207op2.html
Painful Truth: Bring on the blockbuster summer
by Matthew Claxton
Coming to theatres this summer! It's the tale of a young ogre bitten by a radioactive spider, who sails the high seas in search of pirate treasure before befriending an alien robot that transforms into a car, and travelling to Las Vegas where he robs a casino with a boy wizard, a talking rat and George Clooney. Starring every movie star you enjoy seeing, and also Chris Tucker!
Ah, summer movie blockbuster season. The smell of popcorn mingles with the slightly rancid scent of desperation as Hollywood rolls out its most expensive films and hopes they rake in giant piles of cash.
Understand this: I love movies. I love westerns, classic films, Shakespeare adaptations, subtitled samurai flicks, 1950s B movies with giant insects, hard boiled crime dramas, movies where everybody dies, movies where everybody lives happily ever after, and movies in which cartoon animals sing.
Unfortunately, about five minutes after the Lumiere brothers screened their first moving picture, someone was calling to ask how many francs the audience had forked over.
The rules of the movie game are not like the rules we earthlings play by. A movie that is made and promoted for $100 million, and which makes $110 million, is considered a dud, a bomb, a stinking, dead albatross hung around the neck of the director.
You or I would probably dance naked in the streets if we were told our business venture had just made $10 million in profit. But movie studio executives don't want the same things we do from a film. We want to see a good movie. They want enough cash to add a second solid gold bidet to the guest house.
This has made them cautious, and paranoid. So this summer, we get almost nothing other than the third part of an existing franchise. Most of them are not only sequels, they are also one of the following:
A) a remake of an existing film
B) adapted from a book
C) adapted from a comic book
D) adapted from a cartoon created to sell a toy line
Fortunately, some creative people labour mightily on these films, and some will actually be watchable. Some of them will even be downright good, fun popcorn movies.
There's nothing like the feeling of being in a crowd that loves the movie it's going to see. I've been at a few movies that drew cheers, even standing ovations from their audiences as the end credits rolled. At a recent screening in Vancouver of the cult science fiction movie Serenity, the proceeds went to charity, the fans dressed as the characters, and one of the stars signed autographs.
Even Transformers, based on a 1980s cartoon, was twice as much fun because of the audience. At a packed opening night screening, I sat three seats over from a woman wearing an Optimus Prime mask. A significant number of people wore shirts with old Transformer logos, or carried props from the cartoons. They laughed and cheered when their favourite lines from the cartoon were repeated.
On one level, Transformers is the epitome of a Hollywood money grab. It's a cynical attempt to harness childhood nostalgia. It's the fans who can make it more than the sum of its assembled parts. And it's the fans, especially the younger ones, who will turn around and start making more movies in a few years. There's no better place to start that than in the glow of the silver screen.
So bring on the blockbusters. Turn down the lights, pull up the extra large tub of popcorn. The show's about to start.
published on 07/06/2007