Thursday 22 September 2011

SCARFACE

This is an open letter to Hollywood. Some tough love is in order, Hollywood, so you better sit down. In fact, get very comfortable cause you have it coming to you and I’m in just the mood to serve it up.

You’ve hit rock bottom. Yes, you heard me, you’ve finally utterly disgraced yourself and it is time for your intervention. For years most of us have eaten up – begrudgingly in my case – what you have served up; call it a sheer love of film and desperation to go to the cinema. We waited for those few months before Christmas when the only films worth seeing would be trotted out and we would be reminded how great moviemaking could be. And then over the years, as Nicole Kidman’s face got tighter (and weirder), the individuality in film started to wane, and the entire creative process was given an enema, the likes of which I’ve never seen. And before you knew it, the film industry was awash in formulaic regurgitation, franchises and remakes (and remakes of remakes).

The first time you remade a classic I did my best to turn a blind eye. I took it like a woman

(I hate the saying, ‘take it like a man;’ seriously, women can take a lot more pain/hardship than men. Labor and giving birth anyone???) when you remade Arthur; Or when you messed with Straw Dogs, Manchurian Candidate, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and last but not least, our beloved 80's cheese-fest, Footloose. I even stayed quiet when you reworked the Freaky Friday theme for the 400^th time – 'no way, they switched bodies! How revolutionary.' But then you simply did the unforgivable, the inexcusable, the purely undignified, – you recently announced in your obnoxious and deluded fashion that you were intent on remaking…wait, I can’t even say it…

Scarface. Yes, the beloved iconic never to be messed with cause it’s sheer perfection film that every gangster this side of…okay I don’t really know the English gangster hoods, but the folks that go on MTV Cribs are going to be pissed. [Fine, I know DePalma’s Scarface is a remake as well, but seriously, the man gave us a gift].

Can’t you just picture the sheer horror of the development meeting going on right now to discuss this piece of ingenious inspiration; ‘So yeah, we were thinking that this time around we keep the whole Tony Montana foreigner vibe going, but spice it up a bit, make him from somewhere really out there, like you know, Texas; but this time he’s always wanted his big break on Broadway, so instead of being a drug addicted cocaine Kingpin, he channels his immigrant angst into song – (sung in A minor) “say hello to my little friend and my fancy jazz haaaands!”

Let’s see if Zac Efron is free – can he do a Texan accent? [Shoot me now].

So Hollywood here is my advice, and as you are so deep in your addiction of capitalistic greed and are devoid of any creativity whatsoever, I know you won’t hear it. But I shall speak slowly and hope for the best. ENOUGH with the remakes. Put to work one of the eight zillion screenwriters out there (ahem) with original material that are dying to work but did not go to camp with Spielberg’s dentist or date Adam Sandler in the seventh grade and make a movie that is just that, ORIGINAL. I realize this is a new concept and this means taking a risk, but at this point you’re only embarrassing yourself by churning out film after film that we’ve already seen played by actors that are under fed, over botoxed, and fly on broomsticks or suck blood from teenagers. Take a leaf out of Europe’s book - yes, there are things that despite what you may think, Europe does better - and make a film that has heart. Not only heart, but a script with actual characters that doesn’t require a twenty minute car chase, a spaceship, a group of guys on a debauched weekend that involves hookers and fart jokes or some kid that used to be 8 and is now thirty and by the end of the film learns a valuable lesson about being a kid/adult.

Now go clean yourselves up, you look atrocious.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

BWAAA BWAA BWAAA WAAAH WAAH WAHHH

My friend was telling me a story about a house he just visited that he used to stay at in the summertime when he was four years old. His memory of this house was that it was huge; the funny thing was, upon entering it as a grown adult, he realized that the house was anything but. This of course got me thinking about all the memories you have as a child that are just that, childhood memories that are colored by the fact that you are a child.

My sisters and I used to go skiing and we used to marvel at how amazing my father and mother were at the sport. They went so fast and swished this way and that way with style and elegance, and looked a hell of a lot better than us kids stuck in the snow plow position. Funny thing was, when we became teenagers – and obviously were a bit more surly and keen on pointing out the obvious – we suddenly started watching Dad ski, I mean really watching. It was then that it dawned on us that perhaps, just maybe he wasn’t going to be challenging Bode Miller to any downhill slalom races. We realized the same thing about his French speaking skills when the waiters would stare back at him with confused looks on their faces, then glance at my mother for clarification. [As for my mother, she always remained looking graceful on skis, not sure how she escaped the childhood memory thing].

Obviously most childhood recollections can be attributed to the fact that as children we are small and the world is hence, bigger than us. So that lake you used to fish at was probably more like a pond, the ten ton army truck your dad used to drive was probably a two door Toyota flatbed and that house that looked like the grim reaper lived there, and was definitely haunted probably just needed a paint job…actually scratch that, I’m convinced kids have a darn good radar for the freaks of the world. So if we thought a house was haunted, it was.

Then of course there are the fear based memories - sometimes irrational and other times make perfect sense, i.e. clowns. I used to be scared of the snowcats that would groom the mountains when it snowed. No, scared is an understatement. I thought these mechanical beasts brought up from the depths of hell actually breathed fire. I remember as a three year old – after my sister and I would inhale our favorite lunch of cottage cheese (must have the cherry on top) and chili from the ski lodge near where we lived at the time – we would then have to pass this steel jawed killer on the way home and I would damn near wet my pants from the sight of it. It just looked so huge and so menacing and the way it was inhaling the snow and then spitting it out again surely was a foreboding of what it was about to do to me. Of course, when I saw it a few years later, I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that a man was actually driving it, and hence, it suddenly didn’t looks so Transformer-ish.

Then there are those memories that just make you laugh from the sheer fact that you thought like a child. Like thinking the mole on my mom's face just below her mouth was a cookie, or a piece of cookie anyway (it certainly wasn't as big as a cookie). Clearly wishful thinking on my part as everything had some sort of connection to food for me back then. Or thinking that the tooth fairy lived in a Casino due to the fact that she dealt in silver dollars - Caesar's Palace to be exact, only the best for the tooth fairy. Then there was the all important question of whether I would ever understand the language the adults were speaking in Charlie Brown. Seriously, what were they babbling about?

I look forward to the things that the King comes out with he's a bit older to share; as of now, he too sounds like the teacher in Charlie Brown. Then again, maybe he can tell me what the heck she was always talking about.

Monday 19 September 2011

HOME AGAIN

A friend of mine reminded me the other day how great it is to go home; not just home per se, but back to the place where you grew up – for many this is one and the same. For myself, I haven’t lived in the town I grew up in since I was 17. My family moved away when I went away to college (University), so now when I see my parents not only is there no familial home that holds any sentimental value, but the city in which they live is just another city (don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly great fun to visit, but I have no ties to my past there).

Living abroad you are constantly asked where you are from. Just to be totally confusing, I of course answer in several different ways depending on the day. Some days I’m from America; other days I’m Californian, and when I’m feeling more specific and prideful, I am from Northern Cal – and yes, we are much different than those Southern Cali folks. The funny thing is no matter how many places I’ve lived, or how long I have lived outside of the States, for me the small coastal town in which I grew up is still home in many senses of the word. It’s a feeling really, and it usually begins to take hold of me when I am about two hours into the drive heading north from Los Angeles. The landscape starts to change, you start recognizing those off beat (and often downright freaky) landmarks that are still existence (oh Madonna Inn, never change), the temperature and feel of the air changes, even the smell of it is as distinct as ever – for those that have done this drive all I have only two words for you: manure and garlic.

When I’m about forty minutes outside my town my heart actually begins to speed up – I know, I’m sentimental, but sense memory is a powerful and often palpable thing. There is something about hitting the town and seeing the coast on one side of you and the high-forested peaks on the other side of you that fills you with the best sense of nostalgia . The town itself is breathtakingly beautiful and hasn’t changed much, and these days that’s a blessing and rarity in itself. And of course there are the memories that come flooding back as you pass various landmarks, food places, street signs, even parking lots (ah yes, and that is where we parked when we would ditch school and we would smoke a hundred menthol cigarettes); in short, the irreplaceable memories of being a child, a teenager (or as my mother perhaps would say: a hellion) and all the people that helped form who you are today – or at least part of who you are.

The amazing part of where I grew up is that the landscape was just as integral into shaping who I am as the people were. You can’t look at a coastline like that every day or taste fog that is thick as soup rolling up from the water, or go to sleep listening to the barking sounds of seals (these days that might be intensely annoying coupled with insomnia) without it leaving a profound mark on you. The best part is, when I go back (I’m long past due and writing this makes me miss it like hell), and I set foot on the white sandy beach or drive through 17-mile drive, I am instantly back there. I am sixteen again; the top down on my best friend’s convertible VW, sun on our faces, music blaring, without a care in the world. It's hard to beat, I assure you, and often in the dead of English winter I think to myself....good lord why the hell did I leave California?!! [I kid I kid]. It's at least nice to know that the town where I grew up is waiting for the King and me on our next visit across the pond. Although I might skip telling him about the ditching school and menthol cigarette part. I have an impeccable reputation to protect.

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