Authors Books and Movies

So you just sold your book to the movies and now you wait. Scripts can take a while and you wonder if they will get the essence of your book. Of course on one hand you want a good movie and on the other you just want to see it come out. All this sort of flows together into the big Hollywood bowl where David OSelznick waits along with all those starlets and guys in tuxedos and the Academy Awards loom and you are getting your speech ready.

Of course you still need a screenplay and it is no small thing to take a novel and make it come alive on a screen without seeming like it is a hacked up child. There is talk of Kevin Kostner. It is decided he should see it first. So you watch Field of Dreams looking for clues. You find none except an old movie with a thin plot. Build it and they will come. So you hope.

And this is the writers dream to walk into the theatre and see your name on the screen. There is actual verbage about how big your name should be on the screen and when it should appear in the contract. In your dream you have settled in with your friends and family and the screen goes to black and then the title appears and then your credit. And everyone claps.

It is Hollywood after all.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The Pitcher
 

Those Oscar Blues

So American Hustle didn't win. So Gravity didn't win. So Matthew McHero  is himself in ten years. So Ellen DeGeneres gave movie stars pizza. So Jim Carey was really funny. So we saw U2 being the last Great Rock band again. So we saw lighting and set design people accept Oscars for things we never knew existed. So it seemed everyone died last year. So Robert Deniro said writers are twisted and neurotic...at least someone got something right. It still was the top of the mountain for just about anyone on the planet. At least for a night.

And then we watched a  movie from a book written by a slave a hundred years ago win Best Picture and beat out 2001 A Space Oddity. And maybe Matthew McHero should have said something about AIDS instead of rambling about himself. Maybe we just all want to live where it is warm now and look like a million bucks in a dress or a tux. And what are those after the Awards parties like? Does Bono ever take off his glasses? Does the Edge take off his hat? Probably not.

And how did Pink become everywhere. And wasn't there someone else who could have sung Somewhere over the Rainbow than the bionic woman who is so blond she looks like a Goddess from the planet Teutonic. But she does spin very nicely at the Grammys and so it was different to see her with her clothes on . And so we are left with that funny feeling again that Mickey Rourke cited in the movie Diner while staring at a rich woman riding a horse..."did you ever wonder that there is something going we  know nothing about?"

Absolutely.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
The PItcher...Sometimes a dream is all you have

Now you See Me

Now you don't. And you don't want to see Now You See Me. The latest movie proving the point that movies are no longer responsible to anyone for being a movie. They are fast becoming an experience much like a ride at a carnival. Take Spielberg or Lucas's insistence that movies will become interactive or a virtual reality ride given for the price of a ticket. Like the movie about illusion that Now You See Me paints we are entering the land of smoke and mirrors. Lets face it ever since HD and flat plasmas we have been speeding into the land of novelty and away from the staid old world of drama.

And as far as Now You See Me proving the point that every action film does there is no story. Not really. There are the tricks performed and then explained for the audience and then totally forgotten. You will remember nothing from this movie when you walk out of the theatre because you saw nothing. You had sensory overload for an hour and a half and some thrills but like a roller coaster when it is over it is over. There is nothing movie about this movie. No lingering humanity to mull over. Nothing.

The characters do not matter. In fact besides Woody Harrelson and Mark Ruffalo you don't really know anyone and you only know these two because they play themselves. But this is our entry into the next generation of film. A carnival ride that leaves us empty and twelve bucks lighter but no better for having watched it. And as far as they old entertainment thing goes you might as well head for an amusement park and take a ride on the roller coaster.

At least you can be outside and enjoy a little reality.

Rocket Man...The Graduate for the Recession Generation

Dreams of Oscar

Everyone can see themselves making that walk down the aisle. You are hugging your friends and the people who got you to the point where you are about the accept the award of your life. You have toiled in obscurity on that screenplay and now you are about to be recognized by a billion people. And now you are walking up on the stage and all of Hollywood is on their feet. They are giving you a standing ovation. GOOD JOB!

And now that speech. You have had it in your head all your life. First I would like to thank the studio and all the people who made it happen. And now you start reeling off the names of your kids and your wife and your parents and your dog. You give shout outs to people who have all been part of your great journey because you have beat the odds and landed on the top of the world. And you are holding that gold statue over your head and you are doing the James Cameron thing. IM ON TOP OF THE WORLD!

But then you get solemn and tearful. You pledge your Oscar to the unknown out there. Kid if I can do it you can. There is not a dry eye in the house. And they have stopped the obnoxious music because it is your moment. I give my Oscar to the great unknown talent who will change the world! Bravo! They just cant give you enough applause and you sign off with: NEVER EVER GIVE UP! And you exit the stage clutching your statue and now it's time for to reap the reward.

You hobnob with every famous person on the planet and fall into bed exhausted. Yes. Yes. You have done it. And then you wake in the morning. Severely depressed. You make your coffee in a fog.  You really have to quit staying up late and watching the Academy Awards.

Rocket Man...the American Dream Upside Down

Our Blood Soaked Movies are killing us

Went to see Drango, Tarrentinos new film. Before the film I was shot a thousand times. I was blown up. I was thrown out of windows, run over by cars, sprayed with automatic weapon fire by Schwarzenegger, Penn, and Willis. The mayhem continued for thirty minutes before the film. Then Drango began and I was immersed in blood for two and half hours. I was shot countless times again and hung and burned and branded and blown up and burned and chained, dragged, imprisoned, and raped and then shot all over again. At the end of my movie experience I had been exposed to over a hundred acts of violence with ninety percent of them using guns. Is it any wonder we are awash in blood in our society?


And you can say art and blah blah blah. But to quote Fitzgerald. "All cheap entertainment is immoral, it is heroin of the soul." Our heroin has destroyed the fabric of our society. We are the product of years and years and years of violence piped into our homes and theatres. We come out of theatres soaked in blood. The cop in the lobby of the theatre with the nine millimeter on her hip is the full circle of that violence. And clearly Tarentinos joke is on us. Or is he part of the problem. By pointing the camera at our violent society is he not part of it? Is there any difference from the Bruce Willis character and John Holmes? One just happened to come off the screen.

And it will happen again. We have used our freedoms like a junkie and we buy all the cheap smack we can get out hands on and now we are dying because of it. Every day. By characters with guns who are killing us one by one. They have finally morphed into our reality and humans simply ape what they see. It is the basis of advertising. And what we see is the horror every single day and it is not on the screen. It is the horror we export.

Coming for us.

www.billhazelgrove.com

 

 

Titanic in 3D

Romeo and Juliette on a ship. That is the way James  Cameron originally sold Titanic to the studio executives. He said it was his shortest pitch. Seeing Titanic again in 3D was not so much the wow the boat is coming right at you experience as it was a demonstration on Camerons very adept way of inserting his love story against the historical love affair people have with this catastrophe. It was still damn entertaining and if you are a Titanic fan/buff then you still appreciate the small touches Cameron inserts.

But to the 3D glasses. Not such a great experience. The film was converted but the conversion falls away quickly and you are just watching the film. So much so that the 3D becomes a nuisance, actually fuzzing the scenes and doing weird things to the edges of the film. But again, you forget all about the gimmick as the story kicks in and there is Romeo and Juliet with Leo and Kate and the ship is sinking and they are being separated and it still holds up. Maybe it is the big screen thing, I don't know.

But if you want to look at it from a novelist viewpoint. Titanic is a great study in that everyone still wants to be lost in a great romantic love story and you can paste that on any disaster and have people weeping in their chairs. A good story is a good story in 3D or just simple old film or even a book.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Movies are Struggling

Apparently movies are struggling. Television is taking some of the high road with better fare headlined by Mad Men. The studios have gone LCD in hard times and putting on more Dumb and Dumber fare figuring the safe bet is the play when people are tightening their belts. It worked in the last Great Depression with Fred and Ginger doing the tux and tails among the champagne glasses. So why not again? Escapist fare should be the ticket for a middle class being driven into the ditch.

But they are rebelling and staying home. Three D gimmickry aside which gave them a momentary boost, people are even turning away from DVDS and looking for television drama that tells a story. Wow. A story! Reality television bet that story was dead and you could put truckers, rockers, movie stars on with a camera and tell their life of weight loss, drugs, family and that would be enough. Seems people want some story to go with their warmed over re-runs.

So they are looking to HBO and the streaming channels that might actually give them some substance. You may not go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public, but there are some thinking people out there and a lot of  those boomers had college educations. So maybe we are moving, or creeping back to a point where people prefer not to sit in the darkness of CG madness, but would rather sit in their living room and watch a story tangling it up with the human condition. Maybe even read a book.

Sigh. Where is Fred and Ginger when you need them most?

William Hazelgrove's latest novel is Rocket Man due out in September.
...funniest book since Russo's Straight Man..."
                                                                 Chicago Sun Times

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Talking movies but reading the book

Whenever I get together with friends inevitably we end up talking movies. Movies are the new books nothing new there. I enjoy talking movies and it is not that dissimilar from talking books. There are discussions of plot, setting, endings, denouement, dialogue, action, content.Obviously movies a lot of times fall simply into the is it any good category which gets a nod or a not so good. But even this gives one insight into a persons tastes. Then you tell them you read the book.

Now this is a thing of mine. I see a movie or hear of a movie and I will pick up the book. No Country for Old Men and Crazyheart come to mind. The people I was talking with loved both movies and after we talked about the merits of both films I said I had read the book for both films. There was polite interest and some discussion about the difference between the book and the movie. Then that was it. We were off to talking about other movies.

Its not that reading the book makes one more of an authority or gives a person a lock on the movie. But you do see the original vision for the story. If the book is the bible then the movie is merely a disciple. But of  course there are many times the movie is better than the book, in fact they are very different creatures. Sideways comes to mind. The movie was very good whereas the novel just didn't have the same punch. One can see the difference and of course the great example in reverse is The Great Gatsby which will remain the novel of the twentieth century and Coppola's attempt to bring the story to the screen an abysmal failure to render the magic of Fitzgerald's prose.

I do enjoy talking movies because for me it is not that far from a literary discussion. Reading the book might just be my hangup. I sure don't expect others to jump on that wagon when after all, they can see the movie.

William Hazelgrove's latest novel due out in September is Rocket Man. The story of a man moving to the suburbs and losing his mind.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

the Runaways

Rock movies generally suck. There are a few that break the mode of over the top self importance and way too much much bad music. Purple Rain for it's time did an admirable job. Almost Famous. Stop Making  Sense...ahh well, there are a few. The Runaways. Joan Jetts send off to her first band produced in the seventies and billed as the first all girl rock band is a decent rock movie. Who would have thunk it?

I remember my buddy from UOI turning me on a tape of different bands. The Brains, the Busboys, Ramones...Joan Jett. I don't give a damn about my bad reputation...bahdahdahbanddanh. We drank many beers to that riff. I had no idea what she looked like who she was but in the early eighties she was a new sound kicking out a very interesting energy. Little did I know that tape was actually a Runway tape of Joan frontlining in the last days of the band.

The movie takes us through the early days of punk. You have to pick up on Joan's influence then. Hard charging straight energy. Sex Pistols energy. The Runaways lived the life. They did the drugs and lived the Rock and Roll life while producing a pre GO GO's Madonna all girl rock band sound that was more authentic than either of those two much bigger artists. And why was that? Because the Runaways really were just F&^%$ up kids who got in over their head with some early success and couldn't keep off the drugs and the lifestyle of a balls to the wall existence.

But there is the authenticity. Joan Jett produced this film and she made sure the grittiness was there. Maybe it was the director, but somebody kept the film authentic. Compared to American Idol crapola rolling down the pike and our IPOD one hit wonder bands, the Runaways seem like light white lightning against the sugary Kool Aid that passes for Rock and Roll now. The film finishes up with Joan's breakthrough album that twenty three labels turned down. Credits roll and we find out she is the last survivor of the band still making music....music from a bygone era when rock still kicked ass.  Pity.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/