I would love to swim against the stream , but I don’t swim.
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Author: Greg
Blog-jacking
This blog will be hijacked. I have to attend a course for my teaching degree and as part of this course we have to create some blogposts. I have no idea how many readers I have but consider yourself warned. During the next week at least two blogposts with some dubious content will show up on this site. I have no clue yet what exactly I have to do but I plan on doing it quick and painless. 🙂
..and now for something completely different…
Hugh Laurie is a genius.
Cheers.
Greg
Bad movies vs. Bad movies
I admit it. I like bad movies, I really do and at least for me there’s nothing wrong with that. I even like movies that completely fail at every single level. It’s like watching a train wreck. You don’t want to look, but you have to. The Core is one of those movies. To be honest, I think the Core and Armageddon are basically the same movies. One goes up, the other goes down. But if I had to chose which of those two films I want to watch, I’d always choose The Core. Don’t get me wrong, both movies are crap, well entertaining crap but whereas Armageddon is Blockbuster crap that filled theaters, The Core is a rare breed of crap so far out there that it’s hard not to call it a craptastic masterpiece of epic proportions.
But I’m not here to talk about The Core (I’ll do that later, but I want to get that one right), I want to talk about the crap that’s out now.
I recently saw that Battle Los Angeles movie. O. M. G. WHAT THE FUCK!!!
Skyline? What the hell. I could go on but I think you get the kind of movies I’m thinking of. To be fair, nobody expects a movie like Battle LA or Skylien to be good, to be honest I kind of hope for them to be “bad”, but the good kind of “bad”, entertainingly “bad” not “let’s-see-if-we-can-bore-the-living-shit-out-of-you bad”.
Is it just me or has the quality of bad movies declined recently? Where are the truly great bad movies of the last 2 years? Thank you Hollywood for ruining bad movies. Well done.
What the hell…
I’m trying this wordpress thing again. I decided to write more and worpress lends itself more to longer texts than tumblr. I decided to use tumblr for my “how many movies do I watch” project. I’m at 84. I name each movie I watch and I write short comment. Sometimes the comments are very short, especially when the movie is really bad. 🙂
But here on wordpress I want to try and write longer texts, maybe even with some content. I actually have a lot so say, I’m just too lazy to do it. But hopefully my new macbook air is helping me with that. So far it has improved my productivity.
As for my other writing; I’m currently waiting to get feedback about the first act of that bird movie. I guess I will write an angry mail after I finish this. But so far the feeling I have about that project is very good. One could argue that the story is very classic but at least it works. But I don’t want to spoil everything. 🙂
I’m also in the middle of planning a research/vacation trip in summer. I’m going to the US of A. I’m really looking forward to that and I’m already picking out nice places to just sit and write. I also bought a new camera. I need to take a lot of pictures in New York (that’s the research trip) for the screenplay. New York plays an important part in the story and I have to make sure I get the details right.
But the main reason for the trip is Comic Con. I was really lucky so far. I survived the ticket and hotel nightmare and I not only have a 4-Day pass but also a hotel room next to the convention center. It’s going to be awesome. 🙂
So I have to write that mail now. Take care. I promise to be back soon.
Greg
I’m now on tumblr
I’m now on tumblr. You can vist me there.
Christmas time aka the downfall of western civilization
It is that time again. Bad music in the radio? Check. Shops filled with crazy people buying too many presents? Check. Crazy, power sucking christmas lights everywhere? Check. Bad christmas episodes of usually good shows on TV? Check. I could go on but you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate christmas, actually I quite like it but please can we just celebrate it a few days? I don’t need a whole month or more to prepare for christmas. I can eat and drink a lot anytime I want. I don’t need to prepare for that and while we’re at that, I also need no preparation for getting presents, I don’t need a month to prepare for my birthday so why should I need a month before christmas?
But it’s too late to complain. Most of the harm is already done. You can’t undo hearing WHAM! for the first time, it scars you till january. In the good old days we used to have a interesting movie release in december to get you through it but it seems like TRON LEGACY has january start date. There is the Doctor Who Special, but wait thats’s christmas themed.
I guess I just have to live with it, that every year western civilization gets visited by the christmas spirits and takes it’s toll. We are all doomed.
Take care.
My apologies
My apologies, I am probably the worst blogger ever. I promised you that I would start blogging again but after a few posts I stopped. Well, since nobody is reading, nobody exept me cares but that is not the point. Sure one of the reasons Istarted this was to secur my domain name for when I am famous but I thought that I could also start getting some fans along the way.
Only two words come to mind: EPIC FAIL!!!!!!!
I really have to think about this whole project here. I have a lot to say but writing it down for no one to read is not ideal.
Ok, it is thinking time now. I keep you posted.
Pilot Season
Those of you who know me, know that I love TV, well scratch that, I love good TV. I barely watch regular TV (I hate commercials) but I watch a lot of TV series from around the world anx with TV series I mean scripted, I can’t stand reality TV but that is another post. Today I want to talk about TV pilots and why I can’t get enough of them.
Every year, new shows get developed and some lucky writers see their pilot scripts produced. Sure, only some of them make it to series but in my opinion pilots (even unaired ones) are fun to watch. I like how a pilot has to set up the characters and create a world. Seldom a pilot is the best episode of a show and it usually takes a show some time to really find itself but you can see the core of the show in the pilot and you also can tell whenthat core is missing.
I just saw the unaired pilot for “The Big Bang Theory” and it is really bad, really bad. The story doesn’t work, penny is missing (there is another girl but something ist just wrong with her charavter and the way she is introduced) and ther is other odd stuff that doesn’t feel right. There is one thing though that works and it is the only thing that survived into the second pilot that started the show we all love: Sheldon and Leonard. Their chemistry and their banter just works even though everything around them is just off.
What I reall want to say is this. Pilots are a great opportunity to watch the beginning of a story and train your eye to find the core of story, a skill that is always usefull.
Cheers.
Midweek post
It is the middle of the week and that means I should write a post. I am still waiting for feedback for the third draft of my feature. It is not that I want to start reworking it right away but I really want to know how others like it.
I really like how the third draft turned out. Some big improvements over earlier drafts, still not perfect and it still needs a lot of work but the story is quite clear now and it works, at least I think so. I still have to some work on the characters and on the fine tuning but I really feel that the movie is coming together and that it will a) turn out to be a good first feature for whiteworms or b) that it will sell for some nice cash. But that is far away in the future, I need to write it first.
Over and out.
A summer abroad
I told you about the two Whiteworms projects I am working about, there is one other thing I am thinking about. I spent a great summer in Cambridge, I met some great people, made new friends, had a lot of fun and I think there is a story (or more) I want to tell. I had the great idea to make some notes of things hapening around me while I was there and those notes will serve as a backbone for a screenplay. I am not entirely sure how or when I am going to write it but there are just so many great moments, I just have to write a movie about it.
One of the challenges will be writing about my friends. So far I created characters in my head, sure some of them have been influenced by real people but I never wrote about real people before. Then there is the thing about me being in the movie. How do I write myself? Sure I am an important part of the story and all I know about the summer is what I saw and heard but somehow making myself a main character feels wrong. I don’t want it to be my story, I want it to bea movie about a group of people having a great summer.
Right now the Whiteworms project has priority but after the current or the next draft, I might need to think about something else and clear my head, that is when “A summer abroad” might come in handy even though I really feel the urge to write it right now. Why is “the other project” always more interesting than the one your currently working on?