Another Film Celebration This Weekend in LA LA Land.

When posting interesting things to do this weekend, I forgot to mention the "FILMI MELODY: SONG AND DANCE IN INDIAN CINEMA" series at UCLA.

Here is a description of the event from the Archive Calendar:

The Archive's 2005 showcase for some of the best products of Indian popular cinema has a few new wrinkles. We are now calling it Filmi (rather than Bombay) Melody, in order to suggest that the exuberant music and melodrama so closely identified with the Hindi commercial cinema produced in Bombay (Mumbai) are truly pan-Indian.

Also, this year's series celebrates the work of three of contemporary India's top stars:
Amitabh Bachchan, the industry-defining "angry young man" of the 1970s, voted the "greatest star of stage and screen" of all time in a BBC online poll and still a major leading man in his 60s;
Kamal Haasan, the chameleon superstar, arguably Indian cinema's leading method actor, who has dominated South India's Tamil-language movie industry for two decades;
and Shah Rukh Khan, a new kind of Bollywood megastar whose popularity owes an unprecedented debt to audiences in the global Indian diaspora.

This is still, of course, a celebration of melody, because the music in popular Indian films continues to be an excellent early warning system of stylistic changes on the horizon. One of the most hopeful recent developments has been the rapid growth of a sharply focused neo-classical movement among younger actors and directors. Remakes of Golden Age classics have been released or are in the works, and one of the past year's biggest hits, choreographer Farah Khan's directorial debut MAIN HOON NA (I'M HERE NOW), is a frank and affectionate homage to the sort of high-'70s masala movies parodied a generation earlier by Manmohan Desai in AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY. The changes are especially evident in the way songs are being picturized. In some of the best new Bollywood movies, such as Ashutosh Gowariker's SWADES (2004), the hero sings while sauntering along a country road like Dev Anand or slouching over a piano like the young Raj Kapoor. He no longer feels obliged in every case to do what lyricist Javed Akhtar calls "aerobics" in front of a chorus line of item queens.

As the title character of last year's crowd-pleaser MUNNA BHAI, MBBS, would likely put it: "Lose the tension, yaar. Relax and enjoy."


Curated by David Chute and Cheng-Sim Lim
Special thanks to: Ramesh Ramaswamy, Chandra Hasan—Rajkamal Films, Uma da Cunha, Isa Cucinotta—Film Society of Lincoln Center.

I was forwarded the information by event curator David Chute.

Want to Write a Supernatural Spec?

As a fan of Supernatural, and of geek genre fiction in general, I thought I would offer my advice to any struggling screenwriters who might want to write a spec for Supernatural. I don't have time to write one myself, with my trying to get young people to vote and all. While my wife might attempt one, it would be based one one of the several discussions we have had over ideas. I just want to make sure that whoever ends up writing on Supernatural continues to entertain me. See, it's a selfish reason.

[Before I continue in this vein though, I would like to direct you to Gaze Theory's post regarding Unesco allowing its members to ban US film and music, something that could have serious affect on the entertainment industry.]

Okay, now back to the advice:

First, select an Urban Myth with supernatural elements and have that be the basis of the A storyline. If you don't know any you can go to Snopes to find one to research. You can also take a non-supernatural urban myth and make it "mysterious" or take a standard horror tale and modernize it.

Second, make sure to include the trope of "secrets." Every episode has had reference to how secrets come back to haunt you. This includes the fact that the brother's are ghost hunters being a secret (see below).

Third, have a small romantic element. By small, I mean very small, and usually involving Dean because Sam has his own C story going on (see below).

Fourth, remember the "secrets and lies" comment above. Well the brothers have a great longterm conflict building due to their dishonesty. In almost every episode the brothers have claimed to be law enforcement and have been found out. In the Pilot, Dean was arrested for impersonating an officer. In Phantom Traveler they potentially p.o.'ed the Feds by posing as Homeland Security, and in Skin the doppelganger committed murders while looking like Dean. Sure the Winchester brothers killed the doppelganger, thus the case is closed, but Dean Winchester had an APB issued for his arrest for murder and he probably has a warrant from when he broke out of jail in the Pilot. They are building up with this and if you pick up on that, it will look good.

Fifth, speaking of building up...remember that C storyline with Sam I was talking about. We all know that he saw his girlfriend murdered in the Pilot, but he also saw her ghost (in daylight and dressed in white which is a possible reference to the Lady in White in the Pilot). Try to speculate what her supernatural yearning/need might be, and remember their mom was killed the same way and may be lurking around somewhere as well.

Sixth, don't try to trick the audience. The narrative should have surprises, yes, but they should be conventional genre surprises.

Seventh, remember that the brothers are the exception to your typical horror movie rule. The brothers know from moment one that they live in a horror show. They may not know if they are in the middle of a horror narrative at any given moment, but they know what is going on. Remember that Sam figured out that the doppelganger was posing as Dean very easily because he was expecting something to be wrong.

Those are my thoughts...oh, and I might be happy to read any specs you might be writing and comment back.

In an Era of Declining Subscriptions Will Clarity Make a Difference?

Clarity Media Group will be offering a FREE local paper in Baltimore sometime next year. The paper will have an initial circulation of approximately 250,000 and according to the Miami Herald, "will focus on local news in addition to offering regional, national and international stories."

The move is interesting given that, according to the Wall Street Journal (requires subscription), Baltimore's current mainstream paper The Sun had an 11% fall in circulation over the past 6 months.

Living in Los Angeles, the topic of the health of the Los Angeles Times comes frequently into conversation. You can read some of Cathy Seipp's comments on the topic here and here, but make sure you read the comments section as well.

As we well know a number of conservative pundits, like Hugh Hewitt, have been prophesy-ing the death of the printed newspaper. Conservatives are not alone in this opinion, the chaps over at Penny-Arcade are fond of saying they don't like to talk about syndicated comic strips because extinct species are boring.

Personally, I think that deep coverage of local events (unlike the Times coverage of Rod Lurie say which they covered in their business section since that is where we all look for local entertainment news), good state capital coverage, sufficient national coverage, and a price tag of FREE is what most people are looking for in a newspaper. One of the features that keeps people coming to the online versions of Newspapers is the pricetag. The pricetag is also one of the reasons I read the LA Weekly (it also has much better LA coverage than the Times). In fact, when it comes to a good local paper I am very willing to read opinions I vastly disagree with if the paper is both topical and free.

I think Clarity Media Group may be on to something, but what do I know?

World Video Standards Map

Just in case you were all wondering which country uses which video standard.

bright green - NTSC, yellow - PAL, or switching to PAL, orange - SECAM, olive - no information

Thanks to Wikipedia for the image.

Superman Returns Trailer

If you want to see what the new Superman movie will look like Right Click Here and Save As. From what this looks like, I am pretty excited. It appears that Superman has gone to Krypton and discovered that he truthfully is the last Kryptonian.

The footage looks like it has been pieced together, but it looks great.

Chewbacca Becomes American Citizen

Chewbacca shows joy at becoming American citizen.

According to Annabelle Garay of the Associated Press the large and hairy citizen of Kashyyk, who married a Texan, has decided to become a permanent citizen of the United States. Now if we can only get him to share the technical secrets of a bowcaster with us.

[Note: Garay's article erroneously credits Peter Mayhew (the actor who plays Chewbacca) with the role of the "Minotaur" in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. The correct name of the character is Minoton. This may seem like a minor point, but as the Minoton was a Minotaur Automaton it is worth noting. Besides the movie rules.]

Interesting Events in So Cal This Weekend

IGN Live

One of the leading pop-culture/geekdom websites is hosting a convention this weekend at the Anaheim Convention center. Tickets are cheap, you get to play with an Xbox 360, it's like a mini and public E3. In addition to all the video game events there will also be a PokerStars.com tournament where winners get to play Wil Wheaton.




For all you conservatives out there LA is hosting the Liberty Film Festival.



The two most interesting events seem to be:

SCREENWRITER'S PANEL DISCUSSION
"What Stories is Hollywood Not Telling?"
This exciting panel will feature screenwriters Andrew Klavan (Clint Eastwood's True Crime), screenwriter and blogger Roger L. Simon (Woody Allen's Scenes From a Mall), Craig Titley (Scooby-Doo, Steve Martin's Cheaper By The Dozen), Paul Guay (Jim Carrey's Liar, Liar), Burt Prelutsky (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, MASH), and Charlie Carner (Vanishing Point).

The program will feature a Q&A with the panelists

and

PANEL DISCUSSION ON THE BLACKLIST:
"Was Communism A Threat to Hollywood?"
Moderator: Film historian/journalist John Meroney
Panelists: Richard Schickel (TIME film critic, noted film historian), James Hirsen (best-selling author, Hollywood Nation), Ron Radosh (Red Star over Hollywood), Patrick Goldstein (LA Times film critic, columnist), Ed Rampell (author, Progressive Hollywood) and Jeff Britting of the Ayn Rand Institute (producer of the Oscar-nominated Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life). Authors Richard Schickel, Ron Radosh, James Hirsen, Ed Rampell and Jeff Britting will do book signings after the panel.

John Berendt discusses and signs The City of Falling Angels

According to Vroman's bookstore the details are:

Friday, October 21, 7p.m.

Located at All Saints Church, 132 N. Euclid Ave.

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, moved to Venice, Italy in 1997, 3 days after the famous Fenice Opera House burned down. Finding a home among the natives, he observed extravagant characters and, “by the time the Fenice is rebuilt, [he’s] delivered an intriguing mosaic of modern life in Venice” (Publisher's Weekly).

For You Writer's Out There:

According to the LA Times:

WriteGirl Reading
Portrait of a Bookstore
4360 Tujunga Ave., Studio City



Members of the non-profit WriteGirl, which pairs women writer/mentors with female high school students, will read from the anthology "Nothing Held Back."

Oct. 22: 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.

Price: Free.

Information: 818-769-3853

This is just the tip of the iceburg. Man is it cool living in a big city.