The iPhone - Only Human.

I'm the type of guy who pays attention to the world around me as best I can.  I analyze and predict trends in culture, economy, politics, sociology and more and when I read the news or listen to other people's conversations, I do so in light of those patterns.  Unfortunately for us all, I'm also one to buck those trends when it seems that they're gaining popularity somewhat for the sake of that popularity alone.  Being popular doesn't necessarily make something good - see also disco, the Macarena and flan.  So feeling put-off by the post-2002 boom of Apple grew proportionately in me according to every person who suddenly scoffed and wrinkled their nose at me that I didn't have an iPod, an iMac, a Macbook, an iPhone, an iPod touch, an iPad and so on.

"How can you live with a Blackberry?"

"How can you survive in this country on a PC?"

"You really take that Droid out with you in public?"

"Just put that song on your iPod...what do you mean you don't have an iPod?  Really?  Other companies make iPods?  Doesn't Apple sue them?  ...What's an mp3?"

As the iCult grew, I started to really worry.  I knew that at some point, I'd be forced to make the switch.  Like the New York Times holding out before caving and printing color pictures, I was fighting a losing battle.  I held out as long as I could; I really did.

"Steve Jobs was my God; I can't believe he's dead.  How will the world go on?"

"Just face it - your computer is based on a piece of 1970's Russian shit technology; don't you want something that works?"

"I don't know why you tolerate that.  Apple products don't get viruses.  Apple products never freeze.  Apple products never break.  Y'know that phrase we have, 'It just works'?  Well...it just does."

The more phones I went through, the better Orthodox Jobs-ism started to look.  Every time my Samsung Fascinate's lock button locked and took a screen capture instead of locking, every time a battery stopped holding a charge a month after its warranty expired, I'd pay just a little more attention to the peer pressure.  Finally I couldn't take it anymore.  We waited all day in the Apple Store, behind the high-school and college girls there to replace their broken iPhone screens, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Mumford and Sons fans pushing the "anorexic lumberjack" image to its fullest, withstood the gaze from the employees unable to comprehend why people were still just now switching to iPhones, renewed our Verizon contracts, sat through the tutorial to learn iOS and finally I got an iPhone 4S and an iPad third generation.  Did I do it nearly as much to get iBrats off my back as I did to adapt to the times of what I'd need to start my own company?  Yeah.  See, like the Jehovah's Witnesses who ring the door, like the volunteers for politicians who cold call in campaign season, like the stoner justifying himself as much to himself as he is to his audience, the Apple Disciple - Dis-Apple? - is someone I wish would just turn down his own volume and leave me to my business.  The difference was the certainty, and the permeation into the everyday world.  Jehovah's Witnesses, potheads and the Friends of Mitt have nothing of the faith, conviction, pride and sheer numbers of the Apple People.  If so many claimed that Their Thing is So Much Better than Any Other, and nobody really stopped them in their tracks, maybe there was something to it?

And I was worried.  I was.  I was worried that they were all right.  I started to sorta believe that as soon as I imported my contacts and got my iPhone working, Sunnis and Shiites would throw away their guns and embrace.  Israelis and Palestinians would sign peace treaties and join arm-in-arm to sing songs of harmony.  Sauron himself would clear a path through Mordor for Frodo to cast the ring into the fire.  I'd owe so many apologies to so many people for pooh-poohing iPhones as just less than perfect.  I'd have to serve some kind of penance, and being a stubborn asshole, penance and I don't do very well together.

The day after I got set up with my dual iOS devices, two amazing things happened.

1)  I received a call from a lifelong Apple fanatic.  I expected excitement that my wife and I had just spent a small fortune we didn't have - and an afternoon corralling our two-year-old while we learned how to tap, swipe, pinch and multi-swipe our way to Utopia - to be one of Them.  We had the latest, the greatest devices and were card-carrying members of the Mac Republic - wouldn't my friend be maybe even a little jealous?

"But the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini will be out in a couple months; you're both already fucked.  What you have is obsolete and nobody will have it in six months; why'd you do that to yourself?  You wasted your money."

Now, the iPad kicks serious fucking ass.  I'm snobby as all Hell about it because (except for Trailers, which I'll mention in a bit) it actually lives up to the hype.  Which brings me to the other amazing thing that happened.

2)  My iPhone shut off its own Wi-Fi.  We were at the house and everything was fine, including that I'd set up and run my wi-fi connection, until one time I tried downloading an app that told me I needed a wi-fi connection, so I found my Settings app and turned it back on.  Actually, that's a lie.  I tried to turn it back on and it refused to go.  I gave it to my wife and she rebooted the phone for me.  The next day - and half the days since - it's done the same thing.

My apps (usually my IGN app) started to force-close themselves.  Navigating through Apple Trailers leads as often to pages failing to load, or trailers starting in HD then buffering and running in lower resolution, as it does to successful streaming.  I miss calls in areas where I have good service because the phone never rings or goes straight to voicemail.  Swiping from one page to another on my main screen hangs or freezes plenty often.  One person shows up as a separate entry each for their Facebook account, phone number and e-mail.  All just like my old smartphones.  All just like the other side of the fence.

Don't get me started on Apple Maps.

And, no sarcasm, no hate, thank God for it.  I'm so relieved that I hadn't wasted 11 years of my life on an insufferably miserable lifestyle when a perfect, problem-free alternative was just waiting in the wings.  What a blow to my anxiety that, just like the myriad other electronics I'd managed to anger/disgruntle beyond repair, iOS devices are, too, capable of developing their own free will and doing what they like rather than what I tell them to do.  I sleep better at night knowing that, if my mp3 player/PC/Droid friends ask, I can tell them from "behind enemy lines" that things are only a bit better, that iPhones are - like all other electronics - not always what they're hyped up to be...that they're only human after all.

Guacamole Del Murcielago.

total prep time: 30-45 minutes
chill time: 2 hours

4 avocados
1 fresh jalapeno, diced and de-seeded
3/4 tomato, diced
1/4 onion, diced
juice of 1/2 lime
1/3 cup (pre-chopped) cilantro, then chopped
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne powder
1/4 tsp. salt

add all ingredients into a medium mixing bowl in that order (or thereabouts), mix and toss well until avocado becomes a paste. chill in refrigerator 2 hours before serving. should be mild-medium spicy.

An Open Letter to Gary Oldman.

Well, my friends, I've been blessed to bat 1.000 with the last two blogs I've written about high-profile members of society, in that both Christine Ha and Keerych Luminokaya have been made directly aware of writings I did about them and have, in a fashion, approved.  So I said "What the Hell; it's time to cowboy up, defy the odds and write a good old-fashioned fan letter to my very favorite actor of all time: Mr. Gary Oldman."

Dear Gary Oldman -

My name is Jonny Lupsha; I'm a freelance journalist and author in Richmond, VA.  I've been an avid proponent of your acting work since the mid-1990s, when I first realized the breadth of characters you had successfully - even masterfully - portrayed, even at that point in time.  Since that point, I've been overjoyed to see your acting portfolio - and your popularity - soar to the point of your Oscar-nominated performance as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  But I'm getting ahead of myself - I'd like to discuss just some of your work over the last 25 years or so and tell you why you're my favorite actor past or present.

As a lifelong Sex Pistols fan, I was initially turned on to your work through a VHS rental of Sid and Nancy.  I thought you perfectly captured the bottled chaos of one of classic punk's most iconic figures and his tragic and bizarre life.  Your onstage chemistry with Chloe Webb was so akin to the co-dependency chronicled of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen it was almost frightening.  I recall an interview with Benicio Del Toro in which he mentioned that after appearing in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he had trouble finding acting work due to the sheer insanity of that role for several years after the fact, and I was happy to see that your career continued without a hiccup after Sid and Nancy.


I'm not nearly the Shakespeare scholar I should be to discuss your role in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, nor the Beethoven expert required for legitimate praise of Immortal Beloved, so please take it on faith that, as usual, you executed both roles at a level of at least expert.  On the other hand, your next performance that caught my eye was in Oliver Stone's JFK as Lee Harvey Oswald.  Like many of your roles to follow, you handled Oswald with a very delicate release and restraint of emotion.  Every time I watch JFK, I'm amazed with how much of a patsy Oswald can seem in some scenes, and how frightening he can seem in others, and find myself leaving the film with as strongly mixed emotions of enjoyment and apprehension over Oswald as I've had with any contemporary film character, rivaling Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight 15 years later.

Of course immediately following JFK you were cast in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.  Even putting aside the more feral iterations of Dracula you played very briefly in the film (the werewolf, the bat-like creature, etc), you brought to life three separate and extensive angles of the world's most famous vampire and his personality: the bloodthirsty Romanian warrior in the introduction, the lecherous old count alongside Keanu Reeves and the young prince stealing the heart of Winona Ryder.  I would have to imagine these would be a challenge similar to a "multiple personality" role, a la Edward Norton in Primal Fear or John Lithgow in Raising Cain, in that the difficulty would be balancing such different facets of one human being in a way that wouldn't pull the audience out of the experience - a challenge you rose to and passed with flying colors, in my opinion and that of innumerable others.

Where would the next step lie, after playing an iconic horror character?  A white pimp in True Romance.  I thought Dexter Spivey had a really clever presence about him. Some of Dexter's personal jargon sounded practiced, or rehearsed - but rehearsed by Dexter Spivey, not by Gary Oldman.  I mean that phrases such as "We got everything here from a Diddle-eyed Joe to a Damned if I Know" sounded more like what Clarence and Alabama described him as - essentially, a wannabe with misplaced confidence - than anything else.  Whenever my friends and I discuss True Romance, someone will always bring up how well you portrayed Dexter, who was living his own act as what he thought a "tough Detroit black pimp" would be like, with traces of his real self bubbling under the surface.

Oh, and every once in a while we can't help but ask one another if it's White Boy Day.

Your back-to-back roles as corrupt police officials in Romeo is Bleeding and Leon were fascinating in that Jack Grimaldi is closer to being a likable antihero resurrected from classic noir and the latter is the purely evil drug-addled Stansfield.  I still watch both movies whenever I get the chance, but I'd like to applaud you for making a mob-bought cop with a mistress as pitiable as you did by the end of Romeo is Bleeding and for everything that makes Stansfield who he is in Leon.  From the sociopath, whiplash range of emotions to the unreal bathroom scene confronting Natalie Portman, who has come to the precinct to kill you, he remains one of the most jaw-dropping and memorable villains in the crime sub-genre.  Excellent job, playing both characters from such a familiar trope so differently and strikingly.

Leading up to the turn of the millennium was like a smorgasbord of versatility for you, it seems, and specifically to two of my favorite characters you've played.  The first is The Fifth Element's Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg.  Zorg's southern accent was spot-on, feeling part Carolinian and part Kentuckian, and bringing an overbite into his dialogue - a convincing nuance that returned just as successfully with Mason Verger in Hannibal - was a nice touch.  It's hard to pinpoint just one or two scenes to discuss about Zorg, but I was very impressed by the balance of him acting like a "big fish" to Right Arm and the Mangalores but being (rightfully) terrified of Mr. Shadow.  On that subject, I've always been a big fan of Tricky's music as well, and was wondering what it was like working with him on a film?  Your scenes with him are some of the coolest filmmaking I've seen: my favorite actor and one of my favorite musicians sharing screen time is just utter fun.

Out of all your performances, I think The Contender's Shelley Runyon is one of my very favorites.  I know you were born and raised in England, which is where you got your start, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see just how convincingly you were able to play a born-and-raised Republican senator of America's worst kind.  Even though you first came to America 30 years ago, and you've immersed yourself in the culture so much, it's still a feat, in my opinion.  Relentlessly spearing Joan Allen scene after scene, and the tension between you in a couple scenes in particular, when you and she ceaselessly talk over and against the other, was palpable and thick.  I'm not sure whose idea it was to have Runyon eating a rare steak when Allen sits for her lunch with him, but that was also an excellent play.

Which brings us up (or back) to Hannibal.  The subtle differences between Verger's accent and Zorg's are really impressive to me, having spent half my life in the south, and his dark humor and attitude about his private life leading to his present condition are penetrating and lasting.  Verger is a stand-out role, as many of yours have been before and since, and cemented your place at the top of my list of actors when Hannibal was first released.

In the last ten years, the world has seen you repeat several roles, for one of the first times in your career.  Sirius Black, Jim Gordon and Viktor Reznov have all seen multiple performances from you as their franchises have released their intended sequels.  Obviously the Harry Potter and Batman films were intended to feature you many times, and maybe even the developers at Treyarch told you in advance that Reznov would return in Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Has it been a difficult or odd change, returning to a role?  Most of your career has been focused on one-time performances of a character, so I was curious how it felt to step back in a character's shoes after a year or two out of them.

I'd be remiss now not to mention Gordon specifically.  I thought I heard in a Batman Begins-era interview with you that you said you liked playing Jim Gordon because it was one of the first times you'd played a character who was wholly good, as opposed to the more villainous roles you've played in the past, and it was a great change to see you bring an iconic comic character like Gordon to life.  Usually, any comedic dialogue in a dramatic movie sticks out like a sore thumb, but from sideswiping a car in the Tumbler to feigning ignorance of Harvey Dent's nickname, your ability to play Gordon by-the-book and to-the-point lends him well to the humor written into the Batman movies.

When it comes to movies adapted from comics, the level of research actors do to prepare tends to vary much more than many other films.  Some actors are big fans of the source material, others have never read it.  What did you do to get into Gordon's head?  I sense a lot of Batman: Year One from the storyline of Batman Begins, not to mention your age and the Gordon kids' in the first two Christopher Nolan Batman movies, but in that comic Jim was actually less honorable than some others, so it always made me wonder.  One of my favorite lines in all of The Dark Knight is when Gordon screams after Batman, "We have to save Dent!  I...have to save Dent!"  The way that line is delivered speaks volumes about how much Gordon is putting into Batman's hands and how much it means to him to turn their situation around, both for the city and so Jim can sleep at night.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge your performance as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  Like so few movies before it, I thought Tinker Tailor did an excellent job of not wasting a line of dialogue or a frame of film.  It was concise - almost to a fault - and subtle, and made for a perfect home for your take on Smiley.  Unlike almost any role you've played before, Smiley was seemed to be at an end.  He was retiring, Ann had left again, his glory days and his legacy were fading and at the beginning of the film he seemed remanded to the simple acts of life - taking an outdoor swim, purchasing new eyeglasses and so on.  I felt more restrained sadness in Smiley, more subtle passion under a surface of withdrawn coolness than I'd seen you play since at least Dexter Spivey if not Sid Vicious - two characters about as far removed from George Smiley as one could imagine.  My wife and I saw Tinker Tailor in the theaters and she, who has a degree in directing, was as floored as I was by your portrayal.  I was also pleased to hear on the Tinker Tailor blu-ray interview with you that you'd been so impressed by Tomas Alfredson's work on Let the Right One In that you jumped at the chance to play Smiley in Alfredson's take on Tinker Tailor.  How good was Let the Right One In?!  I saw it for the first time a year ago and was thrilled with the whole thing.  I think Alfredson's ability with quiet, long takes in Let the Right One In led into a perfect fit for you in Tinker Tailor.

Also, big thumbs up for your "Actors Against Acting Athletes" commercial.  Hilarious!

Well, I think that's about it, Mr. Oldman.  The Dark Knight Rises comes out in less than three days and we've got our tickets for our nearest IMAX midnight premiere.  Keep up the excellent work; you're an inspiration for all broad-range actors in film today.  Oh, if you ever happen to find yourself in Virginia, feel free to drop me a line: I've spent some of my free time the last year or two learning how to cook up some pretty bitchin' meals and my wife and I would be happy to treat you and your family to dinner.

All my best,
-Jonny Lupsha.

Team Christine.

Christine Ha, of Houston, TX, is a contestant on FOX's cooking/reality show MasterChef.  For those unaffiliated, MasterChef is hosted by three very qualified and accomplished but also difficult and discriminating chefs - Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich - who tour the country in food trucks and audition and hand select 100 amateur chefs to compete for a quarter-million dollars, the title of MasterChef and a cookbook of that chef's favorite recipes.  The first three or so episodes involve the auditions, then an immediate reduction by two-thirds of contestants based on a few quick challenges.  The challenges usually involve properly chopping onions, apples, cooking an entree with ground beef and so on.  At the end of the day, fewer than 20 chefs move on to the normal weekly episodes which involve more typical reality fare - timed cooking challenges, elimination rounds, themed services of two teams to determine who will face going home, etc.

Ordinarily I don't watch cooking shows, and reality shows even less, but Christine fascinates me.  Her Asian-inspired recipes and flavors are consistently eloquent without pretense, confident without arrogance and attractively presented without overexertion or trendy "abstract art" plating.  These are not only clear marks towards making a great chef, but made even more impressive by the two facts that Christine is completely blind - her vision was lost to an immune deficiency disease over a decade ago - and that she receives no help whatsoever with the actual cooking or preparation of her dishes.  While she is seen maybe once per episode being assisted walking around some more confusing locations (rocky terrains, intricately-furnished restaurants or kitchens, etc), or having an assistant grab some ingredients of Christine's choosing from the MasterChef kitchen ("I'll need a stalk of celery, one bunch of cilantro" etc), and sometimes fellow contestants will tell her how other contestants' dishes look ("Ryan just walked his molten lava cake up and it's just soup - it didn't hold together at all"), Christine has consistently prepped, cooked, tasted, plated and served her own dishes entirely herself, to the pleasant surprise of the judges and audience.  One night, a contestant who had won a challenge tried to throw her a curve ball by choosing a live crab for her to kill and cook - "A blind girl and a live crab?  I don't think so," he said - and she rose to the occasion and passed with flying colors.

Ok, but what about special treatment?  As the judges told her at her audition, "We all have obstacles we need to overcome.  You need to understand you'll be judged and treated the same as any other MasterChef contestant - on the taste and presentation of every dish you cook here" - a mantra they have since repeated to an Iraq veteran whose son had drowned and inspired him to compete - and so far they've held up their end of that claim.  In fact two of Christine's most inspiring moments on MasterChef have come from this aspect of the show.  On one episode she had to bake an apple pie and of course couldn't look at the pie crust in the oven to determine its texture.  She instead judged it by touch, the way many backyard grill cooks will judge a steak's wellness by its firmness, and was nervous to the point of tears as she approached the judges.  Gordon Ramsay, world famous for his sharp tongue, scraped the back of a butcher knife along the crust and asked her what it sounded like - it was a crisp, light crust that all three judges determined tasted and felt superb - and told her her biggest obstacle was her confidence.  Secondly, on the aforementioned crab challenge, Christine successfully killed, gutted, cooked and plated the crab in a ceviche for the judges.  Upon tasting it, the judges required some of the other contestants taste the ceviche (specifically the chef who had assigned her the crab) to confirm that not only was she not receiving any favoritism or slack, but she'd managed to make one of the night's finest dishes.  Many of the chefs sheepishly admitted that Christine's ceviche tasted and even looked better than their own.

During another challenge, Christine found herself the head of a team of chefs required to prep and cook 130 breakfast orders for hotel guests in under three hours.  Another female contestant, by the name of Felix, was responsible for the role of expediter - she helped consolidate and arrange the completed cooked food items onto plates, then compile the plates into complete orders and give them to the hotel's service staff to be brought to the guests' rooms.  Christine and her team evenly split up cooking duties - Christine delegated each chef to cook to his or her strengths - and led them by voice alone to a 60/40 vote of victory as determined by the hotel guests' enjoyment of their breakfasts.  Throughout the three hours, Christine consistently reprimanded and corrected Felix for falling silent and breaking down communication when she should have been the most vocal person in the room and earned praise from the judges and the other team for multitasking and leading her team so consistently.  One curious point specifically regarding Christine's sensory disadvantage arose when, as the team ran low on Hollandaise sauce for Eggs Benedict, Felix began drizzling small amounts of the sauce onto the plates and was caught by Ramsay for cheating guests out of the proper dish.  In a side interview, Christine mentioned how frustrating it was that she had trusted Felix to be properly saucing and preparing the dishes and was able to circumvent Christine's leadership and the team's quality of service by, intentionally or not, taking advantage of Christine's inability to visually verify the quality of Felix's plating.

There's a very delicate balance as to why Christine is such an important part of MasterChef.  The inherent, if unspoken, claim of the show is that any home/amateur chef in the country can become "America's next MasterChef," a prestigious title.  You can come from any walk of life and have just as much talent as another person, which is a lesson I do appreciate - you don't have to be the richest person with the most expensive ingredients and tools to create a delicious meal.  However, the problem with anybody at all saying "Anybody can do this or that" can imply a derogatory, non-verbal tag following it.  "Anybody can be the next MasterChef - even _______ people," and that can not only sound discriminatory if taken the wrong way but can seem gimmicky or exploitative on the part of the person in question or the show itself.  Christine's cooking has, by this point at least, proven to most audience members that the judges haven't picked her for ratings.  Many gimmicky tryout chefs - a guy with a monkey, a ventriloquist, etc - didn't pass their auditions, but Christine's flavors and presentations continue to shine.  She also isn't there to fulfill a demographic - I simply don't believe the FOX execs found they were losing "the blind audience" and needed to solve that problem by undeservedly passing through a chef of lesser quality than another.  Christine's personality has also saved her from simply being labeled "that one blind chef."  She's funny, educated, polite, quirky and her cooking has a successful voice of being highlighted - but not defined - by modern and classic light Asian cuisine.

Throughout its three-year run, MasterChef has featured contestants from all walks of life.  The contestants' diversities in age, gender, ethnicity, vocations, sexual identity, cooking styles, personalities and more have come to back up the show's claim that the culinary arts know no discrimination beyond what ends up on the plate.  I don't want Christine to win MasterChef because of her disadvantage - if for any reason she's unable to meet the same requirements set for the other contestants, she should fairly and indiscriminately find herself at the end of her time on the show just as the others to depart before her have as well.  As always, I want the best chef to come out on top this year.  If that "best chef" is Christine, however, I'll not only be in utter awe but confident through the evidence I've seen in earlier episodes that her win is based on the merit of her cooking, not given to her with special consideration for being blind.

I personally hope that the quality of her dishes, in flavor and presentation, continue to meet the standards she's set for herself this far in the competition.  I like her personality, her ideas in the kitchen and her well-wishing of all the contestants.  She realizes that the show should be about culinary Darwinism, not favoritism, and has been a strong and competent chef.  What's not to like?  I'm Jonny Lupsha and I'm on Team Christine.

Fixing "Found Footage."

It’s been 13 years since The Blair Witch Project exploded onto screens nationwide and revitalized the “Found Footage” genre – Cannibal Holocaust being the last notable effort, unless you count the incredibly bleak Michael Keaton drama My Life.  Since Blair Witch, Hollywood has been producing several Found Footage movies, from the Paranormal Activity series to this year’s Chronicle, and I admit I’m a big fan of the genre.  However, I’ve noticed several questionable elements within the genre that end up pulling me out of every Found Footage experience, and if their screenwriters don’t fix these problems, they could find their genre as dead as most of their characters end up.  So I compiled a list of known issues with the genre and paired them with solutions.

Being in the Right Place at the Right Time

Case #1:  In 2008’s Cloverfield – one of my favorite found footage movies – the number one lagging issue I had was that the characters seemed to be constantly running into this enormous awesome creature that destroys everything in its path and then escaping, mostly without a scratch.  If Clover is supposed to be such a wicked beast that can’t be stopped with thousands of rounds of ammo, dozens of rockets and an air strike or two, what are the odds he can’t sweep four twentysomethings off the street the first three times he sees them?

Solution:  Cloverfield’s crew created a decent response to this problem, though it wasn’t utilized as fully as it could have been.  The first couple Clover sightings in the film are on television, with the main characters catching glimpses from news helicopters broadcasting live on the scene.  Not only did this anchor the story and lend to its “mass phenomenon” scope, but it also led to one of the most surreal moments in the film.  Hud, the “cameraman” for most of the movie, is in an electronics store being looted and he turns to see a dozen looters, electronics in hand, all stopped and staring at a tv as though they were witnessing the Second Coming of Christ.  Unfortunately, I felt more opportunities like this awaited in the second and third acts of Cloverfield but the flimmakers instead opted to stick with Rob’s handycam, held by Hud, and I kept asking myself “Oh, what are the odds our characters would just be right there every time something major happened, then escape unscathed?”  Besides a token death or two, it was just a bit coincidental that they’d capture all that footage on the same camera.

Case #2:  In 2012’s Chronicle, three teenagers find themselves suddenly endowed with telekinesis and all of its responsibilities.  In the final 10 minutes of the film, a flying fight scene worthy of a Superman comic ensues across the city of Seattle and the digital camera that has captured most of the movie is left behind.  Despite this, we end up with a complete viewing of this titanic brawl.

Solution:  about 99% of Chronicle is shot believably.  When things start to enlarge in scope in the movie’s third act, Chronicle opts to add footage in from gas station and hospital security cameras, police dashboard cameras and street traffic cameras.  This works great for the most part, and I’ve always wondered why more filmmakers haven’t done the same.  There are still a couple shots, however, that seem obviously filmed for a movie instead of the “real” footage that comprises the rest of the picture.

Put the Camera Down and Run

Case:  This is the golden question: Why are you still filming this?  Drop the camera and run; there are monsters/ghosts/witches/supervillains after us!  I think it’s the number one question asked by all found footage moviegoers, and usually a character offers up a weak excuse in response.  In Cloverfield, Hud says “I think people will want to know how it all went down.”  Sure, but there are scenes in Cloverfield in which I think anyone would say “Screw the camera; I’m out of here.”  Heather in Blair Witch and Andrew in Chronicle both take on the persona of feeling more comfortable behind the camera than facing their struggles straight-on, which is fine and believable, but still sounds a little thin.  I don’t even believe when I hear a found footage character say “I have to document this,” despite knowing people who do insist on filming basically everything they do.

Solution:  The cynic in all of us knows how much rare film footage is worth to a news station.  Whether it’s the film of the Twin Towers falling or proof of Bigfoot, and despite our real motivations ahead of time for wanting to capture something terrible on film, I don’t think it’s a stretch to want to film a phenomenon for the later hope of selling the footage to CNN or the BBC.  Whenever a character says to a found footage camera operator, “Why are you filming all this?  Put down the camera,” my immediate response would be “Are you kidding?  Do you know how much (insert news network here) would pay for this?”  It may not be as honorable as a defense mechanism or unspeakable need to have everything on tape, but it sounds more realistic to me.

So Who Found this Footage? (Contains Spoilers for Apollo 18)

Case:  Apollo 18.  In theory, I loved the idea of found footage on the moon in the ‘70s.  Since everyone has GPS and cell phones these days, the “lonely cabin in the woods” scenario is getting harder to sell, so putting it on the moon before all that tech sounded like a brilliant setup.  Unfortunately, near the end of Apollo 18, both NASA spaceships transmitting the perils of its crew collide and are blown to smithereens.  I’m aware that Apollo 13’s astronauts managed to broadcast the first part of their voyage live to Earth, but given the rest of Apollo 18’s tone – of communications regularly going out and the crew having to constantly update Houston on their situation – I don’t see how the two can match each other.  Either the communications don’t go out and they’re able to broadcast that footage, or they stick with the comms problems and come up with a better ending for how it got out.

Solution:   The first tagline for Blair Witch was something along the lines of “In October 1994, three film students disappeared in the woods of Maryland while filming a documentary.  A year later, their footage was found.”  Creepy, and maybe unlikely, but given Blair Witch’s utter lack of special effects and anything supernatural actually appearing on-screen, it lends to the realism for some unnamed citizen to have just discovered the film reels and tapes, taken them back to civilization and watched them.  Also, Cloverfield literally opens with an identifying stamp in the first few seconds, which is all official-looking.  Property of the Department of Defense, video footage of subject “Cloverfield” found in the area formerly known as Central Park, etc.  I can believe that footage was found.

ShakyCam

Case:  The Blair Witch Project suffers considerably from blurry, shaky shots of trees or dirt as the main characters run at top speed from some supernatural force.  I’m thrilled that The Witch is never actually shown, so I don’t mind not seeing that, but my wife won’t go to found footage films because they give her motion sickness.  Even Cloverfield is directed so characters hold the camera while doing things like falling down sets of stairs, walking and sprinting through unlit subway tunnels and even being attacked or eaten by the monsters.  I can appreciate that studios aim for realistic “regular, non-cameramen holding the cameras” shots, but cameras have had gyroscopic image stabilizers for about 20 years now; can’t we get some for these movies?

Solution:  Paranormal Activity 2 is filmed entirely in one family’s house, and mostly from the perspective of a set of security cameras they have installed after a break-in at the beginning of the movie.  Very clever.  Also, in Chronicle, Andrew learns to finesse his telekinesis throughout the film, one of the first tricks of his being to glide the camera slowly and smoothly around the room as he films his journey.  Both instances make for a much easier to watch adventure in found footage.

The Scooby-Doo Mystery

Case:  In the Paranormal Activity series, a series of people are haunted by poltergeists throughout the film.  The problem is that with the first two Paranormal Activity movies, one of the characters ends up researching the phenomenon online and finding out some strange information about a similar case happening to someone else.  Before you know it, the focus on the terrifying events of the film are cast aside in favor of solving the mystery of the vengeful spirit who has been wronged, and how the characters can appease them.  This extends to many horror films nowadays, but the list of how to fix modern horror is too long for one post.

Solution:  Nobody in Cloverfield has any answers regarding Clover’s origins, only that the first incident was reported at sea, followed by the beheading of the Statue of Liberty and Clover terrorizing Manhattan.  The tape that Cloverfield is allegedly shot on is mostly filmed over two characters’ day at Coney Island, as is interspersed for a second or two throughout the film to heighten emotions.  At the very end of the final shot, in the corner of the screen, the viewer can just barely make out an egg-shaped pod crash-landing from the sky (probably outer space) into the ocean.  It manages to maintain the origin mystery for those of us who don’t notice every detail, but gives a basic and satisfactory answer to the question of “Where did this beast come from and why didn’t anyone notice it before it was 200 feet tall?” to the skeptics.  Similary, the Blair Witch is presented as a local urban legend or piece of New England folklore, and this ties in with the very end of the film, but without giving the characters a ridiculous quest to embark on or a need to satisfy to appease the monster.

Found Footage is like any other genre of movies: it has its triumphs and its lemons.  But if filmmakers want it to be taken seriously and as a legitimate subgenre of cinema, they need to start – or continue – addressing some of the pitfalls their audiences dislike so much.  Otherwise the genre itself is destined to become its own cliché setup – just some random footage collecting dust in the middle of nowhere found in the future by one movie fan to dust off and try to present to the world as remotely believable.

Blog Responsibly (a quasi-sequel to 'Zuckonit - the Ten Deadly Sins of Facebook').

In The Social Network, Rooney Mara's character Erica Albright says something to Mark Zuckerberg about blogging.  I can't pull up the actual scene right now, as my kid is watching Gnomeo and Juliet and turning it off would be like getting between a mama bear and her cubs, so my paraphrase will have to do.  See, Zuckerberg gets drunk and blogs about Albright in the beginning of the movie, and after she (and hundreds of others) read it, he finds her in a club later on and she scolds him about it.  The line goes something like this: "You sit in the dark and write on the internet because that's what the angry do nowadays.  But the internet isn't written in pencil, Mark; it's written in ink."

And truer words were never spoken, on either point.  The problem with the people about whom she speaks is their awful tendency to multiply, showing barely any form of evolution during the process.  This is, in my opinion, most evident in the twin Mordors of the internet: blogging and forwarded e-mails and their increasing workloads of carting pure bullshit around.

I'm sorry; what are you talking about anyway?

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  You get an e-mail or blog link from someone you know, regarding a topic on which he or she is known to be invested.  The article you're sent clearly supports your friend's stance on this issue, and the article's author is either insulting a type of person the author is, or is praising a type of person the author wasn't until just recently.  The author at some point uses him/herself as the justification for writing the article, which would otherwise be seen as bigoted trash.  I'm going to use the same three blogs or articles here throughout the rest of this discussion: one each on sex, religion and politics.  While they're usually 10 to 15 paragraphs long, they'll almost always contain a line similar to the following.

EXHIBIT A: "Men only think of women as objects - trust me, I'm a man."  

EXHIBIT B: "It's a fact that atheists are wrong and (insert religion here) is the truth!  Take it from me; I really was an atheist until I converted to (insert same religion here)."

EXHIBIT C: "I begged the homeless guy to take my money and he turned me down!  He said Obama gave him all the money he needed to live comfortably and I was a sucker for working for a living.  Trust me, I really tried to give him money, and I was always a big supporter of the homeless and Obama!"

It's not that confession or conversion stories are bullshit in and of themselves - I have a few myself - but it's the nature in which some of them are presented that betrays their near proximity to bullshit.

Why would someone bullshit like that in a blog or an e-mail?

This is the easiest question of the bunch.  Usually it's so someone with a specific ideology will get his or her voice heard in support of that ideology, but they are too lazy or insanely incorrect to find the proper supporting data as you would in a real debate, academic article, etc.  Sensationalism attracts attention, so it's not a surprise that this kind of communication has found its way online, where it can very quickly reach the world.  The other reason people do this is to attract more readers through a series of wild claims and assertions instead of valid points and rational thought.  It's easy, it's eye-catching and it's presented believably.  It just isn't very honorable.

Why would people believe that?

Most likely because it doesn't require a lot of proof to be a convincing story.  In terms of blogs, who would lie about themselves in a negative way?  Look at that first example above: "Men only think of women as objects - trust me, I'm a man."  The speaker seemingly addresses his empathy with a very serious and real problem women face: male objectification.  Historically, when someone addresses what many see as a problem, and acknowledges it as a problem himself, a solution usually follows.  There are myriad psych studies about leaders offering solutions to problems that I won't bore you with here.  This is just a microcosm, a subtle example of that - and who wouldn't want to listen to someone who understands their problems?

The other reason some people believe these things is a little more "Big Picture."  Blogs and e-mails with agendas claim to be written by public figures or private citizens - I used to get the same e-mail from Ben Stein, George Carlin, Bill Cosby and "concerned citizens."  In reality, they are ghost-written by employees of think tanks that are allied with politicians seeking to gain votes.  They get broadcast because of the clout associated with famous people making controversial opinions.  Sometimes, to be funny, I'll write a ridiculous e-mail and author it as someone famous and send it to people who have sent me those e-mails - both as entertainment for those of us who know they're little more than propaganda and as a lesson to those who don't that they need to consider the validity of information before they send it on.  If you've ever gotten an e-mail from Ben Stein complaining that Obama is merging the two Dakotas into one state, you can blame me for that one.

But you said yourself some confession/conversion stories are believable.  Wouldn't that mean some of these people are telling the truth?

Absolutely.  Everyone in my family - myself included - has those stories, and they're true.

So how do you know who's bullshitting you?

It depends on the writer and the typical audience in each case.  In Exhibit C, the writer spends a half-page of a newspaper swearing he was a big supporter of "left-wing causes like welfare and Obamacare" and is "shocked" that someone would ever take advantage, but only now is he starting to question the integrity of said programs.  If that's the case, how does that story get published at a right-leaning news outlet?  Is the writer really a lone wolf leftist at the publication, going against the grain of everyone else there?  Did the publication reverse its last five years of hard political leaning, risking its entire readership, just to tell the story of one poor writer who tried so hard to help the snotty leftist hobo who, in turn, rubbed the writer's generosity in his face?  It's up to you to decide which makes more sense.

I'll tell you though that every time I recommend you listen to an album, watch a movie or play a video game, it's because I've done so myself and think the contributing entertainers truly deserve your dollar.

What's the point of all this?

To those writers:  Stop.  You are the enemy of free media and the First Amendment.  You are creating the same spin machine you claim to hate on 24-hour news networks, and you're hiding behind "free speech" as an excuse to not hold yourself accountable whenever someone catches you bullshitting or disagrees with you.  You're failing in spectacular fashion to meet the responsibilities of a writer.  If you have an innovative, fresh, entertaining thing to say, you'll do better in the long run with credibility and a clear distinction between fact and opinion than you will playing the sheep in wolf's clothing - yes, sheep in wolf's clothing, not the other way around.

To the readers:  Don't play into bullshit.  Every blog you link to, every e-mail you forward, puts you in some writer's employ.  You're representing that writer's opinions as something you support and believe in and it's costing you more than you know.  I've lost friends and readers for things I've written and shared and you've done the same whether you realize it or not.  Free speech is a right AND a privilege; knowing when and how to exercise it is something a lot of people don't understand.

Doesn't that make you a hypocrite?

"We all whores, Frank." - Ving Rhames, Bringing out the Dead

Well, that's a possibility, isn't it?  Like, for one, I said, "Don't trust people who claim to decry something they're a part of," but I also said "Bloggers are shit - trust me; I'm one of them."  Then I said "Bloggers use fantastic claims and just get you to forward their links around" and "Everything you link to puts you in some writer's employ," but I also ask people to share my writer's page on FaceBook and to link to my writing any time they like.  Honestly?  That's a real pickle for you and me.  

I'm amazed if you're even reading this, let alone near copy-pasting the link somewhere.  It is my firm belief that every word I've written in my life is for entertainment first and education second, and I'll tell you openly I'd love to get more readers, sell more copies of my books and make more money, just like any other writer.  On the other hand, the difference between me and Exhibits A through C is that there's a reason I separate my work into so many blogs: I want to make it abundantly clear what you're getting into as a reader - no bait-and-switch here.  This blog you're on is for rants, raves, reviews, opinions, recipes, etc; This Job is Killing You is for samples from my writing I intend to have published as part of a marketable product one day (or already have); Penny Cavalier is devoted specifically to superhero culture and my second book; and Stay Out Stay Alive only pertains to another upcoming project of mine (DisasterLand) and other apocalyptic work of its ilk.  

I truly hope that whenever you get the urge to share a link of mine (and I can see where my traffic comes from and I do truly thank you for sharing my work), it's because of the quality and entertainment of the content, not because it may seem "controversial."  I'm honored if I can cause some intelligent discourse between you and your people, but please know I aim to please - not to pander.

Well, this has taken me all day.  Have a good evening.

The Audiovisual Experience of 'Koloss.'

Every so often, something about a music project piques my curiosity enough that I feel compelled to write about it. As a long-time music lover, I find myself very interested in between 30 and 50 albums a year and write about one or two. This is one of those instances.

Let's get the obvious out of the way quickly. Koloss is the seventh full-length studio album from Swedish prog-metal act Meshuggah, released March 26 in North America. Meshuggah's trademark down-tuned eight-string guitars, intricate songwriting and aggressive vocals return for Koloss's entirety. Boasting 10 tracks and clocking in at just under an hour, Koloss is in every way the colossus it claims to be. It explores themes of the erosion of privacy in everyday life; a large, imposing force on the public; and so on. Fortunately, Meshuggah have opted to stick with what they do best and expand on it, rather than take a lot of the big risks that have made music fans grimace at so many other bands in the past. Remember Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page ruining Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and turning it into "Come With Me" for 1998's Godzilla soundtrack? Yeah, I wish I didn't either.

Recently, Meshuggah has especially excelled in bringing together an entire album as a whole project. Their release Catch Thirty-Three featured 13 tracks that were one continuous suite. Its companion release, I, is the opposite - one 22-minute song that sounds like a whole album. Koloss rises to this occasion as well - though the tracks are clearly separate, and no leitmotifs or ostinatos appear to unify them, one full listen to the album draws the listener in to the idea that Koloss is a jigsaw puzzle and each track is a piece.

What first raised my eyebrow about Koloss is its digital artwork. Created beautifully by Keerych Luminokaya, the brown-and-black-tinged cover featured above is just one part of the overwhelming mural on the back of the 15-panel foldout liner notes accompanying the copy of Koloss that arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday. Luminokaya calls this piece "Gateman." Though some art critics and cynics may compare Luminokaya's high-detail digital artwork to that of Alex Grey or even H.R. Giger, Luminokaya's detail and style clearly make his mark as a unique and priceless visual artist. It's so visually stunning I had to order the vinyl just to see it larger. There are hundreds - if not thousands - of waves of textures and individual lines that constitute the massive "Gateman." Out of pure coincidence, I spent one complete listen of Koloss just looking at Luminokaya's artwork on the front and back of the booklet. As I read the lyrics and pored over Gateman's faces, vectors and triangle fractals, I started to realize not only how well its intricacies and overwhelming presence fit the sound of the album - even the heavy brown color palette matches Koloss's no-frills sound production - but that the two were inseparable.

Sure, it's easy to marry the massive, dark and intimate sound of their 2008 album Obzen to its polarizing artwork - which features a naked three-armed meditator with no body hair, arms dripping blood, sitting on a cement block...but Koloss provides this audiovisual onslaught on a level that makes it simply impossible to disassociate one from the other. The aforementioned triangle fractals adorning Gateman's background remind me of many of Koloss's guitar riffs, in 3/4 time and progressing from simple to labyrinthine - the main riff of "Do Not Look Down" comes to mind specifically, as does the overall structure of "Behind the Sun." The sheer weight of the artwork is a perfect representation of Meshuggah's larger-than-life sound, the latter largely provided by drummer Tomas Haake. The intimidating malevolence represented by the dozens of snakes and regal pose of the Gateman is reminiscent of Jens Kidman's brutal vocals and the pop-free metal riffs of guitarists Fredrik Thordendal and Marten Hagstrom and bassist Dick Lovgren. The level of detail in the piece conjures up the guitar-pick maelstrom of Koloss's faster thrash-influenced tracks like "The Demon's Name is Surveillance."

Meshuggah's Koloss and Keerych Luminokaya's Gateman are each such labor-intensive works alone that they deserve their respective lives and places in 2012's creative landscape, not to mention a king's ransom of kudos and respect from music and art lovers. In fact, I have no doubt that Koloss will be one of my favorite albums of the year, metal or otherwise, and I've been made a lifelong fan of Luminokaya's artwork. When working together, though, they become more than the sum of their parts, making 1 + 1 = 3. This is the musical equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter, if chocolate and peanut butter could kick you in the nuts and shove you in a coffin. I don't rate albums I review, but I will pay this pairing the highest compliment in which I believe - it is masterful. These are two distinct artists who have mastered their crafts and taken it to unexplored heights. If you don't at least give them a chance, you're missing out on one of the great collaborations of the year.