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I knew that this would be part of my children's life. I mean, I did marry Jake and I did know that he sort of likes Star Wars in the way that I sort of like chocolate.  But for some reason, I never imagined how it would unfold.

They first watched the parade at the end of Episode One about a year ago.  (Just a warning: for any of you Star Wars lovers/friends of my husband (John), please don't find it necessary to correct me on any of the names/places/scenes/episodes that I get wrong here.  Ok?).  And in addition to that scene, they must have watched something with Darth Vader in it as Josie's been saying "Darth Vader not nice" for almost as long as she's been speaking.  But beyond that scene we've had a pretty hard lock down on any additional viewings mostly because Josie is pretty young and you know, (spoiler alert!) Star Wars has guns in it plus some pretty freaky aliens, monsters and that thing in the trash compactor.  All things that aren't going to help anyone in our house sleep through the night. 

However, (and if I could exaggerate that word any more I would) Star Wars has been a daily request lately.  Jake let Sophie watch some of Empire during some special "Daddy and Sophie" time and she's stated that she loves Star Wars.  So much so that she's developed a habit that I now call "the Star Wars Wake and Bake".  She'll come into our room around 5:30, crawl in to bed, snuggle with me for a bit then work her way over to Jake and ask, "Can I watch Star Wars".  Oh, she's good!  My darling daughter has stumbled upon her father's achilles' heel and she doesn't even know the power she holds.  There is just no way Jake could ever say no to that question.  I keep picturing her at 16 really wanting to borrow the car but being grounded for some reason (I was always grounded at that age) and casually asking her dad if he wants to watch some Empire.  Then after sitting through it, asking him for the car keys.  His chest filled with pride, he reaches in his pocket and not only pulls out the car keys but throws her $20 for being such a good girl.

Oh, was I trying to make a point?  I forget.  Anyhow, they've been watching more and more Empire and have watched the Degoba scenes.  I can hear Sophie explaining to Josie what a walker is.  They cheer when it gets tripped.  They love Yoda and get to watch the scene where Luke and R2 go to meet Yoda in the swamp.  I heard them chanting "De-go-ba, De-go-ba" today when they were waiting for Jake to put the movie on.  They absolutely love watching it with Jake and I think the feeling is mutual.  Sure we've skipped the majority of the movie and they have no idea of the plot. Well, actually, Josie has a pretty cute summary of her version of the plot.

"Darth Vader coming.  He going to fight.  He going to fight Han Solo."

So, a little artistic freedom has been taken but I think it's a good overall idea of the pending doom during all of the movies.  At the end of the day, I am a proud mom of two Star Wars fan girls in training.  I wonder how soon before we can start dressing them up like Yoda and Princess Leia?

Last night Brandie & I had our first New Zealand "Date Night", got a sitter for the girls and went to see Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at The Embassy Theatre in Wellington with our friends Scott & Nadine.

The Embassy was built in 1924 and remodeled in 2003 for the Return of the King premiere. It is big, grand and gorgeous, and seats 1749 people. It reminded both Brandie & I of the Kodak Theater you see on the Academy Awards television broadcasts.

The theater has assigned seating, so after you buy a ticket you don't have to worry about getting back in line to secure a good seat. There's a cafe in the lobby that serves beer, wine and hot food along with sandwiches and pastries. We shared the spring rolls and samosas with sweet chili sauce, paired with an Emerson's Oatmeal Stout. Along with your popcorn and snacks you can take a glass of wine or beer into the theater to enjoy the film with. It's definitely the best movie-going experience I've ever had, and we weren't even sitting in the 'platinum' section.

Anyway, onto my impressions of the film (SPOILER ALERT! Don't read past the jump if you haven't seen the movie yet):

From stuff.co.nz:

Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro will spend four years in New Zealand making two films based on The Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit, it was confirmed today.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4496833a10.html

A few weeks (yikes, is it months already?) ago Brandie forwarded me a local Craigslist post for volunteer crew on a short film. I replied to the post and wound up meeting some really amazing & talented people, making some great friends and having a blast. I also learned a ton and got some good exercise hustling all that equipment around!

I met with the producer and director several times prior to the shoot, and was given a fairly detailed overview of the camera (a Panasonic HVX-200) and all the lenses and adapters they planned to use. It was pretty mind-boggling. I also got a lot of help preparing from my friend Justin, who has experience as a camera assistant.

The shoot started at 5:30am on a Wednesday and lasted five days. I couldn't volunteer every day, but managed to be on set for a lot of it. Brandie also volunteered her baking skills for the craft table, and made some outstanding savory and sweet scones for the first day (see her post for the recipes).

The locations were places I was familiar with, including The Brackney Inn and a rock quarry located behind my grandfather's house, across the valley from where I grew up on Howard Hill. Another location was an antique store on the local "Antique Row".

The cast and other crew were mostly from Manhattan, including the protagonist, Al Duvall, who performs a number of songs throughout the film (including the title track). I found them to be quite catchy and have since downloaded them from iTunes (search for Blood of the Hog and Delmarva). Some other local volunteers like myself also turned out to help.

Once we started, things moved along fairly quickly. There were a lot of shots to get in the five days, and the director and DP were both determined to make them all look as good as they could. Except for lunch and the moments when shooting required we stand still, we were pretty much hustling the entire time. I was able get experience with quite a few different areas, including camera and lighting.

The final night of shooting we started around 7pm and wound up running til 5am, shooting outdoors at night with some fairly complex lighting setups. We were also working around The Brackney's kitchen schedule, since the kitchen exhaust fan had to be turned off while we were filming.

It was a great experience, I'm really grateful for the opportunity and would love to do it again. Thanks to Nat & Patrick for allowing me to be a part of it, to Nat & Jeff for teaching me a ton and to my wonderful and supportive wife for finding the post and encouraging me to follow my dreams!

Blood Of The Hog Blogspot

Being a lifelong Transformers fan, I was very pleased to be able to see it here on opening night at my favorite local theater, Hoyt's Regal Cinema by BCC, with my step-brother Kevin and Danny (both also fans of the license).

The theater had a huge line (unusual for around here) but we still managed to get good seats. The audience was made up of fans who laughed and applauded at all the right parts. What Bay always gets right, even if it's cheesy: making heroes out of military folks (all those slow-mo shots of people climbing into jets, responding to attacks), and the simplest tugging of heart-strings (the tooth fairy gag).

When I first saw the new art direction on the robots I didn't like it (prefer the blockier original designs, or the ones from the War Within series), but hoped seeing it in action would somehow help. Unfortunately it didn't: all the little parts and pieces, especially the slender bits added to the faces to help them seem expressive, made it difficult for me to focus on anything in closeups - they were just too busy. Plus it seemed like all that stuff would fly off at the first punch!

On that note I thought the fight choreography was impressive and beautifully done, but sometimes difficult to follow (again because of the complexity of the robot designs). I also found the fights very similar to Spidey3: I guess there are only so many ways to have super-heroes trash an urban environment (throwing each other through buildings, etc.)

The story unfortunately boiled down what was already a fairly cheesy back-story and made it lamer: the core McGuffin of the movie is something that supposedly explains their origins (and our technology since 1930-something) but somehow only makes evil robots out of ordinary machines. How are the Autobots altruistic then?

All that aside I think I was most disturbed by the visual at the end: the geeky guy gets the hot girl (so far so good), they're making out as the sun sets over the California hills (nice!) as they lay on the hood of his car, which is a sentient being (some weird threesome?) Even worse, as the camera pulls back more you see the rest of the Autobot gang standing around apparently watching the make-out session. Nice visual setup for a commercial, but kinda creepy when you think it through.

Still, despite all those things I enjoyed getting out and seeing a movie on opening night, and it was a fun "summer" movie (lots of explosions, mind-blowing effects, etc.) Thanks again to Kevin & Danny for meeting me, let's do it again soon!

Today I got to do something I've dreamed about for a long time: to take Sophie to her first movie in a theater. A friend invited us to go see Happy Feet over the holiday weekend, and we decided it would be a good time to try it out. Brandie & Josie had to do some shopping, so after a morning snack Sophie & I jumped into the Forester and headed to Hoyts Regal 12 by the Cracker Barrel on Front Street.

I picked Hoyt's over Town Square because they have stadium-seating, and because they don't have an attached shopping center. I figured Sophie would have a better view and we'd stand better odds of finding good parking. As it turned out we got to park directly in front of the theater and had our pick of seats.

The previews were starting as we walked in, so we sat and watched. And watched. And watched. And our chances of actually seeing the movie shrunk. It's hard for Sophie to sit still for 10 minutes, much less 20 minutes of previews and then a movie. To buy us some time and avoid any Voldemort nightmares we got up to get some popcorn.

The movie had started by the time we got back, and Sophie had a pretty good time. I'll avoid any spoilers, but we ended up taking four or five breaks from the auditorium before we finally left because of some intense scenes. The visuals were gorgeous though, and I look forward to seeing the rest of the movie someday. For now it's enough to hear Sophie talk about the things that made an impression on her: "it was wery, wery LOUD", "he fell down", "he's feet came out of the egg" and "Mommy Bumble went to work, Daddy stays with babies".

Woohoo, what a fun way to spend an afternoon!

A few Fridays ago I had the rare treat of seeing a movie on its opening weekend. Our friends Danny & Trina treated me to Cars at the nicest theater in town (Hoyt's Regal by BCC) as well as all the fixin's: a huge tub of buttered popcorn, soda and a bunch of candy. Now that's the way to go to the movies!

I'll try to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I really enjoyed the movie and heartily recommend it. Make sure to stick around for the credits, which were my favorite part.

We've been watching a lot of Monsters, Inc. at home lately, and the recent sentencing of the Enron guys just reminds me how sharp that movie still is. By comparison, the oil at the heart of Cars is pretty much ignored. Obviously no real gas was used to make all the CG cars go, but I couldn't help thinking how much must get burned for the huge NASCAR events the movie is based on, just for all the RV's to get there!

I don't mean to wax political or be a downer (go see the movie, it's great!), and I should probably just stop reading Collapse, but something about the excess of the pre-race fanfare struck me as uncomfortable given the current world situation.

That said, my dad (seen above working on his 1970 Chevelle Super Sport with our friend Terry) is probably the ideal audience for the film. He's a huge car buff, avid Car Talk listener and do-it-yourself auto restorer. He loves car shows, backroads and small-town America, and just going out for a cruise. Brandie is constantly amazed at his abillity to spend hours in the car, thinking nothing of driving 12 or 14 hours in a day. He also loves the kind of American West portrayed in the film, not the big suburban sprawls of LA or San Francisco but the little towns you find off the freeway.

I've never really shared my dad's enthusiasm for cars, but found a happy collision of worlds with the Cars movie: my interest in Pixar and the craftsmanship of their films, and his in cars and the car culture the movie celebrates. It's really been fun to talk with him about it, to see what he appreciated and why.

Happy Father's Day, and thanks Mr. Lasseter!

Last night our friends Dan & Trina came over to watch the Oscars as well as some of the pre-show event in HD. Overall the higher resolution and wider format was very enjoyable, but it especially made a difference in the pre-show. It was fun to see what was happening in the background behind the interviewee, with the fans or attendees who weren't being interviewed.

During the show, I couldn't help but feel a sense of discomfort coming from the celebrity audience. It was maybe due in part to the awkward efforts of the nervously giggling host, but I wonder if it's also from their often-discussed sense of disconnection with the rest of the country. They almost seemed resentful of our viewing presence.

As a host, Jon Stewart came across as an unwelcome outsider. On The Daily Show he's much more animated and receptive to his political guests than he is to celebrities, who often get the minimum amount of very fluffy interview time. That irreverence either worked to make the audience uncomfortable in advance or Stewart just couldn't pull off any genuine interest in his crowd. He seemed almost as shocked about being there as we were, while the funniest segments were Stephen Colbert's spoof campaign ads.

As far as the actual awards go, I only saw a few of the nominees this year and so had a limited basis for judgement. I really liked Crash but for political reasons was disappointed Brokeback Mountain didn't take Best Picture. "Family values" didn't quite win again (see 2004 election), but it wasn't the in-your-face rebuke I was hoping for.

A few years ago, a close friend and I sat by a Vegas casino pool and cooked up a "cure" for the Star Wars prequels.

Like a lot of adult fans, we had been disappointed by the releases of Episodes 1 & 2. Sure, it was still Star Wars, but a lot of things like midichlorians and Jar Jar Binks had been introduced that made us feel things weren't quite right. Probably we just felt a little too much ownership over the license that we loved and had been inspired by so much.

Then Episode 3 came out and changed everything. Arguably there were still issues, but even the midichlorians didn't bother us as much anymore. It undeniably satisfied a lot of fans, and somehow even made the first two prequels better. I lost interest in developing our cure, as it didn't seem relevant or even interesting anymore.

But for the record and in honor of John's birthday, here's an outline for what we used to think might have made the first two prequels better.

References
As a kid I had never seen the Flash Gordon serials or Kirosawa films that were reportedly influences on the original Star Wars, but as an adult I felt the prequels' references were a little too transparent. The Matrix, Crouching Tiger and Gladiator seemed omnipresent in many scenes and were way too fresh in the public consciousness to have any place in the prequels. The timeless cinematic quality of the original trilogy seemed lost to a decision to reference recent popular movies.

I make no claims to being a film historian, but felt classic movie references would have provided a more appropriately historic and respectful feel. For Episode 1 the introduction of Anakin could have borrowed from Oliver Twist, where Anakin is a Force-prodigy putting his skills to ill-use in dangerous and seedy Mos Espa. For Episode 2 the love story we might have built on is Gone with the Wind; change is inevitably coming to the Galactic Republic and only Anakin is prepared to handle it.

Villains
By design, The Trade Federation are intended to be lame villains, pawns of the future Emperor. However they not only got screwed over with some horrible voice-overs, they got a sucky, ham-handed part in the first film and then more or less ignored thereafter. Their army of robotic droids fell apart like butter at the hands of the Jedi, and didn't do much besides cause a forest stampede and give the Gungans more opportunity for antics. Their defeat lacked conviction because they never presented a tangible threat: Naboo looked more or less the same as it did before they arrived, and aside from being told that the "death toll (was) catastrophic" the audience didn't have a lot of investment in why these droids were bad for the economy or whatever.

Showing us the lush and beautiful Naboo and its gorgeous capitol of Theed pass virtually unscathed in all three films was like presenting a giant glass window in an 80s action movie and never throwing anyone through it. I would have been much more appreciative of the villainy of the Trade Federation had I gotten to see Amidala amid the smoking ruins of her beloved city.

Maul and Sidious were great, but forget about the two-limit rule for Sith: what's the point of that other than to give Palpatine an unnecessary motive to recruit Anakin? Of course Palpatine wants to recruit Anakin, he's the best thing to happen to the Force since sliced bread! The rest of the factions introduced are good background, but the focus should have been kept on the Separatists and Count Dooku as the primary enemies. They are the most interesting and relatable to the audience, especially when they are later revealed (in our version) to be the seeds of the future Rebellion.

What I propose the prequels should have been is basically the Ep4-6 plotline inverted, to watch the rebel Separatists from the point of view of the Republic/Empire (a bunch of terrorists running around breaking criminals out of prison, stealing plans for military bases and blowing them up with coordinated attacks.) It's much cleaner to have just two opposing forces at odds, and horrifying to later realize (the big twist at the end of film 2) that you've been cheering on the villains. The Jedi are fighting unwittingly for the side of evil, and it is their ultimate disgrace that they do the right thing to the wrong guy: their martyrdom of Dooku (revealed to be a good guy in our version) signals the start of their downfall.

Some Fixes for Anakin
1. His "Slavery"
Anakin's existence as a slave doesn't seem to serve much purpose other than to keep his mother stuck on Tatooine while he's recruited by Qui-Gon. And even then, slavery doesn't seem so bad in Mos Espa: Anakin has more in common with modern-day upper-class American kids (his own room, amazing toys, his own ride, free time to tinker and hang out with his street urchin buddies) than any slave I've read about, all he has to do is clean Watto's shop in the afternoon. The prequels should have made his slavery count for something, or skip it and just make him a farmer like Luke.

2. His Motivation
Anakin also lacks an extreme amout of motivation for a descent into darkness that will change the universe. Slavery looked reasonably tolerable, leaving Mom was a hug and a wave, it's just one fun Podrace sequence to the next, whoa. Let's see some trauma here! Luke at least saw the charred remains of his aunt and uncle before embarking on his mythic quest; let's see something memorable happen to this kid. Anakin's separation from his mother was horribly tame, it could have been much more shocking and traumatic for him.

3. His Potential
The Prophesy, Midochlorians and Immaculate Conception all seemed to be devices intended to establish Anakin's mythic potential, but don't resonate with previous Star Wars ideology. Anakin's unnatural skill at Podracing ("requires Jedi reflexes") also attempted to support this but got lost in the excitement of the race - isn't that just what people in science fiction universes far, far away do? When first discovered Anakin should already display extraordinary skill with the kinds of things Luke struggled with, like telekiness and mind control. This should be explored at a very basic, fun level to capture the imagination of the children who would love to abuse that sort of power (see Harry Potter books). For instance young Anakin could easily have been the best con artist in Mos Espa, lifting wallets and convincing adults to do his bidding. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan would seem more obliged to get this menace off the streets and into a training program if we felt this kid was already on the road to the juvenile hall.

4. His Descent
When Anakin follows his path into darkness I want to understand why, and figure I would have done the same thing. Imagine him faced with no other choice but to bring down the Jedi, and weeping as he does so. Imagine the loneliness he'd feel, and the burden of that choice: then imagine seeing him walk onscreen again in Ep4, and how much more depth there'd be to his character. Also imagine the exiled Obi-Wan as something other than the kindly old man exiled in the desert, maybe even a betrayer of someone in the past.

[This point more than any of the others I felt was resolved in Episode 3 much better than I could have imagined. I really liked the way it was handled, and felt Anakin's struggle was believable.]

Expanding the License
The lightsaber battles were very satisfying, but I hoped for a little more from the Jedi in their heyday. It would have been nice to see one new forcepower revealed with each prequel, but all we really saw was Force Speed briefly in Episode 1. It's also interesting to imagine what the Jedi could have done using their abilities in tandem, since that opportunity doesn't really present itself in Episodes 4-6.

And that's pretty much it. I started on some actual draft screenplays after watching The Phantom Edit, trying to change as little as possible from the original, but never completed them. Someday maybe, it's still pretty fun to think about. But I'll probably just go watch Ep3 again instead; did I mention how much I liked it?

A History of Violence is an engaging little thriller from David Cronenberg, starring Viggo Mortensen & Ed Harris. I found the characters to be interesting and the plot to be compelling. It�s not for the squeamish, and it�s one of those films where the less you know about it (including the trailers) the more you�ll enjoy it.

In limited release. Opens wider 9/30.

- Jonesy