Late to the party
Should have thrown this up last week. We've got plenty of copies of Neal Stephenson's Anathem, July's title, at the store. Also, today I got in a handful of Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull by Michael Moorcock which we're reading for August.
Mary Anne sent this link (http://www.imdb.com/news/ni2994776/ ) to a story debunking the speculation Neill Blomkamp was ready to sit down in the director's chair for The Hobbit. As mentioned before (Nasty Hobbitses need a new director), the article points out again MGM's financial train wreck has this and numerous other projects derailed with no resolution in sight.
Of course, a real director doesn't sit. He's hands-on, leading from the front, like this:
Getting in there, resolving an issue which has ground production to a halt. Or maybe trying to figure out how to hook a chain which served who knows what purpose back onto the tripod. It's a matter of scale. On a sophomore production, it's this. On a major motion picture, no director. Same thing really. (Photo taken by Thom Becker. We're on Main Street in Bozeman, MT on the first afternoon of shooting, May 14, 1985. Our protagonist is about to rudely dismiss a panhandler on his way to an encounter with what one woman in the class described as a "moral orb" from space.)
While we're on the subject of film-making, Sci Fi Channel's giving its fans the chance to create their next big Saturday night movie with the launch tomorrow (6/25) of B-Movie Mogul. Fans will pick from three basic premises (Roswell aliens, Bermuda Triangle monster, or a 2010 apocalypse) then shape the direction of the script, characters, etc. Recipe for disaster? If an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters can eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare, might a herd of geeks with keyboards produce a sci-fi Citizen Kane? Maybe I should rework my Bass! treatment into Tarpon of Terror and see if there's a bite.
On a more serious cinematic note, Shane Carruth, writer-director-star-doggone near everything else on the low-budget time travel film Primer , has a new film moving toward production called A Topiary. Primer's a complex film and not fully digested on a single viewing, but rich enough it pays the effort off. If you haven't seen it, do so ASAP. Hopefully A Topiary is as intelligent and as carefully made. I look forward to finding out.
Mary Anne sent this link (http://www.imdb.com/news/ni2994776/ ) to a story debunking the speculation Neill Blomkamp was ready to sit down in the director's chair for The Hobbit. As mentioned before (Nasty Hobbitses need a new director), the article points out again MGM's financial train wreck has this and numerous other projects derailed with no resolution in sight.
Of course, a real director doesn't sit. He's hands-on, leading from the front, like this:
Getting in there, resolving an issue which has ground production to a halt. Or maybe trying to figure out how to hook a chain which served who knows what purpose back onto the tripod. It's a matter of scale. On a sophomore production, it's this. On a major motion picture, no director. Same thing really. (Photo taken by Thom Becker. We're on Main Street in Bozeman, MT on the first afternoon of shooting, May 14, 1985. Our protagonist is about to rudely dismiss a panhandler on his way to an encounter with what one woman in the class described as a "moral orb" from space.)
While we're on the subject of film-making, Sci Fi Channel's giving its fans the chance to create their next big Saturday night movie with the launch tomorrow (6/25) of B-Movie Mogul. Fans will pick from three basic premises (Roswell aliens, Bermuda Triangle monster, or a 2010 apocalypse) then shape the direction of the script, characters, etc. Recipe for disaster? If an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters can eventually reproduce the works of Shakespeare, might a herd of geeks with keyboards produce a sci-fi Citizen Kane? Maybe I should rework my Bass! treatment into Tarpon of Terror and see if there's a bite.
On a more serious cinematic note, Shane Carruth, writer-director-star-doggone near everything else on the low-budget time travel film Primer , has a new film moving toward production called A Topiary. Primer's a complex film and not fully digested on a single viewing, but rich enough it pays the effort off. If you haven't seen it, do so ASAP. Hopefully A Topiary is as intelligent and as carefully made. I look forward to finding out.
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