Alfred Hitchcock’s thing was planning. Scheming. Preparing. His job was to take a scenario, coax it through a writer into a script, and then figure out the geometry of the thing. Camera angles, lens lengths, the shapes and colors of the foreground and background. He took notes, he storyboarded, he imagined and decided and determined and produced. By the time the first frame was shot, he was essentially finished. He had produced a specific plan, and filming was just the tedious process of capturing all the little snips of colored thread so that they could be sewn into a suspenseful needlepoint later on.

He didn’t shoot coverage, he didn’t run a dozen cameras so he could make up his mind later, he didn’t waste film on anything; he just shot the plan. This way, if he was fired before the edit was done, the movie would still look like he planned, because there would be no alternate footage or angles to choose from. Actors – props that eat – were expected to know their roles, literally and figuratively, and do their best not to mess it up. (I don’t think Hitchcock would go in for the creepy Zemeckis-favored animation thing though, that’s giving whole staffs and departments worth of people the chance to screw up the performance.)

In theory, if you had all of Hitch’s notes and storyboards and perhaps, in the spirit of planning, you discussed his intentions with him, he wouldn’t even have to show up. Someone else could relay the same set of decisions, made in advance, follow the boards, shoot the plan.

So how did Gus Van Sant screw up Psycho? I’ll admit, I haven’t seen his remake since it was in theaters. It might be better than I remember it, what with all the laser pointers and people yelling, bur probably not by much. They not only had the original materials, they had the original film to look at! But maybe that’s the trouble. Maybe too much effort was spent on imitating the original cast instead of acting. Maybe it was mis-cast. Maybe part of the problem was that it was shot in color – Hitchcock certainly could have shot it in color, and had already done several color films; the black and white was a choice.

So….what? Imitation is flattering, but lousy art? There was more method to Hitchcock’s madness than met the eye? Does the meaning of the film change when the audience goes in knowing the surprises on which the original was hinged? Was the movie actually okay, just not able to stand its own weight, in the form of the original’s legacy and the criticism that comes with touching it?

On a somewhat related note, did anyone actually see that Twilight movie? There’s a mountain of press on the subject of how popular and oft-mentioned by the press it is, but I haven’t seen anyone discuss whether or not it’s any good. (although rotten tomatoes suggests it’s twice as good as Punisher: War Zone, or half as good as Bolt.)

Y’know how sometimes, Christmas with the Kranks comes out? In theaters?

Well, in 1994, Tim Allen did Disney’s The Santa Clause. Huge hit. Made it’s money back seven times over just in the US, just in theaters. At the very same time, Home Improvement was the #1 show on television (produced by Touchstone (re: Disney)). AND, Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man, written by Tim Allen, published by Hyperion (re: Disney) was a best-seller. Just to top it off, Tim Allen would also give a voice to the new Pixar (re: Disney) cartoon, Toy Story.

So there you go. He can make whatever he wants. And he’s earned Disney something in the neighborhood of 2 Billion Dollars doing it.

(this, from a comparatively uninteresting aside in James Stewart’s Disney War, which is not unlike sitting at the foot of a gossipy ex-exec as he relates all the ‘oh, yeah, and you’ll never believe that THIS happened….’ moments of corporate Disney from the 80s forward.)

You can steal your movies, there’s the bittorrent, and the cleverly concealed films on the youtubes, and sites like hulu.com are bringing more and more tv shows and full features to viewers both free and with some greater legitimacy, but for some films, you just need to go back to the VHS, or even the original film, when home video releases were never brought to light.

That said, if anyone knows where or when I can take in a screening of the classic Demonstrating the Action of the Brown Hoisting and Conveying Machine in Unloading a Schooner of Iron Ore, and Loading the Material on the Cars, I’d be much obliged.

The thing that I really appreciate about the IMDB is that in addition to all the factual information about cast and crew, it provides a place for film afficianados to really dig into a film, dissect the deeper meanings and share insights into the true intent of the filmmakers: [Internet Version of the Ironic Cut]

PS, I love how much Z-Rob hates Indy 4. Maybe I’ll go see it again and buy two tickets. One for me, and one in Z-Rob’s honor. (What? You’re not reading the Z-Blog?)

Just thinking more about it, there were things I didn’t enjoy – maybe he was a little too die hard 4 invincible, maybe the villain did less and less as the movie progressed (Actually, that’s not really a complaint – more exploration and sharing cool stuff instead of conflict for its own sake wins with me), maybe the map just wasn’t as cool as the grail diary, but it still doesn’t matter, as explained above. (Or in blogland, below?)

But unless you agree with me that No Country for Old Men was an adventure, I don’t remember the last good adventure movie to hit before this one. Certainly none of that awful national treasure / tomb raidery stuff.

Good things: Mutt was not nearly as awful as I thought he might be. The chase sequence was incredibly elaborate. There were subtle references (you know the ark is gonna show up) but it’s not full of self-quotes and in-jokes.

Also, and the more I consider this, I think it’s really neat – previous flicks are a 30s adventure with 80s tech. This movie, clearly chock full of modern whatchamacallits, doesn’t dip back to the 30s, it’s goes back 50 years, like the previous set. I think that’s going to put a lot of people off, who were expecting the former. A number of the ideas, big and small, are concerns of 50s B-Movies.

So is it shaping up to be a lousy year for movies (I’ve seen 6 releases of 2008) or a great one (I really enjoyed 3 of ‘em)?

And finally – eyes open! There’s a Vertigo poster in there somewhere, though I didn’t spot it.

I was right! Woo!

About what? Only GREATNESS!

I made a mad dash across LA (close up the office, descend 9 stories, hike 3 blocks, drive 8 miles, find parking!) and got into the Cinerama Dome for some super close screen-wraps-around me seats, and I was not the least bit disappointed!

Now I know it’ll be everyone’s favorite game to explain why they hate it, and I know it’s not Raiders, and I know Harrison Ford aged in the past 20 years, and there are even things I didn’t like about the movie, and none of it matters. I sat in darkness, surrounded by cheering Americans, with a grin and a sense of wonder and excitement, eager to see what might happen next.

Like Indy himself, the movie makes mistakes, but it always dives in with abandon and somehow makes it out on the other side. But, and this is important, it ISN’T The Phantom Menace. I was -such- a Star Wars fan in that time, and I had tickets for multiple screenings, and I couldn’t wait, and I came out of the first showing trying to rationalize and justify and the simple fact was that I didn’t dig it. And again, this isn’t that.

For technical stuff, I liked that the lighting was non-realistic, which I imagine conforms to the style of the previous flicks (time for some re-viewing!). I heard people bitching in the lobby, but at least in my super-close seats, nothing looked egregiously CG to me. There are things that I know must have been, but I was sufficiently swept up in things, I guess.

Mike H. at the Nexpress? Didn’t like Last Crusade, won’t like this. People who need to show their taste and class and hipness by disliking popular stuff? Who say ‘it was good for what it was’ or ‘well, it was entertaining, but…’? It’s okay to like things. Really!

Kinda didn’t want to see this one.

Notes: Players supported and “Yes, And”‘d beautifully. The initiation was a little flat, so by the time the game appeared, we were already a little too far into crazytown. Blue on blue and all that. Good heightening while still keeping it real, and the edit was a good spot, since it couldn’t go any further up than death. Remember not to kill your scene partner! In particular for Gus, try to work on the denials, and to Lars, we didn’t mind too much when you ignored Gus’ denying, but finding a way to justify might lead to even stronger choices.

It seems to me, I might say, that season 7 is not a good season for a TV show. Maybe it’s self-evident – that much time and a show can run out of steam, the original creators got bored and left or were forced out, but if a show even got that far, it must’ve had something going for it.

One might argue, successfully, that season 7 was among the best ever produced on The Simpsons, but most shows, judged exclusively on #7? Not renewed for the coming year. Some shows even improve in quality after getting the miserable seventh out of the way…

The list so far – confirmed as having poor seventh seasons: Homicide: Life on the Street, The X-Files, Mystery Science Theater 3000, CSI, The Sopranos (6 part 2, 7, whathaveyou), Smallville, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cops, Law and Order: SVU, Saturday Night Live and Friends.

Rumored to have had successful seventh seasons: Stargate: SG-1, South Park, Simpsons, Seinfeld…. we’ve almost got an S-exception to the rule.

As of yet neither confirmed nor denied (mostly sitcoms or WB fare): M*A*S*H, Cheers, Mad About You, Full House, Charmed, Dr. Who, Gilmore Girls (remember, we’re saying relative to each show’s other seasons, not against all shows ever), The Cosby Show, Gunsmoke, Home Improvement, Walker (Texas Ranger) or Dr. Quinn (Medicine Woman), ER, 90210, Macgyver, Dallas, LA Law, Bonanza, Knots Landing, Are you afraid of the Dark?, Tales from the Crypt, various Star Trek shows, and probably a bunch of reality shows – Survivor, Real World, Road Rules, American Idol…

Shows on the rain-slick precipice of DOOM: 24, Curb your Enthusiasm, Mythbusters, The Shield, and Ice-T’s Rap School.

Anyone got any to add or to confirm or deny?

So I had a dream that tonight’s the big night, the official competition that a team I’m on / class group I’m in has been training for weeks to compete in has been practicing for. As far as I can tell, it’s been a recurring dream, in which I’ve actually been progressing in time – it’s not the SAME dream each time, but each time it comes around we do practice this event (which is similar to evacuating someone on a stretcher), and other things have been developing as we go…as the ‘season’ or series progresses.

But what if it’s not? What if the idea that it’s the conclusion to a series of dreams is all a notion from this lone dream? I don’t have any particular memory of pondering the other practices… I guess if we’re going to get into that, I’d prefer the notion that this right now is the recurring dream other people are having….oh, brain!

So maybe I kinda do ‘get’ Blade Runner…maybe it just turns out that I’m not a sci-fi fan…

Moving this week. Found a place to move TO last week. Leaving the valley Hollywoodward.

Stacking up little edit jobs to work on here and there. Writing things. And there’s a radio-show-to-be.

Recent movies:

Sunshine – Wanting to like a movie isn’t always enough. Already starting from a deficit by bearing similarities to Event Horizon (one of film’s greatest embarrassments), this chronicle of human failure and monument to (as I understand it) bad science didn’t win me over. There might be a lesson available here, since Danny Boyle movies never do. Extra demerits awarded for requiring outside reading to explain the plot.

Michael Clayton – Solid. Monument to human weakness. Somewhat too neat and tidy an ending.

Harvey – Fantastic! Surprisingly ‘modern,’ given the kind of Hays Code-ish santization one imagines in movies from 1950. Dowd, Elwood P. is an American Hero.

Funny Games – The remake looms nigh, so I saw the original. It should be a fun movie to see with a big audience. It was much more tense viewing based on what I’d been told about it than through its own merits. Even the new trailer is a shot-for-shot remake of the old trailer, at least until they get to the ‘explain things to Americans’ bit. And there’s a genuine worth to repeat viewings, “to enjoy the opening in the context of the ending,” I might say.

And, since I’m moving away from convenient close proximity to an enormous cinema that doesn’t care, I commemorated the event with a slate of fresh releases:

Be Kind, Rewind – Gondry movie, shares some of the joy of the TV series Home Movies, in seeing the homemade solutions to fancy effects and costumes. Doesn’t fret much more than it needs to on plot to string along the fun bits.

Jumper – a ‘necessary evil’ to staying inside until other showtimes lined up. Pretty much nothing happens after the first 15 minutes. The effect grows tiresome and that’s all the movie has going for it. Points for showing someone use a power selfishly (you’d use the Force to reach the remote if you could), demerits for Hayden Christenson. Points for having a snowglobe in the movie, demerits for having such an expensive snowglobe that there was no money available for an ending to the movie. Too soon to tell if it earns enough money for sequels, but it’s kind of funny to see franchise-hungry companies make bold advances on trilogies that fizzle (ie, Eragon). Although I would have liked a XIII sequel.

There Will Be Blood – More like There Will Be Boring. There was a fair amount of slapping though.

Juno – I had been avoiding this because it looked like a very calculated Napoleon Dynamite / Little Miss Sunshine -styled monstrousity. Somehow, finding out Jason Reitman directed it tipped the scales for me. And there are some neat directorial ideas going on, but the movie drew a lot more Kif-shaped sighs than laughs for me. You can just wave at the jokes as they cruise by. Points for the notion of vacationing in Gettysburg, dozens of demerits for inclusion of the Moldy Peaches. For all the grabs at quotability it makes, I like how not-quoted it seems to be. At least, in the tiny circles I’m travelling lately.