Homeward Bound

Soon, as in, within a few hours soon.

This one has been tough. My first job away, only without the benefits that typically go along with such shoots.



Sometimes, the needs of the one, outweigh the needs few, or the many.

I feel like I took this job for all the wrong reasons; to bolster my resume, despite the warning signs that were clearly on every side, to try to build more of a bridge between the Tulsa and OKC film communities, when, it turns out, there's not really a Tulsa film community at all-only groups of psuedo-intellectuals, nothing closely resembling a competent, hirable CREW.

Money doesn't make a person smart. Or right. Now, more than ever.

For Gertrude

Here's a picture of a picture in the main lodge of Sir Paul. It's not very good, mostly because it was dark and I couldn't take a head on shot without glare from the flash.


I thought you might enjoy these.

xo

This Is Where I Woke Up...

Instead of a hotel, or, as on the last picture, a -gasp- motel, the producers have arranged for us to stay at the Meadowlake Ranch in Sand Springs, just a few minutes from downtown Tulsa.

It's kinda pretty.

Words Don't Come Close

It's going to take me a while to really, completely verbalize everything I've been feeling over the last 24-36 hours. I'll have to address this Brave New World later.

In the meantime, in trying to keep somewhat on theme (Joe's Month of Movies), I'm going to share with you pictures of the Obama Watch party the production team was invited to last night.

We were guests along with a wonderfully diverse group ranging from pre-teen to pre-cambrian in age with every Skittle represented.

Here are pictures of the Kennedy Mansion where the party was hosted.








The bar was catered by Grand Vin Bottle Shop; I did my patriotic part in putting away a great deal of a excellent micro-distillery Bourbon.




















I also met the Senior Minister of All Souls Unitarian Church (the largest Unitarian Church in the world), located in Tulsa. Here is a creative 'update' of The Prodigal Sons story, with a decidedly contemporary twist. It's only about 7 minutes, well worth the time, though.



I'm still emotionally drained and mentally exhausted, partly from the election, the other part from the new production. That was actually the part that was supposed to be fairly consistent with my month's theme: This is what I got to do while I am out of town making a movie. Guess I didn't really make that clear earlier.

Well, I've made today's post with 13 minutes to spare before it'll be time to start on the Thursday post, which is when most anyone will be reading this anyway.

Yes. I. Did.

He is The One.

We Interrupt This Program for An Important Message from Our Sponsor...

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The Universe, Blowing Up Worlds Since The Beginning of Time (tm).


THIS MESSAGE PAID FOR BY CITIZENS FOR UNIVERSAL TREATMENT

Saw (2004)

Directed by James Wan
Written by Leigh Whannel
Starring Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Dina Meyer, Leigh Whannel and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw.
Lion's Gate Films

As it was nearing Halloween and, honestly, to keep up with my daughter's newfound fascination with horror movies, I decided it was high time I see what everyone has called one of the scariest, most original and creative horror flicks in recent years.

I was never a huge fan of the slasher films we grew up on in the eighties, but, since Freddy, Jason and Michael have all but gone away for now (I think I read Rob Zombie is going to bring Jason back-God help us-and the Halloween reboot didn't quite take-again, but for the Grace of God), it seems that at least the first installments of recent fright franchises have, in the least, been creative, and quite conceptually sound. I really 'enjoyed' Final Destination and The Ring downright spooked me. And 28 Days Later blew my mind. More about all of those some other day.

I usually take it as a fairly good sign when there are fairly substanital names involved in a horror picture. It's not always a guarantee that we're in store for a high-minded thriller, but, you have to figure these actors have to look out for their careers while still paying their bills.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
I only mention this in case someone hasn't seen it yet, even though it's four years old. Anyway, you've been warned.

It starts out interestingly enough; two guys (Cary Elwes and screenwriter Leigh Whannel) wake up chained to pipes at opposite corners of an true shit hole. Between them lies a dead body; face down, holding a tape recorder in one hand and a pistol in the other--a pool of blood coming from an apparently self-inflicted shot to the head.

Naturally, they're confused, frightened and more than a bit distrustful. Each of them finds an envelope in their pockets with a microcassete that reads PLAY ME. After wrangling the recorder from the corpse's hand, they each receive their own personal set of ominous instructions from the unseen captor.

We learn through well paced flashbacks that Elwes (Dr. Lawrence Gordon) was once a suspect in a series of serial murders. The FB's are used to good effect to break up and supplant the potentially indulgent, exposition heavy 'this must be what's going on' scenes; especially in the claustrophobic setting these poor bastards are in. It would have been much easier (and much less effective) to turn this into a yell back and forth at each other, bloody version of Waiting for Godot; the FB's keep this from happening.

We see Elwes as a cold, emotionally distant oncologist who is dismissive of patients and hospital staff alike. One orderly, Zep, tries to point out a patient's name during rounds one day. Not that Dr. Gordon cares. The scene serves as a bright red herring (almost too bright...) as the film progresses.

James Wan and Whannel smartly use narration and voice overs sparingly in the flashbacks; choosing show over tell.

Glover is the obsessive detective who is on Dr. Gordon's tail in the FB and whose manic obsessiveness ultimately saves the good doctor's wife (Monica Potter, who finally looks old enough to drive) and child, who Jigsaw had plans for as part of his 'game'.

The horror comes by way of the psychological cat and mouse that is played out by Jigsaw upon his marks and by Wan on the viewers. Jigsaw (whose name holds very little meaning in overall story) is not an indescriminate psychopath. His motivations are not unlike those behind Kevin Spacey's John Doe in Se7en; the victim's have been chosen very specifically. Unlike the Seven Deadly Sinners though, Jigsaw's game pieces aren't necessarily being punished, but given an object lesson (as our parents would have described it to us) to make them appreciate those things taken for granted and to reconsider shallow, cowardly choices made.

There is plenty of blood, but no gore. It's a mix between tension and just enough shown onscreen to make you afraid of what's happening offscreen.

Bottom line is this: Saw pushes and confuses the boundary between horror film and psychological thriller; between morality play and character study; all the while making you ask yourself questions you never want to have to answer.

NaBloPoMo Here I Come!orJoe's Month of Movies

"There but for the Grace of God, goes God"


~ Herman Mankiewicz, co-writer of Citizen Kane, on Orson Welles, who tried to have Mankiewicz's screenwriting credit removed from Citizen Kane.



I am going to do my damndest to hit a movie a day during this month; not necessarily reviews and not disections either (although some may be both or neither). Most will be personal thoughts, impressions or just little non-sequitor notes.

I'll start tomorrow with Saw, which I finally saw (no pun, seriously) this week in the spirit of Halloween.

For the Record...

...I am NOT Joe the Plumber,

NOR am I Joe Six-Pack.


Although, to be fair in understanding the confusion, I, too, am

1) bald;
2) quite adept at laying pipe; and
3) have been the business end of the demise of a St. Louis share of tin soldiers.

In this Age of Joe-isms, maybe I should take on a new moniker...

Call Me...

Joe Thinksforhimself

You can just call The Enlightened for short.

JOE'S FOR OBAMA-BIDEN!

I'm Joe the Enlightened and I approve this blog post.

Breaking News!!!Reagan Endorses Obama!

World Wide Words:Friday Edition

"Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little."
– Sir Tom Stoppard (born Tomáš Straussler July 3, 1937)


"At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night."
– H.P. Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937)

Sometimes I Just Need a Little of that Old School Somethin' Somethin'...

And Now...I Feel Better.
Much. Much. Better.

I'm Losing My Patience

With the intellectual laziness that abounds in America. The Big Picture Irony here is that in an age where we have more information available to us than at any other time in human history, we, as a nation, seem to think that we can absorb, by some kind of pop culture osmosis, everything we need to know about an event, an issue or a candidate by only reading headlines or only listening to sound bites.

Why do reporters even bother asking questions anymore? Rarely is an actual response to the question posited ever given; rather, the interviewee pounces on the first keyword they hear and proceed to paraphrase or, more often, regurgitate an oft rehearsed tangental self serving essay that digs about as deep as a spork would into permafrost.

John McCain should be ashamed of himself. He has traded the lives and memories of his fellow POW's, those who returned from Southeast Asia and especially those who did not, for a non-responsive and increasingly foolish sounding 'get out of interview free card'.

On The Tonight Show tonight, Jay Leno and McCain traded softballs and semi-updated takes on Henny Youngman's act in a pre-taped segment until Leno, the good little sychophant, told McCain that he'd give him $1,000,000 dollars if McCain could tell him how many houses he actually owns, to which McCain replied....wait for it when I was a POW for five years, I didn't have a home, I didn't have a kitchen table. Because that's the answer we were all hoping he'd give, right?

Just as Guiliani and Bush became incapable of uttering a statement in public that didn't include the words 'terrorism' and '9/11', so has McCain achieved the same level of moronic and malicious betrayal of the American public's respect for those who have served and sacrificed for their country, by now constructing each sentence, for which does not have a campaign worthy approved vomit point, with POW at it's core.

Here is an example of McCain directly sticking it to a fellow veteran while directly avoiding that dreaded Republican kryptonite--The Truth.



Please watch this entire video and ask yourself this: Why should McCain's former POW status matter to us, since it seems to mean so little him?

Oh Dear.

The idea of karaoke at a Hudson's doesn't seem quite as bad. Now...

Ruth Buzzi Would Be Proud

School's In

Today my beautiful, brilliant daughter enrolled in her new, public school out in God's Country.



It's one of her mother's alma mater's, kind of. Squirt is in 8th grade, but the junior high building there is the former high school building. She has a brand new, state of the art, ginormous high school to look forward to in a couple of years.

Her principal is an old classmate and friend of her mother, and I've already had to point out to her that his first name is Mister, not Dee.

She called me and gave me her list of classes: AP Literature and AP Language (natch), (regular) Math, Earth Science, American History, Life Skills (new millenium Home Ec) and P.E.

She chose the regular math as opposed to the AP Math because "it could be hard, Daddy!"

So...I gave her one of those talks with her...

Plus, she's going to find out that lockers, changing classes, a 10 point grading system (90-100, not 93-100), school dances and drug tests aren't the only differences between private and public school. She's going to be a bit ahead of her classmates. The teacher to student ration is good at the new school, but not nearly what she has been used to.

She'll be fine. She'll be the same kind of social hybrid anomoly that both her mother and I were in school. Her mom was the drop dead gorgeous, smart as a whip popular girl that everyone wanted to be near. I was everybody's favorite goofball genius who got along with everyone, from jocks to the socially off-the-radar 'freaks' (I was, and am, I suppose) a combination of all of them.

She's already made the cheerleading squad and qualified for a national award through summer cheer camp. So, she's starting off with a leg up than I did when we moved around with the wind thanks to the oil field back in the day.

I may discuss my transition to her move here soon. I'm still deep in the middle of a combination of stark denial and stark-raving freakout.

I'll keep you posted.

My Life As An Apartment

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

~ Leo Buscaglia

...Because I'm An Idiot Manchild

I somehow forgot a few other concerts that Gertrude and I have seen. Again, probably because I'm a dumb boy.



Harry Connick, Jr., in Dallas on the She tour, I was hoping for tuxedo and big band, he was in his black jeans and fusion funk band stage.



Tori Amos, I'm pretty sure this was the Cornflake Girl tour. The program had a foreward by Neil Gaiman which started with "Hi, by the way" Tear in Your Hand is Gertrude's ringtone on my phone to this day.



Bobby McFerrin (on the Hush tour, sadly, Yo-Yo Ma did not visit OKC with him)

I think that may be it, bringing our 17 year-ish associated total to 6 if you believe my recollections. Hell, there are probably a couple others waiting to tap me on the shoulder as soon as I hit "Publish Post"

In any case, not nearly enough.

One More Thought...

Gertrude and I have only gone to 3(!) concerts together over the years, but Boy, have they been doozies:


Frank


Lyle


and now John Cougar

We need to do this more.

The Cougar Has Landed!

What a great show! Absolutely fantastic, kids! Johnny came knockin' with his fiddler AND the acordian player. So immediately Gertrude and I were all "Oh, it's on! The only entourage regret I have (and he should be feelin' this) is that his sassy POP SING-AAAAH backup gals weren't there.



He started off with Pink Houses which got everyone to their feet. Cheater.

It was more of an "Everyone get up and enjoy this show" than a shove my new album down your throat show. He played 4 songs from the new album by my count, including the powerful "Jena".

Our boy ripped the roof off the dump several times, but when he kicked the everlovin' shit out of "Crumblin' Down" , I swear, if you were dead a week, you still would have had to get up and sing along.

My favorite was "Rain on the Scarecrow" which he and the band blasted out (4 guitars plus bass) completely electric. Goosebumps and welled up eyes on that one, folks. Always one of my favorites and, for me, his most personal and painful narrative. (I'll save the story of my great-grandfather, the peanut farmer from Eastern Oklahoma, for later)

Gert and I were both extremely disappointed that "Rumbleseat" and "Ain't Even Done With the Night" were left off the set list. There were plenty others I would have loved to have heard ("When Jesus Left Birmingham", "Pop Singer" , "What if I Came Knockin'" but, in all honesty, if he played MY setlist, he wouldn't be finished until Sunday afternoon.

Gertrude was screaming for "Cherry Bomb" when we were riding the escalator up to our seats, and, Bless Her Heart, he didn't deliver that one, either.

Overall, just fantastic! Love that I got to watch him with Gert, he's always been 'one of our guys'; Love that Gertrude scored us the tickets months ago, way before time together was as scarce as it's become. Just a wonderful night.

Thank You, Gertrude.

Here are a couple that I found that I couldn't resist linking: Johnny with The Man in Black hisself, and one with Paul Simon (I actually remember seeing this on NBC waaay back when, Dan Ayckroyd and John Candy hosted some otherwise silly thing-this obviously was great, LOVE their version of The Boxer)

I'm exhausted. From the show and from linking all those damn videos. Main reason I didn't mention any more song titles...I'm spent.