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Marcelo's thoughts
is there any hope?
Sometimes I think not, especially on days like last Monday. Last Monday’s Variety made me sick to my stomach. The whole damn thing was nothing but a big ass kissing to Brett “I make cookie cutter movies” Ratner. And why you might wonder, well simple, we are in a town where the only thing celebrated is money, nothing else, nothing more, just plain old money. Make money in this town and you will be more acclaimed than Martin Scorsese. Write the next Charlie’s Angels or Rush Hour and you will be more celebrated than William Goldman or Scott Frank. So back to Brett “I direct by the numbers” Ratner, he was “honored” as been Variety Billion Dollar director, they dedicated him a whole number.
Among his achievements to amount to that are those hideous Rush Hour movie (please God, please let the third one be a bigger flop than Gigli), that I still don’t understand why they made so much money, well I guess Homer Simpson likes those kind of movies. They mention that he took over the X-Men franchise, and that his X-Men movie, the Last Stand, made more money than the other two. That is true, but they fail to mention that Last Stand doubled in budget United and almost tripled the first one, so in a ratio of budget to gross Last Stand in the one that made the least amount of money. They also seem to not realize that even if Allan Smithee would have directed Last Stand it would have made a ton of money. They dared to say that he followed on the steps of Demme and Ridley Scott in the Lecter franchise. Well I believe that putting Scott’s name next to the Ratt’s name in any sentence is disrespectful in itself. Never mind that Red Dragon was a remake of a Michael Mann movie, never mind that is by far the worst of the Lecter’s films (and please don’t bring up Hannibal Rising, just compare the amount of talent in each movie), never mind that Silence of the Lambs is one of the best movies ever made, and never mind that even though Red Dragon was the one with the biggest budget of the three, it is the one that grossed the least. So on days like Monday I truly believe there’s no hope in this town. I feel that the more I know about Hollywood the more I want to make movies out of it.
But then my optimistic side kicks in, and I think hey for every Ratt, we have a Joe Carnahan, who declined to direct the next Wolverine movie (can you image how bad ass a Carnahan Wolverine would have been), because he knew it would have never been his movie. For every Michael Bay we have a Chris Nolan, for every Michael Steven Johnson we have a Guillermo del Toro. And even though Antonioni and Bergman died and they only received half pages in Variety while the boy from South Beach got a full number, we still have Francis Ford Coppola, Marty Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Ridley Scott, Sidney Lummet, Sidney Pollack, alive and making movies, let’s hope they live many more years.
So to close I think us as an audience should show the suites at the studios and those who acclaimed no talent that we are not going to take it anymore, that been a blockbuster is not an excuse to make shitty movies, so start next weekend, and please don’t go see Rush Hour.
Aug 2, 2007 5:35 AM | Link | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Report Content
My Heroes
So here I am, starting the second draft of our new script, working on Boogie, doing prep work on Omision, and in the early, really early stages of a new story I really want to tell, in other words as you can see busy. Whenever I start a new draft of a script, especially a second draft, once the story is down on paper and the refining of it starts, I face the same set of question: Is my Hero likable enough? Why do we care about him? I have to say that is part of the Hollywood training I have suffered over the last four years. At this point in time I have made the personal decision of not worrying anymore if my hero is likable or not, you know why? Because I like asshole heroes, I like my main character to be flawed, to have defects, to be a jerk once in a while, in other words to be human. I once read a quote from a very famous filmmaker – forgive me for not remembering who said it – who said that the most screw up the hero is the better, the more people would identify with him. Why I like to have an asshole or a jerk as a protagonist you might ask, the answer is very simple, it gives me room to grow, it gives me places to take him. If he is perfect and nice from the beginning, where do we go with him? Where can I take him? The best heroes are those who change in the process of the movie, those who have learned something from the experience. Not to mention that most of my favorite characters of all time are all jerks, assholes and very flaud, people like Captain Willard, Jake Gittes, Colonel Slade, Michael Corleone, Amsterdam Vallon, Johnny “Boy”, or even Batman, and Wolverine, just to name a few.
What I’m trying to say is don’t worry if your character at the beginning of the script is likable or not, worry that he grows, that he learned something.
Jun 19, 2007 9:13 AM | Link | Comments (0) | Add Comment | Report Content
Mark Steven Johnson vs. John Cassavetes
Many of you, or at lest some of you, might know me as MPC, Mario’s writing partner, so let me introduce myself, my name as you can see is Marcelo, and no, I do not look like Boogie.
As some of you know while I was down in Argentina prepping our movie Omision, I come across an assignment that I could not turn down due to my love to the property. It would be like here getting offered to write an adaptation of Wolverine that for sure will get made and getting paid for it, getting paid not a lot, but getting paid. Who would say no, right? Remember I grew up reading Boogie, for me it’s a dream come true to write a movie about him. Anyway thing is I did not tell my reps, as you can imagine they got pretty upset for different reasons. One of them got mad because I did it with out consulting them and the other because it was a bad business decision. Never mind how much the property and the projects means to me, and how much I love the character, and that the movie will be done. To be honest I understand both their points, I can see why one would be mad for not telling them and the other one for how much money we got, or didn’t get. This situation raised the question of why we do what we do. I think that most people in this business want to make movies, well at least want to believe so, and make some money in the process, so we can live off of making movies. Problem is when you first want to make money and second make movies, when you put the money ahead of the art or craft. Then we get shitty movies like Ghost Rider, Night at the museum, Malibu most wanted, etc… We all know, and I don’t know why, Night at the Museum made a shit load of money, but what would you have rather made, Night at the museum or Pan’s Labyrinth? John Casevettes, one of the fathers of the movement that gave us people like Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola, just to name a couple, died not a rich men, I don’t even know if he had enough money to pay his medical bill, but he made great art, and his name will forever live in the memory of those of us who love movies. On the other hand you have Mark Steven Johnson whose salary in Ghost Rider was probably more money than Cassavetes made in his whole career, but who would remember Johnson or his movies twenty years from now, or ten, or even five?
I know what you are thinking, why can’t I be Spielberg or even Scorsese and have it both ways, make lots of money and make great movies, yes that is the dream the idea, but not the point of this blog.
So who would you rather be, or aspire to be, someone who left a legacy and a mark in his craft, or made a shit load of money?
Like the end of the Sopranos I leave that question for you to think
Jun 14, 2007 4:21 PM | Link | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Report Content