2012 Movie #13 - Demolition Man (1993) I am an unabashed fan of DEMOLITION MAN. I’ve seen the film probably 10 times, although this viewing is the first time I’ve seen it for over a decade. I need to remedy that, and watch this film again every few years. The most fascinating aspect of DEMOLITION MAN is that it works not only as both a big-budget straightforward science-fiction action film but also as a sly satire of early 90s American culture including big-budget straightforward science-fiction action films! The biggest discovery from this recent viewing resulted from the impetus to figure out what happened to the director of DEMOLITION MAN. When the film ended, I just couldn’t figure out why Marco Brambilla didn’t become a huge Hollywood director. He only directed two features, DEMOLITION MAN and EXCESS BAGGAGE (not as good as DEMOLITION MAN). He directed the miniseries DINOTOPIA in 2002. He also directed a segment in the DESTRICTED anthology. And that’s it. At first I thought he was just another case of a director who maybe got screwed around by the studio system, maybe was a difficult personality, or any other reason why talented people somehow get a series of unlucky breaks. But the credit on DESTRICTED is what gave me the clue to keep searching. DESTRICTED is an anthology film with segments directed by Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé, Richard Prince, Sam Taylor-Wood, and…Marco Brambilla. Now this list contains a lot of high-profile “auteur” filmmakers, and I was fascinated by the inclusion of Marco Brambilla. A director whose only other IMDB credits are DEMOLITION MAN, EXCESS BAGGAGE, and DINOTOPIA. Despite my love of DEMOLITION MAN, none of these are considered artistic high-points or “auteur” driven works. Why was Brambilla included in this anthology? So my search continued, and I quickly stumbled onto Marco Brambilla’s personal website. The answer became clear. Brambilla is a successful and in my opinion, quite incredible, video artist. You’ve probably seen at least one of his video art pieces, as he created the promo for Kanye West’s POWER, setting the stage for what I consider to be the defining work of Kanye’s career with the release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” Amusingly, back in 2001, Brambilla had an exhibition called In Action, at Henry Urbach Architecture in New York with a piece called Sequel described as: “Film footage of Sylvester Stallone in Brambilla’s 1993 debut feature-film, Demolition Man, is re-photographed through the gate of a 35mm projector. The movement of the film is gradually slowed down until the intense light from the projector arc lamp starts to disintegrate the celluloid.” The scene in question is the one of Sylvestor Stallone being cryogenically frozen. Here’s a still image from the piece, and you can clearly see Stallone’s figure. I feel oddly validated in my love of DEMOLITION MAN seeing what Marco Brambilla has been doing since then, and I suspect he’s finding more creative satisfaction in his new career than many of his fellow 90s action directors. Some more excerpts from Marco Brambilla video art. (I believe that full versions of most of his pieces aren’t available online, but you can find his work in many galleries around the world.) Flashback (POV), 2010Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica Flashback is the first in a series of sampled works exploring subliminal collective consciousness in film. This piece weaves together Film Noir imagery to create a kinetic video canvas visualizing the spectrum of human emotion and recall using the principles of cognitive psychology. Civilization (Megaplex), 2008Collection Fundacion Sorigue, Lleida, Spain Civilization is a multi-layered tableau of interconnecting images that illustrates a contemporary, satirical take on the concepts of eternal punishment and celestial reward. More than 300 individual channels of looped video are blended into an expansive landscape that continuously scrolls upward, from the depths of hell to the gates of heaven.  Sync, 2005Private Collection, HoustonCollection Metronome Foundation for Contemporary Art, Barcelona Sync features three screens of densely edited film footage, each organized around a different theme—fight scenes, sex scenes, and theater audiences—all progressing at the rate of 12 shots per second. Overlaying all three is a violently percussive audio montage. The result is a new visual choreography that rapidly builds to a state of sensory overload, emphasizing how viewers develop a resistance to graphic sex and brutality, both in the movies and in the news media in general.  See more on Marco Brambilla’s website or on the Christopher Grimes Gallery website. High-res

2012 Movie #13 - Demolition Man (1993)

I am an unabashed fan of DEMOLITION MAN. I’ve seen the film probably 10 times, although this viewing is the first time I’ve seen it for over a decade. I need to remedy that, and watch this film again every few years. The most fascinating aspect of DEMOLITION MAN is that it works not only as both a big-budget straightforward science-fiction action film but also as a sly satire of early 90s American culture including big-budget straightforward science-fiction action films!

The biggest discovery from this recent viewing resulted from the impetus to figure out what happened to the director of DEMOLITION MAN. When the film ended, I just couldn’t figure out why Marco Brambilla didn’t become a huge Hollywood director. He only directed two features, DEMOLITION MAN and EXCESS BAGGAGE (not as good as DEMOLITION MAN). He directed the miniseries DINOTOPIA in 2002. He also directed a segment in the DESTRICTED anthology. And that’s it.

At first I thought he was just another case of a director who maybe got screwed around by the studio system, maybe was a difficult personality, or any other reason why talented people somehow get a series of unlucky breaks.

But the credit on DESTRICTED is what gave me the clue to keep searching. DESTRICTED is an anthology film with segments directed by Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noé, Richard Prince, Sam Taylor-Wood, and…Marco Brambilla. Now this list contains a lot of high-profile “auteur” filmmakers, and I was fascinated by the inclusion of Marco Brambilla. A director whose only other IMDB credits are DEMOLITION MAN, EXCESS BAGGAGE, and DINOTOPIA. Despite my love of DEMOLITION MAN, none of these are considered artistic high-points or “auteur” driven works. Why was Brambilla included in this anthology?

So my search continued, and I quickly stumbled onto Marco Brambilla’s personal website. The answer became clear. Brambilla is a successful and in my opinion, quite incredible, video artist. You’ve probably seen at least one of his video art pieces, as he created the promo for Kanye West’s POWER, setting the stage for what I consider to be the defining work of Kanye’s career with the release of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.”

Amusingly, back in 2001, Brambilla had an exhibition called In Action, at Henry Urbach Architecture in New York with a piece called Sequel described as:

“Film footage of Sylvester Stallone in Brambilla’s 1993 debut feature-film, Demolition Man, is re-photographed through the gate of a 35mm projector. The movement of the film is gradually slowed down until the intense light from the projector arc lamp starts to disintegrate the celluloid.”

The scene in question is the one of Sylvestor Stallone being cryogenically frozen. Here’s a still image from the piece, and you can clearly see Stallone’s figure.

I feel oddly validated in my love of DEMOLITION MAN seeing what Marco Brambilla has been doing since then, and I suspect he’s finding more creative satisfaction in his new career than many of his fellow 90s action directors.

Some more excerpts from Marco Brambilla video art. (I believe that full versions of most of his pieces aren’t available online, but you can find his work in many galleries around the world.)

Flashback (POV), 2010
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica

Flashback is the first in a series of sampled works exploring subliminal collective consciousness in film. This piece weaves together Film Noir imagery to create a kinetic video canvas visualizing the spectrum of human emotion and recall using the principles of cognitive psychology.

Civilization (Megaplex), 2008
Collection Fundacion Sorigue, Lleida, Spain

Civilization is a multi-layered tableau of interconnecting images that illustrates a contemporary, satirical take on the concepts of eternal punishment and celestial reward. More than 300 individual channels of looped video are blended into an expansive landscape that continuously scrolls upward, from the depths of hell to the gates of heaven. 

Sync, 2005
Private Collection, Houston
Collection Metronome Foundation for Contemporary Art, Barcelona

Sync features three screens of densely edited film footage, each organized around a different theme—fight scenes, sex scenes, and theater audiences—all progressing at the rate of 12 shots per second. Overlaying all three is a violently percussive audio montage. The result is a new visual choreography that rapidly builds to a state of sensory overload, emphasizing how viewers develop a resistance to graphic sex and brutality, both in the movies and in the news media in general. 

See more on Marco Brambilla’s website or on the Christopher Grimes Gallery website.

Quick RT - A Simple Rotten Tomatoes Interface

Screenshot of Quick RT

QuickRT is a simple webservice I created using the Rotten Tomatoes API last year. It’s a quick way to look up the Rotten Tomatoes score for any film, and to get an overview of how current releases are scoring. I love Rotten Tomatoes, but their website makes it unnecessarily complex to look up just Rotten Tomato score information for individual films.

Originally I made QuickRT for myself, but I suspect it’s pretty useful for any film fan.

John Holdun helped out with the design, and I think between the two of us we spent less than a day putting it together. Small projects like this can be a fun palate cleanser, and I hope to do more in 2012.

a note from Ti West on piracy

Every time you purchase something you are making a statement. You are creating physical evidence that something has value. If something has a high value, then it becomes in high demand. So if you make a concerted effort to support lesser-known, interesting and esoteric things (Art?) then you are helping make those lesser-known things more popular. I’m sure we can all agree that there are incredible movies made every year that never get the attention they deserve - That’s not the movies’ fault. That is our collective fault for not being proactive enough to GO OUT OF OUR WAY to support them.

Filmmaker Ti West has written a heartfelt letter to the Internet, requesting that you do not pirate his new film THE INNKEEPERS. I hope letters like this become a more common occurrence. People should know that pirating independent films has a huge negative impact on people they want to support, and on the future of films that they might want to see.

Most independent distributors I know already think it’s pointless to release interesting independent films for young people. They think young people will only show up for blockbusters, and will pirate anything else. And this attitude is getting worse, because the evidence supports it. The audience for interesting youthful independent films is the same audience that heavily pirates online. Distributors and film financiers want to make films for a viable market, and you’re not a market if you don’t pay for content. Your taste literally stops mattering, and the content will be determined by people who still pay for content.

Do you want to live in a world where RESERVOIR DOGS or PULP FICTION wouldn’t be able to get made, because the distributors all assume its audience would just pirate it? Because that’s where we’re headed right now.

I’ve heard all the counterarguments, but in the end they’re just rationalizations. It comes down to this: people pirate because they want to watch whatever movie they want whenever they want for whatever price they want to pay. As a consumer, I understand that. Why wouldn’t you want that? That’s not something that the traditional distribution system gives them, but it is something that piracy offers them. I’m sure people would also love to have Apple give them a free iPhone every year, but Apple isn’t going to do that. Apple charges money because they are a business with a huge staff and expenses that go into actually designing, making, and distribution the iPhone. But you can’t torrent an iPhone, so people buy into Apple’s system.

Piracy can offer you a better short-term deal than the traditional distribution system because piracy doesn’t actually have to make movies, but in the long-term you are destroying the ability for interesting new films to be made.

Yes, there are a lot of annoying limitations on how films are released in the traditional distribution system. The films are released in different territories at different times and they are released on different media at different times. It’s confusing and it’s frustrating. But the whole purpose for this system is to try to recoup the cost of making movies, and hopefully even make a profit.

The types of films that can make money are the types of films that keep getting made. That is the simple math of the film industry. When someone loves a film they didn’t pay for, that’s a vote that doesn’t get counted. When someone hates a film they did pay for, that’s a vote for more movies like that. So if you pay to see TRANSFORMERS 3 in theaters and pirate THE INNKEEPERS, it’s a vote that you want more films like TRANSFORMERS 3 and don’t want films like THE INNKEEPERS.

I don’t point this out to bash TRANSFORMERS 3, but I know a lot of people who hated the film and saw it in the theater. I know some of these people also pirated smaller films that they liked. To the filmmaking and distribution system it doesn’t matter what you like, it matters what you pay for.

Make your voice count by watching films in the system. That might mean seeing films in the theater, or if you want to save money, it might mean watching them on Netflix or TV. These things all “count” and have a direct impact on what films are made in the future. Vote with your money, or your taste will be ignored.

I had the pleasure of watching TO BE OR NOT TO BE at Edgar Wright’s recent film series at the New Beverly. This film was a revelation for me. It’s the first Ernst Lubitsch film I’ve ever seen, and I was blown away by his nimble ability with tone and pace. It’s a delight to discover how well “the Lubitsch touch” works decades after his films were made. Part of the joy of the experience was being able to watch a timeless comedy with a real audience. If you live near a revival theater like the New Beverly Cinema, I highly recommend that you take advantage of their offerings. Yes, we live in an age where it’s possible to see almost any classic film in the comfort of our own homes, but it’s a pale shadow of the experience of watching a great film on a big screen with an appreciative audience. I say this from experience. When you make a film, you have a unique opportunity. You get to watch the same film hundreds of times in a variety of settings including huge theaters, office screening rooms, living rooms, edit suites, sound mixing stages, and yes, even on mobile devices. You get to see the film by yourself, with a small group, with a full theater, and if you’re lucky, in a crowd of thousands. And from all these experiences, I’ve learned one thing: Every single film I’ve made plays significantly better with a large audience. I assume the same is true of almost every film ever made. This is especially true of visceral reaction genres such as comedy, horror, and action. When we watch a film with an audience we react to a film taking into account the emotional response of the people around us. This is why a laugh-track on television “works.” We are built to share emotional experience, and we consciously and unconsciously react to the emotions of people around us. Funny moments play funnier because we can share them. Sad moments player sadder because we can share them. Scary moments are scarier because our fears build on those of the audience around us. Now I understand the attraction of watching films at home, and in all honesty I watch more films on DVD or Bluray than I do in theaters. But whenever I discover a great film at home for the first time, my first thought is that I wish I had seen it with an audience. The greatest emotional experience of home-watching still falls short of a shared laugh in a dark theater full of strangers. So now I’m going to be on a hunt to watch more Lubitsch classics, and Edgar’s wonderful series has me excited to fill my own film viewing gaps. I just regret I’ll have to watch them at home, and not with the contagious enthusiasm of an appreciative audience. High-res

I had the pleasure of watching TO BE OR NOT TO BE at Edgar Wright’s recent film series at the New Beverly.

This film was a revelation for me. It’s the first Ernst Lubitsch film I’ve ever seen, and I was blown away by his nimble ability with tone and pace. It’s a delight to discover how well “the Lubitsch touch” works decades after his films were made.

Part of the joy of the experience was being able to watch a timeless comedy with a real audience. If you live near a revival theater like the New Beverly Cinema, I highly recommend that you take advantage of their offerings. Yes, we live in an age where it’s possible to see almost any classic film in the comfort of our own homes, but it’s a pale shadow of the experience of watching a great film on a big screen with an appreciative audience.

I say this from experience. When you make a film, you have a unique opportunity. You get to watch the same film hundreds of times in a variety of settings including huge theaters, office screening rooms, living rooms, edit suites, sound mixing stages, and yes, even on mobile devices. You get to see the film by yourself, with a small group, with a full theater, and if you’re lucky, in a crowd of thousands. And from all these experiences, I’ve learned one thing:

Every single film I’ve made plays significantly better with a large audience.

I assume the same is true of almost every film ever made. This is especially true of visceral reaction genres such as comedy, horror, and action.

When we watch a film with an audience we react to a film taking into account the emotional response of the people around us. This is why a laugh-track on television “works.” We are built to share emotional experience, and we consciously and unconsciously react to the emotions of people around us. Funny moments play funnier because we can share them. Sad moments player sadder because we can share them. Scary moments are scarier because our fears build on those of the audience around us.

Now I understand the attraction of watching films at home, and in all honesty I watch more films on DVD or Bluray than I do in theaters. But whenever I discover a great film at home for the first time, my first thought is that I wish I had seen it with an audience. The greatest emotional experience of home-watching still falls short of a shared laugh in a dark theater full of strangers.

So now I’m going to be on a hunt to watch more Lubitsch classics, and Edgar’s wonderful series has me excited to fill my own film viewing gaps. I just regret I’ll have to watch them at home, and not with the contagious enthusiasm of an appreciative audience.

Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater

I’m sure you’ve seen this already, but for the people who haven’t, here is my sales pitch for Mr. Louis CK.

Louis CK is selling a standup special “Live at the Beacon Theater” for $5 via his own personal website storefront. He paid for the recording of the special, and is paying for the distribution and the marketing of the special. For its first wave of distribution, he is eschewing every traditional distribution method (including the new distribution models of iTunes and NetFlix) in order to reach his fanbase directly.

He’s also providing the special with no DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology. This essentially means that he is letting people download the special, and watch it wherever they want whenever they want for as long as they want. He isn’t creating artificial digital rules on how the content can be viewed. This is exciting, and shows that Louis is trusting his audience to be good people.

The result of this trust is that Louis has grossed over $500,000 in sales in just four days. He’s well into profit on the venture, and I suspect is going to have a model that he can use for the rest of his career as a comedian.

As an independent filmmaker, this is something I want to support. Louis made an independent film (albeit a comedy concert film) and is self-releasing it online. This is a model that I hope can be successful for a wide variety of filmmakers, and allows them to grow a direct relationship with their fans.

So I suggest buying Louis CK’s new stand up special for two reasons:

  1. Support a fan-friendly and positive model for artists to generate revenue.
  2. Louis CK is hilarious, and the stand-up special will make you laugh.

The Arc of Awesome

[This post originated on a message board I participate on, and I thought it was worth sharing. I made some minor edits before republishing here. The question was regarding character arcs in a film or screenplay, and whether they were necessary. Here is my reply, which goes somewhat against the traditional studio development opinion.]

There exists a different kind of arc in a film. It’s related to a character arc, except the character doesn’t change. It’s the Arc of Awesome.

The Arc of Awesome occurs when the main character is so awesome that his awesomeness causes the entire world of the movie to arc. He can’t arc because he started the movie amazingly awesome, so obviously there’s nowhere for him to go other than to continue being awesome. The best you’ll get in an Arc of Awesome is that you’ll keep peeling back layers of awesomeness to see even more awesomeness underneath.

This extends beyond action films like 300. You can see it in a movie like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That’s a movie with an Arc of Awesome. Ferris is so awesome that he helps everyone else arc as characters. But how can Ferris arc? He’s awesome at the beginning and he’s awesome at the end.

I think the traditional James Bond film is another version of this.

I think the reason why studios love making “origin” superhero movies is that it’s a way to insert a normal character arc onto a character that really should just have an Arc of Awesome. Batman doesn’t need an arc, he’s too awesome. He makes Gotham arc. He makes the villains arc. The only real arc you can find for Batman is the arc that starts with him as rich boring Bruce Wayne and ends with him as rich awesome Batman. Maybe you can give him a subtle re-evaluation on the ethics of crime-fighting or some slight adjustment of his position on women, but really these are just ways to point out that he’s awesome.

For example, Bourne Identity is a movie about unpeeling the layers of awesome. We get to discover an awesome character as he discovers himself. Bourne’s “arc” (which isn’t really an arc) is that of self-discovery. He literally finds out over the course of the movie that he is insanely awesome. It’s a brilliant way to approach an Origin of Awesomeness story line without having to deal with that pesky “he’s not awesome yet” part of the story.

In general, you have three options when you make a movie with an awesome main character.

  1. Your arc is the path of them going from not-awesome to awesome (see origin story). 
  2. Your arc is some tiny thing, like James Bond learning how to use chopsticks, that really has no impact on the awesomeness of the character. 
  3. Your character doesn’t arc, he just continues to be awesome and your movie is a showcase for his awesomitude.

The Napoleon Complex.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Napoleon Complex. Also known as Short Man syndrome, the Napoleon Complex consists of the idea that short men are driven by their diminutive height to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives.

It’s an interesting theory, and there have been psychological studies with evidence on both sides of the issue.

However, there is a fundamental problem with the Napoleon Complex…

Napoleon wasn’t short.

For years Napoleon was thought to be 5 feet 2 inches, due to a controversy in the measurement of his remains at his autopsy. He was reported to be 5 feet 2 inches, but the problem is that there were two units of measurement for “inches”. The French system had an inch (pouce) at 2.71 cm and the English system had an inch at 2.54 cm.

Most current thinking pegs Napoleon at the 1.7 meters (5 ft 7 inches) tall. By today’s standards, that is a little below average. By the height standards of the 18th century, he was at or above average height for a French man.

So for centuries people have been attributing the colonial and aggressive activities of Napoleon Bonaparte to a questionable psychological theory based on a misunderstanding of his height.

How can Napoleon Bonaparte have a Napoleon complex if he wasn’t short? How can a Napoleon Complex be about the psychological impact of height if the person it was named after wasn’t even short?

Now you might be thinking “why is a film producer talking about the height of Napoleon on his blog?” The obvious answer is because I find it interesting. But on top of that, I actually think there is an important lesson here for filmmakers.

Stories that have underlying truths have great power, even if the surface facts are all wrong.

Napoleon might not have been a short man. But it’s a good story. Short man is driven by his diminutive stature to try to take over the world. That sounds right. It’s interesting. Even if it’s not true for Napeleon, it feels like it could be true for a Napoleon-like character.

I read so many screenplays that feel right on the surface. They’re formatted correctly. The story makes sense. The characters feel real. The dialog isn’t tone deaf. But they are hollow at their core. There is no truth to them, and they aren’t really about anything.

I’d rather read a script that is sloppy on the surface, but has real substance, truth, and insight. The surface stuff is much easier to fix and improve through the various phases of development, production, and post-production. A lack of core truth is a cancer that will destroy your film.

So fudge the details if you have to. Even though Napoleon wasn’t short, people will still view him as a tiny man driven to take over the world because of his self-named complex.