Options, Options

Here we are, yet again, gathered around a dumbfounded guest, assaulting them with options, demanding an authoritative statement of preference. Last week it was poor Billy, accosted with dozens of house parties, beach trips, and tourist locations, and this time it’s Corelyn’s mother, who is similarly bombarded. We’re already most of the way through her visit, and it feels like she’s been here for two seconds; it’s amazing how fast these things fly by. There’s a tremendous amount to catch up on. As usual, expect me to slant and modify the story to focus on the things I find interesting.

On Thursday evening, I held my first audition, which was for a directing exercise I’ll be shooting next weekend. Unlike anything I’ve done in the past, my auditionees were all members of the Screen Actors Guild, many of them proudly displaying recurring roles on projects like “Scrubs” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Most of them were very pleasant, receptive people and I enjoyed working with them. One gentleman (whose resume was actually impressive) elected to randomly begin screaming lines in mid-sentence, take twenty second pauses for no discernible reason, and caress my director of photography’s wrists romantically even though his character was supposed to be addressing a male. It put me on edge, but I knew from my classmates by that point that a certain amount of weirdness is just part of the audition process.

After scoring a quick celebratory drink from the USC Bar (which is equipped with a beer pong table for students…I guess they prefer we drink where they can see us), I caught the bus home and met up with my wife and newly-arrived mother-in-law. After spending some time together, they both elected to turn in fairly early. This presented a problem for me, since the only significant space left in the apartment was the linen closet, so I made my escape. Against my better judgment, I drove out to the Grove and caught the midnight showing of “Friday the 13th,” a remake of the old “classic” from the 1980s.

I’m not sure why I did this. “Friday the 13th” as a series of films is single-handedly responsible for the corruption of the “Halloween” franchise. When Carpenter’s low-budget masterpiece was released, it was known for its white-knuckle terror and ominous, almost elemental villain. But the parade of rip-offs that followed—the original “Friday the 13th” up at the head of the pack with a waving baton in its hand—were more interested in killing off horny teenagers, shrewdly realizing the shock value potential. By the time “Halloween II” came around, trash like “Friday the 13th” was so successful that it began to rip-off its rip-offs; an utterly pathetic display of a mighty giant reduced to the level of peons. There has never been another really substantive entry in Michael Myers’ history.

So what drove me into the bed of my hated enemy? Several things. Firstly, the sad memory of Rob Zombie’s unforgivable manhandling of John Carpenter in his “Halloween” remake. Rob Zombie, by then, had made several films about white trash who like to kill people, and being a creative succubus with no potential for original thought (I probably don’t mean that, I’m just angry), he decided to superimpose this motif into a story that did not want it. Watching him try to mate an elemental, Hitchcockian horror classic with worthless, exploitative torture porn was almost funny. Sitting in the theater, I wished to God they could have given the project to someone who just wanted to ape the material, someone who would’ve just given me a by-the-numbers procedural like “H20,” because that I could have recovered from. What I got instead was like seeing a dance number break out in a Jason Bourne film, it was scarring.

So, when they handed the reigns to Marcus Nispel, an accomplished music video director who updated “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with frightening but unlovable results, I gambled that this man would put me through the paces without getting in way, and that was my second reason. I turned out to be correct. “Friday the 13th” is a shallow, meaningless horror flick, but it looks good, there’s a surprising amount of comedy, teenagers get chased, and there isn’t any torture. (shrug) You broke even, Marcus. It occasionally got too gory for me, and the sex scenes were pointless (as usual), but the more I reflect on the experience, the more I’m kind of okay with what I got. It got the job done, if that’s what you’re looking for.

And here’s the third reason I went to see it: there was a good chance it was going to be superior to the original, and it was. You see, the first “Friday the 13th” is a piece of junk, almost worthless by any standard, and that makes the idea of re-doing it somewhat intelligent. If a well-remembered movie is actually deeply flawed, then a remake is suddenly an inspired idea that people can get behind. There was plenty of potential for something really interesting, and although they cashed in on almost none of it, the filmmakers did at least make a competent “boo!” movie with a couple of decent set pieces. One sequence, a personal favorite of mine any time someone uses it, involves our virginal (of course) heroes spying on Jason as he lumbers towards his house, wondering if he’ll catch them in their eavesdropping. This scene employs long, unbroken POV shots where we watch our monstrous villain stomp by us, and the thrill comes from knowing that we’ve somehow gotten the upper hand. How long will it last? Can we keep quiet? Another involves a boat in broad daylight, and yet is one of the more effective scenes in the movie. Notice a commonality between these examples? Neither employs pop-outs. Yes, surprising your audience is an important technique, but its use should be sparing and carefully orchestrated, so that suspenseful scenes like the ones I’ve described will hit with more force. “Friday the 13th,” of course, has a few too many pop-outs, but oh well.

The more I recall the experience of “Friday the 13th,” the more fond I am of it. The characters were non-existent and the exploitative elements were unnecessary, but like any good B movie, it charms you by knowing what it is and delivering faithfully. It also helps that one of the lead actors was in the audience with me that night, and there was a macabre enjoyment in the raucous cheers he received as Jason dispatched him onscreen.

Moving right along…

On Corelyn’s birthday, we all visited an absolutely delicious Indian restaurant called “Electric Karma.” The Indian people may know how to make chicken delicious better than anyone alive. The next day, we finally paid a visit to the Getty Museum, and spent a long time lingering in an exhibit called “Dialogue Among Giants,” which centered on American black-and-white photographer from the early twentieth century named Carleton Watkins. His speciality was the West, he loved shooting Yosemite, California, and mining towns nearby. What we saw was breathtaking to say the least; as a person whose line of work involves photography, I found my own talents quite dwarfed. Watkins’ photographs can draw the eye with an almost maniacal precision, creating a deeply emotional experience out of a simple landscape.

After that, we headed over to a fascinating exhibit called “Captured Emotions” about baroque painting in 17th century Bologna. This was an amazing time period: the great masters of the art form had died off, and the world was beginning to believe that painting was a thing of the past, when a sudden explosion of new talent redefined the medium. My personal favorite was “Joseph and Potipher’s Wife,” a lusty piece which captures a moment of heated temptation between the titular Biblical figures. There were several paintings on display that chose this scene, but most of them were reserved and distant. Carlo Cignani, on the other hand, chose to get in much closer with his characters, and to amplify the sexual energy of the moment, and I felt that this most honestly depicted the temptations of the flesh. “This is how it feels to be tempted,” I thought to myself. Very moving.

Anyway, after that we returned to the apartment for a delicious meal prepared by Corelyn and her mom, and we watched Danny Boyle’s (who directed “Slumdog”) “Millions,” about a young boy who discovers a fortune in cash laying around. All in all, I thought the movie was decent at best, but I wasn’t blown away, and I thought it meandered off point several times.

Anyway, I think that gets you more or less up to date. We’re off to go see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” at the Arclight, which I’m very much looking forward to, as I have not managed to see it yet. My opinions will be forthcoming.