Look, I have an iPod touch, okay? Let’s not make this a thing. Telling a few people about this purchase has revealed to me that my inner circle of friends and loved ones is comprised of social curmudgeons, people who live and die by the snarling refusal to buckle under trends. I admire that. Nonetheless…come on. Cut me a break. Can you picture anyone who needs the ability to watch movies on the Metro more than yours truly? This thing is just me, it was built for me, and it’s going to get used to death. It may seem excessive to download “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the 1951 version, thank you) off of iTunes in order to partake of it while riding the bus to class, but remember who you’re dealing with here. This is Andrew Allen. I think technology is finally beginning to catch up with my insatiable artistic lust. I do have a Twitter app, and I have tweeted various times. For that I am ashamed, but I make absolutely no promises to stop. I stand by Twitter as a deranged but bizarrely noble form of human expression; it is the progeny of an android generation, and yet it is one of the most real forms of communication we now have. It’s simple, elegant, and a little twisted. And say what you will, but Twitter played a major role in giving a voice to the people during the Iranian “elections” and the Chinese earthquake cover-ups. In both cases, a few fat-cats tried to boss millions of people around, and instead the internet gave them a weapon to strike back. You might almost call it democracy’s watch dog.
So moving on,
Quick update on the personal front: we are so close to being done with my movie. For the past week, we’ve been heavy into sound editing, which has been laborious but intensely satisfying. Tonight we had our Foley session, which is basically where you sit in a soundproof room, watch the movie again and again, and perform sound effects to match the images. Punches are usually a guy breaking celery on his knee mixed with a watermelon being dropped, the clicking of handguns is often actually a pair of pliers, and you seriously do not want to know where they get the kissing noises from. It’s a real hoot to do, but it’s also quite difficult, and requires a technician and a performance artist within the same person. When it goes right, it’s invaluable. You should seriously hear the sick, awful crap we came up with to simulate a particularly nasty injury that happens halfway through the flick. It’s going to make peoples’ skin crawl.
Sound is a big thing for USC, they push you really hard to understand and respect its importance. Several of my professors have repeatedly insisted that it is “half the movie,” and that even though the crummiest picture quality is quite forgivable, bad dialogue tracks will ruin a movie. They are quite correct. I don’t think I’m cut out for sound work, my skills in the field are mediocre at best, but dabbling my toes has been rewarding, because I’ve seen the transformation my footage has gone through as a result. I always drank the Kool Aid on sound’s importance, but now I respect it on a level all my own. If USC’s goal was to indoctrinate me about the value of clean production sound, quality audio design, and a skilled composer, I think they’ve pretty well pulled it off. The audio is really starting to make this movie lift off.
Moving on,
Roman Polanksi. Arrested in Switzerland. I guess we’re going to owe the guys in Zurich a beer for that one, we’ve been trying to snag him for decades. Honestly, I don’t really know how I feel about the whole thing. The dude unquestionably drugged and had sex with a 13 year old girl. Just say that a few times. Thirteen year old girl. I don’t really know how to get around that. On the other hand, his trial was an absolute sham, I think our legal system was getting set up to spank him so hard he’d never walk upright again. And why? It wasn’t just the crime, this crap has happened before and we’ve let people off with much less. He was a foreigner, and that makes human beings take sex crimes in a wholly different, and completely ridiculous manner. I admit, Polanski is one of the sketchiest-seeming human beings on God’s green earth. He opens his mouth, looks at you with those beady eyes, and you immediately think, “No, I don’t trust this guy.” He just feels…dark, hidden. Maybe that’s his right, since his parents were murdered by the Nazis and his wife was murdered by the Manson gang. That’s a lot of evil to swallow in one lifetime. Maybe those events left holes in the man that just don’t heal.
But I digress, technically none of that matters. Nor does his prestigious directing career, and as a result of that, the people who have lobbied so hard for his release are probably going to do him more harm than good. Polls are showing that Americans and Europeans alike don’t want this guy going free. I suppose we don’t like seeing the rich and famous get an easy ride. It feels unjust and, to be frank, it’s less entertaining. So all of this glamorous Hollywood support may prove to be a paper tiger. France has already backed down, which was probably wise since their official statement came off like, “Let him go, he’s too talented for your silly laws” (for the record, I don’t think that’s what they meant). The Governator danced around the issue even more gracefully than I am right now, his response was essentially: “I’m not not NOT going to consider pardoning him.”
I think the average American just feels…odd about this whole situation. The guy did a perverted, awful thing, and we got so angry about it that we put him through a mockery of justice, and then he left. We turned an obvious criminal into a victim, we gave him the ammunition for his assumed innocence. Everyone feels dirty coming out of that situation, and it’s almost unpleasant to revisit it. I suppose that my feeling is simple: when in doubt, follow the law. The law says he committed a crime and then didn’t face the music, so sure, get him the hell back here and make him accountable. But I really do hope the sentence is something reasonable and quiet, I’m not up for watching this guy rot in a jail cell for the next decade. Some will insist he’s getting an easy break because he’s a director, but how is it better to over-punish for the same reason?
I’d love to have a Touch but am unwilling to let my Berry go, and even more unwilling to give up Verizon for an iPhone, kewl as it is.
Polanski should be locked in a cell with Letterman. They’re both creeps.