The Power of Christ Compels You

With no preamble whatsoever: this man is AMAZING.

"You fuckin' nincom-fuckin'-poop!"

Cookie Monster Vlog

Catching up with my favorite Sesame Street character.

Kung Fu Fuck You

Spoofs of kung-fu movies have been kinda done to death by now. (Sometimes the voices are out of sync -- oh ZING! The acting isn't very good -- DOUBLE ZING!)

But Kung Fu Fuck You has some fresh goodness.

And that title rocks. It perfectly sums up about 86% of my philosophy in life.

McTiernan in Prison

According to Nikki Finke, John McTiernan has been sentenced to four months in prison.

And here's the Variety article.

And the Reporter.

I'm pleased to see they mentioned RUN in the last paragraph of both articles.

I remain ever the optimist, but I think the imprisonment of the director might have an adverse affect on RUN.

The Ruins, and Some Story Hypothesis

When I wasn't rewriting DR or slugging champagne with the A-bomb, I spent my weekend reading The Ruins, by Scott Smith.

This book is awesome.

Here's the set-up: four college friends (two couples) decide to spend a couple of weeks in Cancun. It's the summer between college graduation and the real world, their last chance to just relax and fuck around like college students before they have to grow up. They get to hanging with a German guy named Mathias, who's bent out of shape because he got into an argument with his brother over a girl he'd met. The brother hasn't been heard from since he set off into the jungle to profess his love. (The chick's an archaeologist). Sitting around on the beach is getting boring, so the four Americans decide to go with Mathias to look for his brother. It sounds like a fun, day-long romantic adventure, a story they can tell about their time in Cancun besides, "Got drunk, fucked and swam for two weeks."

At the last minute, they're joined by a Greek guy they got drunk with the night before. He doesn't speak a word of English, but he's a fun guy, so they bring him along. He doesn't even tell them his real name. The Greek guy says he's "Pablo."

The six ride a bus to a little town. From the town, they hire a "taxi" -- this dude with a pickup truck. The guy drives them down a long, twisting path, following the hand-drawn map Mathias's brother left behind. When the driver realizes where they're going, he does everything he can to talk them out of it. But only one guy among their crew speaks Spanish, and he's determined to help Mathias. They ignore the "taxi driver."

Our heroes find a tiny Mayan village. They try to get some information: have you seen an archaeological dig around here? Have you seen a German guy looking for his girlfriend? But they only get blank stares. The Mayans only speak Mayan.

Just as they're about to turn back, one of the group happens upon a carefully-hidden path leading into the jungle. This must be the way to the dig. But why has it been hidden? No matter. They didn't come all the way out here just to give up. The crew forges ahead...

And that's where I'll leave off, because I don't want to spoil anything about this incredible novel. I can easily say it has one of the most evil villains I've seen in anything in a long time. In a word: malevolent. What these six people trip over is the worst news in the world.

It's a story about miscommunication. The novel's written in third-person, trading active POV between the four American characters. We never see the story through the eyes of Mathias or the Greek guy. Mathias is fluent in German and English, but the Greek guy speaks no English, the Americans and Mathias speak no Greek, only one American speaks Spanish, no one speaks Mayan, and the Mayans only know their native language. And the Americans constantly miscommunicate, misinterpret and ignore each other. Instead of working together to save their asses, they spend most of the time bickering and fucking around. The only two relatively sane characters are the only multi-lingual characters. I don't think this is a coincidence.

The Ruins is also a "DON'T GO THERE" story. I have a hypothesis that most stories have their deepest roots in the earliest days of our species. And I believe DON'T GO THERE is the earliest and simplest horror story.

Imagine two cave men happening across a valley they haven't seen before. They check it out. A sabre-toothed tiger pounces on one of them. His buddy hauls ass back to the cave where his tribe lives and yells "Ooga-ooga-ooga!" Which translates to: "Me and Ug found a valley. A tiger ate Ug. If you don't want to get eaten, too... DON'T GO THERE."

The tribe passes down the story. As a rule, they DON'T GO THERE. The story continues from one generation to the next. Long after the tigers are gone, the valley is still considered taboo. Maybe now it's haunted by Ug's ghost.

I think story is the basic unit of currency in human communication. Story serves a lot of purposes, including the earliest versions of survival instruction. DON'T GO THERE is just a sub-genre of DON'T DO THAT, this being a list of things you shouldn't do if you want to stay alive in a hostile world. There's a rich tradition of DON'T DO THAT horror stories.

All haunted house-type horror stories are derivations on DON'T GO THERE. (For example, the fake trailer Edgar Wright did for Grindhouse, simply called Don't). The characters always get a warning, which they always ignore. Because it's been a long time since we've lived in caves and had to worry about silly shit like sabre-toothed tigers living in a certain valley. Right...?

That's why The Ring and Ju-On freaked the shit out of me. They're DON'T GO THERE stories without any warning. How are you supposed to know not to watch this unmarked video tape? How are you supposed to avoid going into this innocuous suburban house? It's not like the Ju-On house has bats and lightning bolts and an organ playing. They're movies that say we live in a malevolent world, where you can lose the game without even knowing you're playing until it's over. Psycho plays on this, too. The Bates motel is creepy and all, but it's not like Janet Leigh's been warned that people who stay there have a habit of not coming back out. (Spoiler).

The Ruins is also in the tradition of horror stories where the characters think they're going to just do something fun off the beaten path, and end up in a world of shit. This seems to be the core of a lot of psycho family-type movies. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, they're just stopping to visit a house where a couple of the characters used to spend summers. The Hills Have Eyes has the family detouring to see an silver mine they inherited. There's kind of a warning, in that the characters always realize the trip might be a bit of a pain in the ass, there's a slight chance things could go south. But it's so minor that (as in The Ruins) anybody who complains gets voted down as a worrier.

American Werewolf in London is an interesting variation. The two guys are on vacation. They get tons of warning. As they leave the pub, they're told very clearly to STAY ON THE ROAD. Naturally, they lose the road in the fog...

These aren't quite DON'T GO THERE stories. I'm tempted to call them STAY ON THE ROAD stories. But I think the roots are deeper, going back before we had roads. Since trouble always befalls people who wander off, STAY ON THE ROAD is likely a derivation of the base story STAY NEAR THE CAMPFIRE. (And, if leaving the campfire is the triggering action, we see the true base of the story is DON'T DO THAT).

Seeing as these dooms befall characters when they go out into the wilderness, it seems in our contemporary consciences that cities and urban centers have replaced the campfire. It's the core fear of leaving the city and facing danger in the country.

STAY ON THE ROAD stories aren't necessarily horror movies; we get a lot of thrillers, too: Duel, Joy Ride, Breakdown, The Hitcher, Deliverance, etc. Any movie that uses an empty gas tank or pissing off rednecks as a plot element is a STAY ON THE ROAD movie.

My own script Desert Run is a STAY ON THE ROAD. After a magazine photo shoot, the crew and models jump in some Land Rovers and drive around the Tabernas Desert. It's supposed to just be something fun they do for the extra day off before everyone packs up and goes back to New York. Of course, plot point one shows them the error of their ways.

The Ruins is a combination of DON'T GO THERE and STAY ON THE ROAD. It's a fast read, creepy and tense and laden with doom. On a side note, it's by the same guy who wrote A Simple Plan. I can see the similarities: both are about well-meaning people who get dragged down to hell by their own choices. I've seen the movie, which is brilliant. I didn't intend to read the book until now.

I always read the acknowledgements and thank yous in books. This is mostly because my name sometimes appears in these things, and I like the idea that someone besides me and the author and my mom 'n' dad will see it.

I noticed Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld (Ben Stiller's producing partner) get thanks from Scott Smith for their input. Their company, Red Hour, is producing the film adaptation of The Ruins. Huh. It's not unusual for a producer to adapt a novel, perhaps even optioning it at the galley stage. It's rare for a film producer to get involved so early in the process that they have input on the actual novel. (Unless, of course, it's a novel written by a client of a management/production company --I did a lot of development work on Demonkeeper and Forecast, for instance, but had nothing to do with the writing of Three Men Seeking Monsters).

I'd be interested to learn how Red Hour came to be involved...

Biker's Penis Hit By Lightning

This from Fortean Times, the greatest magazine in history:

"A Croatian motorbiker's penis was zapped by lightning as he stopped beside the road to take a leak.

Ante Djindjic, 29, from Zagreb, said: "I don't remember what happened. One minute I was taking a leak and the next thing I knew I was in hospital.

"Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis."

Djindjic, who suffered light burns to his chest and arms, added: "Thankfully, the doctors said that there would be no lasting effects, and my penis will function normally eventually."'

If this ever happened to me, I'd legally rename myself "Kid Lightning Dick Kuciak." I mean, really... after you walk away from lightning hitting your dick, what else can the world throw at you?

George Miller's Gonna Direct Justice League

According to Variety, George Miller (Road-Motherfuckin'-Warrior) is gonna direct the film adaptation of the Justice League for Warner.

Anybody who knew me from my hardcore comic days knows I was always more of Marvel dude than a DC guy. I had some DC favorites: Doom Patrol, Suicide Squad and JLA. There are some issues of Justice League of America that are the most entertaining comics I've ever read. The boxing match with Guy Gardner and Blue Beetle? Classic.

But, one-by-one, that things that made those titles special fell away. JLA suddenly turned not-funny. (I think that issue was entitled "Art Attack," the goddamn piece of shit). Suicide Squad lost all of the characters I thought were interesting. The Vertigo titles drifted from "cutting edge" to "pretentious and boring."

Even the Marvel titles started going downhill. I gave less and less of a shit about what the X-Men were up to. But, for all the Marvel comics I followed, it was a DC title that ended me. When Grant Morrison left Doom Patrol, I just gave up and stopped collecting.

I've come back around. These days I pick up a graphic novel every once in a while. But no comics. After I read them, they just lie around. So... nah.

I was never really into the core DC canon. I knew guys who were CRAZY about Batman. I could almost see that... I never bought Batman comics, but like a lot of guys I'd score Arkham Asylum and Year One and all of that.

But otherwise, I never gave a shit about Superman outside of the Donner movies. Characters like Wonder Woman and Green Lantern just seemed like silly '60s-era holdovers compared to Wolverine.

However: when I was little, I fuckin' WORSHIPPED Challenge of the Super-Friends. I didn't get to see a lot of Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid; I was always at CCD. The few episodes I caught just seemed like the coolest things in the world.

I tripped over an ep on Cartoon Network a couple of years ago. Most things you love from childhood don't age well. But I loved Challenge all over again, for different reasons. There is not a SINGLE dull moment in this show. It's non-stop story and action, to a completely ridiculous extent. It would be like taking a year's worth of comics and jamming all of that story into 22-minutes.

Every character is in massive jeopardy in every scene. The only exceptions are the opening scene (which sets up the action), and the last scene (when everyone laughs at Gleek 'cause he has a flower pot on his head).

Point being: I think Miller's one of our greatest living filmmakers. And, despite my mixed emotional reaction, you fuckin' KNOW I'm gonna be in the theater for a Justice League movie.

There's some crying in the article about how Christian Bale and Brandon Routh likely wouldn't appear to play Batman and Superman, respectively. That doesn't bother me at all. It's just like reading the same comic characters drawn by different artists. For instance, I've seen some artists totally get Wolverine and depict him as a cool, dangerous guy on the page. And I've read other comics where he looks like a dopey clown.

Not saying whoever Miller casts as Batman in Justice League will be a dopey clown. Just that different people playing the same character doesn't bother me at all. I mean, what the fuck? There have already been at least five live-action Batmans, and even more counting the voiceover guys. So who cares? Bale's a brilliant actor -- go check out Harsh Times if you think I'm wrong -- but he isn't necessary to see this movie happen.

Now let's hold our breaths in the hopes they get someone of Miller's level on Conan.

Who would you vote for?

Django

Last night, I watched Django.

If you have already seen and love Django -- for to see this movie is to love it -- you're probably shaking your head in dismay and muttering, "Mike, Mike, Mike..."

However, if you have not seen Django, allow me to introduce you to this fine piece of cinema. This is the Hard-Boiled of Spaghetti Westerns, directed by Sergio Corbucci in 1966.

(By now you're also probably thinking: "The same Sergio Corbucci who in 1980 gave us Super Fuzz, the movie about the super-cop who lost his powers whenever he saw the color yellow?" If so, you're correct. I have a very distinct memory of loving Super Fuzz when I was a kid. No relation to Hot Fuzz, by the way).

It has the look and feel of a Sergio Leone picture. But when Django gets into fights, dozens of guys die. They're like the action scenes with Chow Yun-Fat in The Killer. But it's a Western.

In the opening scene, we see Django dragging a coffin across a dusty plain while a song called "Django," about Django, plays over credits. Which brings to mind the lost art of the theme song being actually about the hero and his adventures. I think the only contemporary holdover of this lost art is the James Bond series. Come the day I'm directing my first action picture, guaranted I'm gonna have a song about the hero over credits.

Django sees three Mexican bandits chase down a beautiful saloon gal. They tie her up. One bandit whips her, while the other dudes laugh. (There's a lot of whipping in Italian pictures, I've noticed). You think this is where Django's gonna step in... but no. He just stands around and watches.

Then five cowboy-looking white guys show up and gun down the Mexicans. The cowboys all wear bright red scarves. They untie the saloon gal. And now you think: "Here are the good guys. They rescued the girl, and now Django's gonna introduce himself."

Nope. They re-tie her up, this time to a wooden cross, and prepare to burn her alive! This time Django steps in. He shoots all the guys and rescues the girl.

Django takes her to a small town, which is a battleground between the Mexican bandits and the evil red scarf guys. In Tombstone, guys like this were called the Cowboys. But in this movie, they're just called "the Racists."

Again, I thought I knew where this was going: another Yojimbo redux. And again, Django kicked my expectations right in the goddamn prostate.

Pretty soon, Django's gunning down dozens of bad guys at a time. He's planning heists. Very shades of gray, this guy. Django keeps getting the drop on the main bad guy, Jackson. And he keeps letting Jackson go, because Django knows Jackson will just come back with more minions for him to gun down. Why hunt down the bad guys, when Jackson will bring them to Django?

I won't ruin anything about this picture, since half the fun is in the surprises it keeps throwing out. I loved it.

This is one of those movies I walked past a thousand times in Blockbuster. Sometimes I'd pick up the box, but I never rented it. Now I'm kicking myself. I was finally prompted to Netflix it when I heard Miike's doing a remake. Oh man... I'm counting the seconds.

Play Dungeons & Dragons... or DIE

This from News of the Weird:

"In June, addiction experts at an American Medical Association meeting discussed whether to consider "video game addiction" as a distinct mental illness (ultimately deciding to await further study), but one month later, in Reno, Nev., a couple in their early 20s were arrested and charged with abusing their two toddlers by ignoring them for long stretches of time while playing the game Dungeons & Dragons. According to prosecutors, Michael and Iana Straw had plenty of food in their house, but both babies were found severely malnourished and ill in a home marked by squalor except for the expensive computer equipment that occupied the couple nearly all their waking moments."

My guess is the children foolishly refused to roll up characters, and thus were left to fend for themselves.

Blatantly Shilling for Dropkick Murphys

The new Dropkick Murphys comes out today, The Meanest of Times.

I can't even begin to express how much I love this band. I love the early oi stuff. Is there any more perfect album than Do or Die? And I love the Celtic/Drovers-type direction they've taken since then.

If you're not familiar, their song "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" played about a thousand times in the course of The Departed, and was also the song playing during the commercials and trailers.

Here is their MySpace page, which cranks sweet DKM classics 24/7.

For a long time, Dead Kennedys were my all-time favorite punk rock band. I still have deep love, but they're not who I'm constantly listening to anymore. When I'm writing, it's DKM and Bad Religion a big percentage of the time. I was working on this DR rewrite Sunday afternoon. Tunes-wise, I just kept it simple and went through the whole Murphys library.

There isn't a single song on any album of theirs that I don't thoroughly enjoy. How many bands can you say that about?

Thus, this weekend I'm shipping up to Amoeba to pick up the new DKM.

Awesome

This pretty much sums up what I'm thinking about every minute of every day.

What song do you think they're playing?

My vote's for "Freebird."

Adria's in the New Kelly Video

Brillant writing client Adria Lang is in the new Kelly video, "Let Me Borrow that Top."

She cracks a bullship around a woman's neck in ending scene.

To the surprise of no one, may I add.

The Town's Totally Dead

The Toronto International Film Festival and Rosh Hashanah have teamed up like the Wonder Twins to kill H'wood. I'm at work -- OF COURSE -- but I'm like the last guy watching the radar at Ice Station Zebra.

But nothing goes to waste. I'm frequently way behind in my script reading. Now's a good time to catch up. I'm banging from one screenplay and novel to the next.

I got a set of really good notes on DESERT RUN from the director and financer. Very thoughtful, very cogent. I agreed whole-heartedly with everything they brought up. I'll hit those this weekend. The basic gist: more character. Fine by me.

It's sounding like we're rounding the bend on IMPLANT. Now it's time to start developing the next projects down the road. Likely won't be ISLAND RUN at this stage... I beat my head against the wall on it, nothing jumped out at me. We'll try other stuff, and I'll leave IR to my subconscious to work out in the meanwhile.

Okay, back to readin'...

It's Not Just Me Who Gets Attacked By Birds

A guy got attacked by an owl.

Some of you may recall I was menaced by a hawk a couple of years ago. If you don't, it's a long and bizarre story. The short version is: for a couple of days, every time I left the office a hawk would swoop down and strike my head. I started wearing a baseball cap, and it went away. I can only guess that, from its Hawkvision (TM) POV, the top of my head looked like a small animal it could carry away. Repeated failed attempts to kill and eat me didn't stop it from trying.

There were two epilogues to the story.

One: I came into the office that weekend to catch up on script reading, and it was sitting in the grass with two other hawks. I'm not exactly an ornithologist, but I'm pretty sure birds of prey don't usually sit in the grass. They saw me and flew away. I ran to the office, but they didn't hassle me.

Two: About a year later, I was struck again. But it was a one-time episode. It hasn't happened since. Or, I should say "lately." You never know, it's a crazy world.

Birds have eerie powers.

Do You Have a Psychic Dog?

These people are offering a cash money reward for proof that your dog is psychic.

By the way, this shit is true... dogs know when you're coming home, even if it's unexpected.

I saw a TV show where a crew stuck around the house to tape a dog while the show's host took the woman who owned the dog out shopping. The woman wouldn't know when she was coming home. At a random time, the host said, "Let's head back." At home, the dog jumped up and watched the windows.

Dogs have eerie powers.

World's Biggest Spider Web: An Update

Dear God... thousands of spiders from a dozen different species are working together to spin and repair this thing.

If there was any one thing that comforted me about spiders is -- with rare exception -- they're not communal. They don't work together. They eat each other. They're not supposed to team up.

This is real end-of-the-world kinda stuff. Dogs and cats! Living together! Mass hysteria!

Bloody-Disgusting

And management/production company the Collective acquired Bloody-Disgusting.

I think BD is one of the coolest sites out there. I check fangoria and arrowinthehead. Fango has the name, and I love arrow's reviews. But BD's just awesome... I dig that they have trailers up for everything coming out. There's a real love for horror in all three sites that transcends fanboy bitching.

I'm the first guy to admit most horror is crap. But I'm willing to dig through the trash to find the diamonds. To paraphrase Lovecraft, fear is the most powerful and primal of all emotions. Which makes horror movies the most powerful and primal of all film. There's something really magical in making a group of people physically and emotionally react to "danger," while using nothing more than flickering images and sound. It's the power of film at its most pure.

It seems like a very similar situation to what Gary Sanchez Productions (Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy) and CAA are doing with www.funnyordie.com. They're providing content and offering entertainment, while at the same time creating a forum by which they can find new talent.

It looks like Bloody-Disgusting will be like funnyordie... but with horror. That's just fucking awesome.

I honestly think this is the next stage in the entertainment industry. The walls between talent and production are coming down. If you've got the chops, all you have to do is throw your shit up on the internet, and they'll track you down. I know for a fact development execs spend a lot of time hunting around on youtube for talent.

It seemed like it took the town a couple of years to figure out how to deal with youtube and its siblings. At first there were lawsuits. But H'wood's not stupid. They know... if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I love this. In the past, I've heard a lot of crying from writers and directors and actors about how brilliant they were, but they didn't have anything going on in their careers because H'wood was a big meanie and they couldn't get past the gatekeepers.

Step-by-step, that's becoming bullshit. We're swiftly going to see a situation very akin to something like pro sports holding open tryouts for every team, every season. If you've got the juice, bring it. If not, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

Social Darwinism at its finest. LOVE it.

Diary of the Dead

Here's a glowing review in Variety.

I'm officially really fucking excited. Gimme some Dead!

Speaking of Zombies...

The Weinsteins picked up Romero's Diary of the Dead. Here's the story in the Reporter.

I picked up Land of the Dead from Amoeba the other day for the princely sum of $1.99.

I admit, the price drove the purchase. I thought Land was okay in the theater when I saw it. But, when you're holding a movie up against stuff like the original Dawn of the Dead, or even recent movies like 28 Days Later, it was hard to get excited.

But only spending two bucks and watching it at home with a beer in hand... I loved it. This is a super-tight story on fuckin' rails, man. It's the anti-Day, where everyone sits around and nothing much happens until a massive set piece at the end. I've come to love Day, but it took a while to find the particular charms to that movie. And I don't know anybody who names Day as their favorite of the original Dead trilogy.

Land isn't perfect. Some of the dialogue is painfully on-the-nose. Romero's smart enough to give the really "duh" lines to the stupid guy Simon Baker hangs out with. But I still thought... do we need an explanation of what "flowers in the graveyard" means when they shoot fireworks to distract the zombies? C'mon...

I also winced when Baker gets his SWAT team of obvious zombie-munch fodder. Each member comes into the room and makes this clunky little character introduction. It seemed really comic book.

"I'm the Matador, and you can tell because I wear this matador thing on my shoulder to help you remember. Otherwise, I'm completely indistinguishable!"

"I'm the mean bitch who swears a lot, so fuck you fucking fuckers!"
"I'm the really big guy who eats a lot, when do we eat?"

I'm paraphrasing, of course. But that's the impression I got. This kinda thing also ruined Blade II for me.

Weirdly enough, I totally forgot Asia Argento's in this movie. We're going after her to play Mina Harker in The Un-Dead. After watching Land, I really really really hoped we get her.

John Leguizamo's awesome in Land. Simon Baker's fine, but his character (whose name I can't even remember) is such a goodie two-shoes that Leguizamo's Cholo just steals every scene. He's kind of a dick, but it's just because he's a driven alpha male. He's not a guy you fuck with. And I really dug his friendship with Foxy; it felt real.

There's also a cool Latin flavor to this movie: lots of Latino actors, a Spanish-club soundtrack in the seedy bar where Asia almost gets killed, etc. It felt like a fresh aspect to the zombie genre. Having played way too much Resident Evil IV, zombies and the Spanish language seemed to go hand-in-hand. Let's see more. I'd love something like El Mariachi vs. zombies.

I'm really glad I dropped the two bucks.

Another Really Kickass Nightmare

A woman's voice was coming out of the drain in my bathroom. She wanted me to come into the bathroom and help her get out. I'm sure nothing good would've come from that act of kindness.

It was a really strong nightmare, right on the edge of lucid dreaming. I woke up in the middle of the night, lying there scared out of my mind.

For a long time I didn't have any nightmares at all. Now I've had a couple of really good ones in just the past month or so. I don't know what I'm doing differently, but... bring 'em on!

Franken-update

Hit 2,500 words last night.

I edited down what I'd already written so it was tighter and cleaner. I jumped into the next chapter. It was another tonal struggle; the first chapter has danger and comedy, while the chapter immediately following is more of a down beat.

I had to hack at that for a while until I got them to mesh. Or, at least I thought I did. We'll see when I get back into it tonight.

Anyway, this is cooking right along. I'm not so naive as to think I'll write straight through -- the scripts'll come a-callin'. Meanwhile, it's just fun...

Call of the Day

A woman called the office. I answered the phone.

She asked if I spoke English.

It swiftly became apparent that she didn't ask me because I spoke unintelligibly or in a non-English language. She asked because she knew she was calling Southern California where, apparently, a lot of non-English speakers live. She wanted to make sure I spoke English before she asked if we're interested in her book.

I get a lot of odd calls, but that one's a first.

Frankenstein's Update

I cracked out the first 1,500 words of Frankenstein's Notebook yesterday.

True to my usual habit, I actually wrote a lot more, which I instantly hated and erased. Chapter one establishes the voice and tone of the whole novel. I had to hack at it for a while until I hit something I thought worked. But I could change my mind...

I had 28-pages of treatment written, and I still wasn't done with the whole story. I stopped writing. I erased about half of it. I decided to plunge into the novel with ten pages of structure. I didn't want to contrain the story. I just wanted a jumping-off point. I'm not worried about the second half going awry; after five years in this gig, I have story structure in my DNA.

I'm loosely targeting a polished 90,000-word mss by this time next year.

Indy's Back!

Or: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Held Breaths.

RAIDERS is one of the best movies ever made by anybody ever. But I've made my feelings for the sequels very clear. I used to like CRUSADE, but I've seen it recently. Hoo boy, does it not hold up.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I'd be expecting this to be on par with, say... ROBOCOP 3, or CONAN THE DESTROYER.

But on the other hand, I gave up on James Bond a long time ago, and we now live in the age of CASINO ROYALE.

I'm cautiously excited. I know I'll see this opening night. I also know I'll be praying to the Hollywood Gods: "Please don't suck... please don't suck..."

The Lost Star Wars Masterpiece

I checked on Netflix.

They have Stars Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. They have The Empire Strikes Back. They have Return of the Jedi. They have the original and special edition releases of all three movies.

They have Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. They have The Clone Wars. They have Revenge of the Sith.

They have the Clone Wars series. They have Ewok Adventures. They have Star Wars Animated Adventures: Ewoks. They have Star Wars Animated Adventures: Droids.

But they do not have The Star Wars Christmas Special.

Completely out of nowhere, I have a weird, semi-desperate desire to see this. I haven't seen it since I was a kid. I remember it being odd. But Star Wars -- and the concurrent Christmas Special -- came out when I was a really little kid. When you're that young, your idea of reality hasn't quite calcified enough to accept or deny anything. Since the Muppets also had a Christmas special, the Star Wars Christmas Special seemed entirely appropriate at the time.

I'm sure this kinda thing is lying around all over the place at Gen Con. But I didn't go.

I shall find it. And I shall watch it.

There's Only One Thing Missing from The Bourne Ultimatum

In all three movies, there's a team of agents in a little room hunting for Jason Bourne. A leader agent barks orders like "Get a visual on Bourne!" while everyone else hunches over computer screens, watches Bourne through remote video, listens to tapped phone conversations, etc.

The last one has Bourne actually break into the building where this-movie's team is operating. He runs around. Trouble ensues.

I was really, really hoping that, after three full movies of the bad guys hunting Bourne with remote technology, he would actually crash into the room and yell: "HERE I AM! What now, motherfuckers?!"

Having spent so long thinking of Bourne as a grainy image, a voice and a name in a file, I thought their reaction to personally confronting the person they're tracking would've been pretty rich. I could imagine them completely freezing, until Bourne left the room. Then, back in their comfort zone, they could watch him through security cameras and someone could yell, "He's in the hallway! Get me a visual!"

Bonus points if Bourne punches an agent or steals someone's coffee, and everyone acts like it never happened.

Alas, as awesome as Ultimatum is, I'm denied.

Implant

Implant. Draft four. Turned in.

I spent my entire Labor Day weekend working on it. While other people engage in ludicrous activities like frolicking on the beach, spending time with friends and family or doing things that are fun, I was busting ass to get Implant rewritten and handed in.

(I'm kidding... writing's fun for me).

Standard woodshed practice: door locked, phone off, and massive amounts of cheap booze, caffeine and sleep deprivation.

And thus, did I give birth to a bouncing baby 96-page motherfucking fireball of a techno-action/thriller.

While the peeps read and digest, I've been noodling with ideas for ISLAND RUN, fucking around with FN and rewriting THE BULLY.

This week's been extremely busy. We're gearing up to officially enter pre-production, while at the same time doing all the stuff I normally do. It's cool, just... every minute of every day is about something. I'm looking forward to getting some chill time in this weekend.

Query of the Day

LOGLINE: When Keith, an ex-Navy Seal, decides to help his nephew and a friend to create the ultimate, low-base stereo system, he has no idea the boys will find a way to make a weapon of mass destruction work.

SYNOPSIS:

Keith, an ex-Navy Seal, once guarded two scientists developing an infrasonic bomb. At that time the scientist couldn't get the technology to work, so the speakers they developed were shelved. Twenty years later, when his nephew (Eric) and a friend (Gary) want to develop a stereo system, Keith retrieves the now declassified speakers for them. Using modern technology, the boys manage to get the speakers to work. The wave created kills practically everyone in the town of Pine Woods and still has enough intensity, by the time it reaches the town of Tascaguma, to cause psychosis in many residents.

When Eric and Gary stop dabbling, they find their families dead. Thinking it is the work of a serial killer, they rush to downtown Pine Woods for help. Meanwhile, Keith, caught at the edge of the powerful, mind-altering wave hears voices from the past. He fights crazed Tascaguma residents, appearing to him as Honduras Guerrillas to get back to Pine Woods.

The Plot thickens when Kenneth and Rose, an estranged military couple, stop for coffee and find a town full of dead bodies. After exploring the town, they become convinced this is the work of one crazed teen, who bears a striking resemblance to Gary.

The Sheriff of Tascaguma starts his day with what he thinks is a crank call but as people in the Sunnyville Trailer Park, begin killing themselves and their entire families, he decides he better find out what's going on in Pine Woods. He and deputy arrive in time to save Eric and to straighten out the situation between Kenneth and Gary; just as the military arrive to secure their functional weapon.

Bourne

A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit my parents in AZ. I watched The Bourne Supremacy with my dad. I wasn't exactly excited to watch it, because I remembered hating the swishy-swish-pan shit in the theater. But my dad hadn't seen and and he was opening wine bottles so... what the hell.

Long/short -- I loved it. I'm not sure why but, on a smaller screen, the fast-cutting and active camera didn't bother me. I liked the energy. I could track what was going on in the scene. It was a vastly entertaining movie. And we have my man Karl Urban being a badass. Good stuff.

I thought... maybe I was able to track the scenes because I'd seen the movie before. I thought, when I see Ultimatum, it'll probably bug me the first time I watch it, and then be fine on DVD.

This past weekend I was deep in the woodshed. I worked my ass off. But you can't stay in too long, or else you lose perspective. On Sunday, I crawled out of the hole, eyes blinking in the sunlight... and promptly slithered into a big, dark room -- the Arclight Dome -- to catch The Bourne Ultimatum.

The swishy-cutty stuff is still there. But it didn't bother me at all. Is it because Paul Greengrass got better, or pulled back a bit? Is it because I'd made peace with Supremacy?

It doesn't matter. This movie blew me the fuck away. LOVED IT.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I honestly think we can thank the Bourne movies for bringing back the kickass American action film. For a while, American action sucked ass. It was slow and ponderous and bloated. There are always a few brights spots in any era -- I'm thinking of Ronin -- but man, the Die-Hard-in-a-tool-shed years were bleak.

It seemed even worse when I started watching Hong Kong movies in the early '90s. I'd watch stuff like The Killer and Once Upon a Time in China, and the American stuff just seemed ridiculous by comparison.

The town looked to Hong Kong, with mixed results... it seemed like H'wood didn't quite understand what they were seeing, or why it was working. Except for a few guys like Tarantino, it was mostly a bunch of clumsy, clueless, watered-down garbage.

But these Bourne flicks, simply by being awesome, have brought up the game across the board. This is a three-disc set I shall own. They're deeply influential, and prove you don't have to turn off your brain to deliver a solid action movie.