The Saga Continues

I spent all weekend editing FRANK.

I got up to pg. 250. The page count changes as I work, of course, but it usually hovers around the 400-pg mark... sometimes it's 395, other times it's 405, etc. Sometimes I'm killing entire pages because they suck, and other times I'm writing new beats or little bits of business to fill in a logic question, bring out a character thought, whatever.

I'd hoped to get up to pg. 300. But, by mid-afternoon on Sunday, I was burnt the fuck out. I knew that, if I kept moving forward, I wouldn't be sharp, I'd start making lazy choices and the end product would suck just a little (or a lot) more. So I decided to take a break instead of killing myself and doing a half-assed job just to make a self-imposed deadline. At my current rate, I'm pretty sure I'll have an edited draft in hand by Friday, which'll give me the opportunity to hand it in to the peeps for their weekend read.

So on Sunday, I did what I do every time I feel like I need to plug my brain in the wall and recharge: I watched movies.

I watched The Foot Fist Way and Redbelt, an interesting pair-up because they're both indie movies about an owner of a small martial arts dojo dealing with an attack on the little world they've created for themselves.

Foot Fist Way was funny, but definitely the lesser of the two. I'm not sure how this happened, but somewhere along the way Indie Movie became its own genre, like horror or broad comedy. In the same way that you can expect similar characters, situations, moods, shots and scenes from, say, a J-horror flick, Foot Fist Way felt like it was 50% actual movie, and 50% of the primordial ooze that's the concentrated residue of Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, Wes Anderson, Coens, etc. In some ways, movies like this are just as cliche as popcorn movies, they're just taking their cues from a different set of sources.

Redbelt blew me away. It was written and directed by David Mamet. I always like his movies, but this is the first one I've loved since The Edge. I don't know if it's a particularly better movie than Spartan or State&Main or anything else he's done. But this one personally affected me in a real way. I was riveted to the screen during its entire running time. When the credits rolled, I immediately rewatched it with the commentary track, which was just okay, it didn't really illuminate anything that I didn't think wasn't already clear on the screen.

It's an expertly crafted film. I don't know if it'd hit other people like it hit me but, not to get wiggy or anything, I can say this picture spoke to me in a lotta ways. When I finally get around to buying a Blu-Ray player, Redbelt will be a purchase.