The Master Builder (2012 Mix)

That last post wasn't about him. I mean, it wasnt NOT about him because so much of my sexual reality is wrapped up in the me i know thru being with him. That's the case with anything I write--i take bits and pieces and throw them together to make this big snickers bar of a text. There are bits of him scattered throughout everything.The last post was fiction--from the book. This one is not,

Sex=a way to stop. In the space between the morning and the afternoon we did the things we knew by heart. We built up slowly, until finally we were like animals—groaning and panting and begging each other for it. We’d stepped out of time—into the forest where the past and the future swarm together like insects in the tree tops. My mind rose high above this teeming cloud of memory and illusion

Long live the cinema!*

*Only if the movies are shown the way they were intended, otherwise just scrap the whole thing and we’ll watch everything on DVD

There’s nothing like sitting in a darkened theater waiting for a movie you took a second mortgage out on your house to get tickets for, those creaky seats, that sticky floor, those brats making out in the corner, those Raisinets oh so yummy. It’s an electric experience watching a movie outside of your house and off your sofa.

Then the movie starts. And the world implodes on itself in a cascade of fire and brimstone.

All because the movie is framed all wrong. Or the characters are 20 feet tall, but only four inches wide. Or the movie’s optical soundtrack is doing a static shuffle on the left side of the screen. Or the film is somehow defying gravity, and Newton’s entire existence, by being projected onto the ceiling. Or the picture is slanted, as if it were trying to peak into the adjacent theater for a more interesting plot. Or … the possibilities are endless.

The problems that plague the projection of a motion picture are many. But they can really destroy your movie (not to mention waste your money). It’s even more frustrating than it should be because you sit there hoping someone else complains to management. Surely someone else will complain. Right?!? Why isn’t it being fixed? I’m missing the movie? Why is the top of the head at the bottom of the screen? Someone help? I’m convulsing! Before you know it the movie’s into its second act, you’ve choked to death on a Milk Dud and finally the projectionist, who also salts your McDonald’s French fries after a hard day of text messaging at high school, wanders up to the projection booth to stage a cinema rescue. By the way, the movie can’t be rewound so just invent your own first act.

Now, I was a movie projectionist for three years and I’m now a movie critic. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a perfectionist when it comes to the mechanics of a properly screened film. But recently even the press screenings, which are usually the first showings of a movie in the entire state, have had terrible projection. If members of the press, who could influence when and how frequent a person might visit a movie theater, are treated to shameful projection work then what is the average public getting? Pretty much that or worse.

In response, here are some common problems that might pop up during your next visit to the multiplex. If you see one of them, chances are it will be at the very beginning of the movie, or even the previews before that. When you see a problem, hustle out to an employee and make a fuss until they sprint up to the booth and fix the problem before you miss even a second of your film. You paid for the best version of that movie, not some sub-par, blurry, slanted, out-of-frame hackjob. Take what you deserve and nothing less.

— Michael Clawson

Problem: Wobbly picture
If your movie looks like it’s riding over a cattle guard that just won’t seem to end, then, “Houston, we have a problem.” Occasionally this can be extreme, but most often it’s very subtle. You may even think your eyes are playing tricks on you. The problem comes from the projector’s gate, which holds the film in front of the shutter and the light source. A loose or open gate can cause a wobbly picture, as well as other worse things.

Problem: Blurry picture
The best way to tell if a movie’s out of focus is during the opening credits or in the fine print of the movie preview ads. The tiny white text on a black screen provides a good indicator of how sharp the picture is: if words are hard to read or the letters have soft edges then maybe it’s a little soft, or even blurry. Projector operators should be checking this before they walk away from the machine, but sharpness is relative and each person requires their own standard. Make sure yours is higher than that of the theater.

Problem: Stretched picture
You might not notice this problem unless you frequent sneak preview screenings, first showings or films that share theaters with other films (kiddie flick in the day, R-rated thriller at night). Every projector has its choice of two lenses — flat or scope. The lenses correspond to the way the actual film was shot and can’t be interchanged; for example a flat lens on a scope movie just won’t work, and then vice versa. But occasionally the projection booth will mix them up (like when they're shuffling movies around) and what you usually end up with is a grossly distorted picture with Nicole Richie-skinny characters. If a projectionist doesn’t notice this problem before walking away they should be forced to watch the entire movie with the wrong lens as punishment. And it should be Pluto Nash.

Problem: Out-of-frame picture
Here’s another no-brainer. There should only be one frame of a picture on the screen at any given moment. If you have half of one and half of another, do the math and you’re actually watching negative movie. Sometimes this is extreme (forehead on bottom, chin on top), but most of the time it’s hard to catch. If a person has too much empty space above their head, or their head’s getting slightly cut off on the top, that’s usually an indication of a problem upstairs. On some films you can actually see boom mics recording the dialogue. That’s not a revealing mistake: the film is just not framed correctly. Don’t be too too hard on the projectionist; sometimes perfect framing is tricky. But if you see boom mics, go ballistic.

Problem: Picture on wall/ceiling/curtains
Are you seeing picture on the black curtain on the sides of the screen? If so you’re witnessing the continuing downward spiral that is mankind. For this to happen a person stood up at that little window in the projection booth, pondered why the screen had texture AND WAS BLACK, and then walked away to watch the nudie scenes in a theater down the hall. This problem relates back to the projector’s lenses. Each lens makes a certain size picture and the curtains that frame the screen control the picture’s shape (along with the aperture). If the theater isn’t on the ball those curtains will be pulled in or over the film, which will then be projecting on thick black fabric instead of the actual screen. The curtains (or masking) are retractable, so the fix is easy. These tiny curtains are different than a curtain that may cover a screen before a movie, which are rare in theaters. Arizona has several screens with full curtains (they're called Cine Capris), but even those are open for pre-movie ad slideshows, closed briefly before the movie begins and opened in grand fashion before the first trailers. That's a lot of openin' and closin'.

Problem: Missing picture
It all goes back to lenses. Everything is linked, and if something is out of sync the picture suffers. The aperture is what controls the shape of the picture up inside the projection booth; the side or top curtains control the shape of the actual screen. The aperture is simply a piece of metal with a rectangular hole that slides into the projector behind the gate, which holds the film in place. If the wrong aperture is reeled up with the film, then the picture will either feature too much picture or not enough, as if you were watching the film looking through slats in a fence. This is never difficult to spot and you’ll know it right away if it’s happening. How the projectionist walked away without seeing it, though, may be more difficult to figure out.

¡Más problemas!
• Scratches • No sound, crackly sound, fading sound •Munchkin kicking back of seat • Feet cemented to soda spill on ground • Dark picture, dim bulb • Melting picture (no joke, this happens) • Smoke or visible flames • Invisible flames too •
RetaliateIf even one of these problems happens to you, then I offer one tiny (and legal) solution: this complaint card. Open it, print it and stuff it in your purse or wallet before you trek to the multiplex. Use only in an extreme movie emergency.

***This feature originally ran in the West Valley View, in the Volume section, Oct. 23, 2007.***

IMDb links to Bad Libs

The beloved Internet Movie Database gave me a shout-out (holla!) on its home page and Hit List today for my variation of Mad Libs, which I lovingly called Bad Libs. The premise was simple: I was tired of writing crappy reviews for crappy movies that the studio didn't want me to see because they knew, from the bottom of their empty souls, that said movie was in fact oh so very crappy. So instead of writing the review of Resident Evil: Extinction, I let my readers do it by using my Bad Lib. I wrote the basic movie outline and then readers, or even you, wrote all the colorful language that made each review unique. I'm mighty proud of the way the page came out, and its overall design should be credited to my trusty Volume designer, Jonathan Barnes. You can find the page on IMDb today, or click here to find it in its original location. Also, don't forget to tune into Volume periodically. It's new every Tuesday.

nan goldinI imagined TRUE out in the bars nearby, drunk out of her mind, having lost her phone and her wallet, not to mention her punk rock denim vest. She was rape bait—young and pretty and blasted enough to wander off with nearly anyone, which is what she often did. I imagined her running along the West Side highway, sweating and screaming…I saw her several stories tall, as though on a giant

Some frames to ponder from Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson must love TV dinners. Mainly the compartments, the way they keep the corn away from the chicken sticks, the apple cobbler away from the mashed potatoes with that single patty of unmelted butter.

Like those little dinners, his films are compartmentalized, like dioramas at a history museum. Pause one of his pictures and see for yourself: The characters freeze but their stories continue through their faces and their relation to the setting. The camera is the window looking into an elaborate world of sets and props. Each sequence is subdivided into cutaways to detailed compartments of story. And each frame reinforces the film’s overall tone. He’s one of the most visual directors to get behind a camera. Actually, he’s not a director; he’s an artist.

Across five wonderful pictures — Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited — Anderson has become one of the most important American directors making films. His works (he writes, directs and produces) are full of dysfunction, ’70s music, elaborate sets and locations, and comedy so quirky it turns the stomach of viewers expecting Ben Stiller/Adam Sandler laughs.

His newest film — The Darjeeling Limited, about three brothers reuniting during the exploration of India via railroad — doesn’t have so many cutaways or tangential vignettes, but the compartments are there as actual compartments on a train, the Darjeeling Limited. The picture will not be his most popular film, but it will be his most important simply because it shows his continued growth as an auteur, a word and theory he may have sparked back to life.

To celebrate his work, here are some images from his films. I’m including these frames and photos because I like them, but any image from any of his movies could have worked. They’re that unique, each and every one of them.

— Michael Clawson

(This piece originally ran Oct. 9, 2007, in Volume in the West Valley View.)

Family fantasy travels India by train

It contains no dragons or unicorns, but The Darjeeling Limited is as much a fantasy as any of Tolkien’s books. The only substantial difference may be in the characters: those in a fantasy are impassioned by hope, those in Darjeeling are just hopeless.

The film is directed by Wes Anderson, a hyper-stylized American director known for his dysfunctional and broken families, which he films with novel-like detail involving tangential dioramas of props and events. His family in The Royal Tenenbaums was as ruined as families become without murdering one another in their sleep. The three leads in Darjeeling could be long-lost cousins.

The film begins with a cameo I would not dare to spoil. A glum-looking man in India is late for a train. He bribes a taxi driver to speed through pedestrian traffic, he sprints down the depot and chases the train down the tracks. He’s old and not as light on as feet as he once was and is overtaken by a younger man who is swift enough to catch the fleeing locomotive. This is Adrien Brody as Peter, one of three brothers reuniting after their previous meeting one year ago at their father’s funeral.

The other brothers are Jack (Jason Schwartzman) and Francis (Owen Wilson). They all despise each other to a moderate degree, and Jack and Peter immediately begin plotting their escape from the train and the continent. Francis collects passports: “I’ll just hold onto all of them,” he says. The three brothers share a large compartment on the Darjeeling Limited, from which they will patch up their relationships while visiting India and its many holy sites. They lug around their father’s garish old Louis Vuitton luggage set, a set so large that each piece is numbered and the final number is in the double digits.

Anderson’s films, which he often writes and produces as well, are filled with tremendous characters played by actors who were born to play them. Tenenbaums would not have worked without Gene Hackman. Same with Rushmore’s Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray. Or Life Aquatic and Willem Dafoe. No exception here on Darjeeling — the film completely requires the acting of Wilson, Brody and Schwartzman. They command their characters so well, you’d swear they were playing themselves, and with Owen’s character, who attempts suicide on a motorcycle, maybe they were.

Peter has a pregnant wife at home who he doesn’t love. He spends much of the film wearing his father’s prescription glasses, which give him headaches to no end. The headaches allow him a chance to swap prescriptions with the other brothers. Jack has left his girlfriend in Paris, but continues to check her messages with a stolen voicemail code. He wrote a fictional short story that everyone mistakes for non-fiction. Francis, whose emotional wounds are less obvious, is wrapped extensively in bandages after a motorcycle incident that may have been a cry for help. Together they venture into India to discover themselves and each other. In a simple way, Darjeeling Limited is a road movie, with romantic views of Indian landscapes.

The best character, though, is the train. I don’t think it exists, and if it does it should be booked solid by moviegoers wanting to experience its magical journey. The compartments contain the brothers’ competing personalities and hidden rages, the dining car lends itself to a hilarious lunch, a stewardess with the most beautiful eyes teaches Jack about love and lust, and a chief steward confiscates a king cobra the brothers buy in a market. The movie, like the train itself, is on rails, but unless you’re in the first car you’re not sure where it’s going to go. The ultimate destination is a secret trip to meet the brothers’ mother (Anjelica Huston), but that’s not really what the film is about.

The film is a fantasy of family, of what we expect and remember about those we love. Often times our memories are created to support the fantasies. The train, itself a euphoric vision of a train, serves as the catalyst to the destruction of the brothers’ fantasies of each other, their father and their conflicted mother. When they see the truth, they see their real family. I found the theme rewarding and invigorating; and, although it’s somewhat of a departure in style for Anderson, it’s his most mature work.

It’s also very funny, more funny than Ben Stiller’s freak show called Heartbreak Kid, which beat it at the box office last week in limited release. In a perfect world, Stiller would be trampled over to get into a film like The Darjeeling Limited.

Now there’s a fantasy for you.

See the prequel

The Darjeeling Limited would not be complete without the 13-minute short film that acts as a prequel to it. It’s called Hotel Chevalier and it stars the Jack character (Schwartzman) meeting with his girlfriend (Natalie Portman) in Paris before the trip to India. The music is terrific and the dialogue cuts into these characters’ souls. It also clarifies a short sequence in Darjeeling when Portman briefly shows up. It’s not attached to the movie (a shame), but it is available for free on the Internet from a variety of sources. I used iTunes, but you can also find it on YouTube, Fox Searchlight’s main page and the movie’s Web site.

(These reviews will run Oct. 12, 2007, in the West Valley View newspaper.)

Lonely Hearts Dub Plan

Fitz would take care of me..his place would be warm and cozy and I could stretch out on the couch and watch the morning traffic report and he and I would chuckle smugly as we thought about those poor fuckers stuck in little sardine cans out on the highways and under the ground. On bridges, in elevators…queuing up and streaming out. We’d be up in his phat pad high above it all…with annie lennox

U r Not Me

U r Not Me as I catch a glimpse in the candle flicker--a sudden static blast of the bigger pitcha... U r Not Me getting high like planes and getting so excited about all my ideas that i can hardly type in the password. It takes me three tries and then its only luck that i get in. U r Not me as I put on the New Style (which is actually very old) and bop down the street with my funny sense of

Who Really Runs New York

I know 50 cent and Diddy get money but when was the last time you seen them get mobbed in the NYC? This is Pharrell cruising through Time Square with his top back. time to invest in that hard top convertible homie.....listen about 4 minutes in, people start running to his car and someone screams out "who got shot!!!" Basically everyone at the end was running to figure out if there was a star sighting or a murder seen lmao. Shout out to Lowkey. This guy filled my ipod up in a month with his blog.

I'm Snitchinnnnn

What'dup Everybody...It's Freezy here. No I'm not 100% but I'm getting there. After smashing your car into a wall, Kanye West vs. 50 cent doesn't really come close to the important things in life at the end of my day. BUT it is my job to keep you all informed with the entertainment news so I promise I will get this blog up in running in the coming weeks. Also God bless Juiicy for fighting for our country! With the races things I've seen on Dr. Phil today, it pisses me off that were fighting a war for ungrateful bastards like that. But enough with the politics, lets get to the entertainment shall we.

I present to you, Micheal Vick vs. 50 cent in : I'm Snitchinnnnn!