My orchestra colleagues and I are facing a dilemma...One which inevitably centers around the question of to what degree artistic talent should be compensated, and when affordable public access to artistic product should be given priority.
There are two organizations for whom many of us play which put those questions into different corners of the same scenario. The first is the local opera company, which has been in business for a little over fifteen years. After many years of quality performances and sold-out houses, certain changes in management of the company and competition from a second venue began to have a negative effect on that success. From that point on things have taken a slow slide downhill.
In those early years, musicians came to love playing in the opera orchestra. The conductor was superb, and made the effort of performing a three hour show (following singers who weren't watching the conductor or listening to you, no less) seem almost effortless. We would get something akin to a runners high going through the marathon week of rehearsals and late-night shows, and our collective artistic consciousness rejoiced in what we could achieve.
With new management came new, "minimalist" ideas (using projected images instead of actual sets, modern costumes instead of period frocks with lots of fabric) and a heavy emphasis on tying our southwestern community to New York in every conceivable way (promoting "opera stars" from New York, emphasizing the executive director's connections to talent from New York, bringing in conductors from New York, etc, etc) as if our town's talent isn't good enough to stand on its' own.
Productions were reduced from two per season to one, and the number of rehearsals also reduced to save money (thereby cramming the same amount of work into a smaller time frame, allowing for more mistakes and less professional results).
Now, the offered pay scale is at issue. Rehearsals have been scheduled for three and a half hours (longer than in the past) without any adjustment in compensation. The company wants to try doing at least one show across the border in Mexico, and will not offer jobs in the production to anyone who does not have a passport. Information on the projected schedule and pay scale were not provided until very late in the game, leading me to believe there are serious financial issues and the very real possibility of not getting paid at all.
We have to ask ourselves, "should we feel any responsibility for aiding this arts organization's financial stability by taking a cut in pay, or do we stick to our guns even if it means the company won't be able to go through with the production as a result? Considering the morale in the pit over the most recent years, I'd say my loyalties to keeping this organization going have faded. Ten years ago, it might have been a different story.
The other group in question is my least favorite orchestra. Many of its' musicians including myself, travel from another city for the gigs, and most of those folks are union members accustomed to having a contract and regular (if small) pay increases from season to season.
This orchestra is in a smaller community, but one full of well-off retirees who moved there because of the sunshine and low cost of living. It has existed for some decades now, and in the past ten or fifteen years had maintained a successful budget and some completely sold-out seasons.
We play on a university campus and have some financing from the university (they pay the conductor's salary). There are a few student musicians in the ensemble who get a scholarship of sorts for playing, but in recent years the conductor (and controlling interest in the group) has pushed out the community volunteers and anyone else he thinks isn't talented enough in favor of hiring a lot of out-of-town players. The locals who do still play are paid only about a third what the "union" musicians get, but not because we've demanded it. Our pay has never been up for negotiation, and in light of recent revelations about our employment status and what it means, the pay has become basis for a call-to-arms.
In this orchestra, we are considered independent contractors, and although performing musicians take that role often by playing various church gigs, weddings, etc, membership in a symphony orchestra creates a different sort of working atmosphere. It is an ongoing job, regular employment essentially, from season to season, which runs counter to the definition of independent contractor. My other orchestra has always considered us as statutory employees, and rightly so.
Companies who call regular workers "contractors" do so mainly to save themselves money and paperwork. If this orchestra were on my good side (if musicians were treated like valued members of a team rather than the worker ants that we apparently are), I would continue to forgive the practice in favor of supporting my local arts organization. They provide me with work, after all.
Trouble is, and the vast majority of us just found this out, we have to pay both gross receipts taxes and liability insurance in order to legitimately do the jobs that we've been doing for this organization. The state in which this orchestra resides treats musical performance and even things like teaching (lessons) and tutoring vastly differently from our neighboring state, in which our other orchestra lives. We have to pay for the privilege of doing business here, adding to what some of us already pay in state income taxes. The expenses for playing in this orchestra just went up exponentially.
Approaching management with our concerns has so far yielded only the comment that "it is what it is". I have tried submitting a bill for sales tax on my earnings, with no response. Past complaints that local players receive unfairly low pay got a tiny increase for them, but only just.
To put this ensemble under an umbrella term, it is pretty much just a vehicle for our conductor's ego. It exists in its current glorious state as a testament to his fund-raising prowess and being able to pull together a fine bunch of musicians (none of whom get any credit for playing well...it's the conducting that matters) to prop up his self-image. He can't get a job as a symphonic conductor any other way than through his job at the university, so he is stuck here. We make him look good, and that is our function. This being the case, it is time he paid for his vanity by treating us like the professionals we are.
If this organization wishes to continue calling us contractors, then we must have a written contract with our required wages and terms of service laid out. We have the right to charge sales tax on our services, and to negotiate those wages each year. If they refuse to comply with our wishes, then we will have no choice but to request the IRS to reclassify us as employees. Thanks to a very recent survey, that is exactly what we all agree should be the next step.
Artistic endeavours should be a gift to their communities in some ways, but the creators of such things have bills to pay just like everyone else. We can't exist on handouts. Time for a little more respect.
End of rant.
Resonance
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
New Year
I am cleaning out my file drawers, organizing my paperwork and plans for this new year. A new sense of purpose is in place, and hopefulness with it.
I'm awaiting news from a local church about whether or not they will consider renting out their kitchen...If I am going to bake things for public consumption, I have to do it in an Environment Department-certified kitchen. My own will not currently pass inspection due to our home renovation dust and debris....The church's kitchen is certified, and I figure it would cost a lot less to rent by the hour from a non-profit organization than from a restaurant. I should know something by the end of the week.......
I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork covering my sanitation practices, baking recipes and processes, food storage and transportation and retailing plans. It's more planning than I ever did going into the crafts business, which is a good thing. It will force me to be more organized and prepared.
Speaking of filling out forms, I've finally gotten through the application process for the legalized extortion known as health care coverage, so all I have to worry about is higher premiums than the year before. Would you believe it, I was deemed too poor to qualify for a tax credit and my state disallowed Medicaid coverage because I don't have any dependents. Par for the course...I'm not going to dwell on it.
I am working on a list of possible baked goods for this new enterprise, but have to keep it simple. I make a mean apple pie, which is top of the list. Have to forget the really yummy stuff like cheesecakes and anything else that would need refrigeration, but there's plenty of other goodies that would sell.
We have two different farmers' markets here, one runs from June through end of November, and the other is year-round. I'll have to do some rearranging of the few students that I have left in order to do the year-round, and that is proving to be difficult. I can't seem to get everyone to agree on a common time frame.
Ultimately, I would love to eliminate teaching altogether. I can't just ditch it in favor of jumping into a new venture which hasn't yet proven its' worth, though. Making the switch is going to be tricky! At least registering for the farmers' market is done the day of, so I can decide pretty last-minute about showing up. I can play it by ear as far as balancing market with students.
I can bring my jewelry pieces to the markets as well as food, doubling my prospects. The fee for selling there is ridiculously low (two dollars), versus the $300 average booth fee for a craft show that you have to apply for months in advance. I can keep an eye on weather reports and anything else that might affect buyer attendance.
All in all, the whole farmers' market idea sounds fairly cost-effective to me. I won't have to sit there all day (typically, sellers sell out by noon if not earlier), the fees are almost non-existent (with exception of the yearly food processing permit), and we can eat whatever I don't sell. I don't have to drive 90 miles to get there as I do for teaching, and considering most of my yearly expenses are car-repair related, it's a win-win. Even if I don't gross as much as from teaching, net should hopefully at least even things out, if not do better.
I look at the footprints of delicate little quail in the snow and think, if they can survive in the icy cold and a world full of predators then so can I. Not feeling sorry for myself anymore.........Happy New Year!
Monday, December 29, 2014
Holiday Blues
Our species has rather arbitrarily chosen various dates throughout the year to take a day off work and celebrate stuff, largely to give a little excitement to an otherwise routine existence. The Christmas holiday is particularly out of control, thanks to capitalism. Opportunities to make a buck supersede any real meaning in the holiday, and do more to reverse the whole point than anything.
No matter how many sappy, well-meaning t.v. specials pop up to remind us that Christmas isn't about selfishness and presents, the retail machine grinds on unabated. Even the Pope is having to remind his cardinals and the church bank that the money is supposed to be helping the poor, not used for buying luxurious robes and fancy digs.
Coming from a working-class poor family, I used to resent the fact that I almost never got the cool presents that I wanted. All I ever heard was, "we can't afford it". As a kid, that didn't mean anything when we got the big Sears Wish Book in the mail. I would spend time every day looking through the pages of toys and neat clothes, circling the stuff that I really liked and hoping that some of it would show up under the tree.
All of the kids we went to church with seemed to have everything, and I couldn't understand why I didn't. My folks never sat us kids down to teach us about money, how to manage it or where it comes from. All I can figure is, since we were all girls, they thought we'd be taken care of by whoever we ended up marrying.
There have been 13 husbands amongst the five of us, and so far only one sibling even knows what a 401K is............
I am having to learn about finances very late in life by doing things the hard way. Making a lot of mistakes and paying a pretty penny for them. The businesses I've been trying to run for the last couple of decades are unfortunately in classical music and art. The market for such things isn't profitable for any but the superstars. Perhaps I haven't worked as hard as I should to get somewhere, but when it seems that the public appreciates electronics manufactured cheaply by third-world labor more than the hours of hand work you put into your original creations, or the years of music lessons spent honing those fine motor skills, often making the effort seems pointless.
I finally started charging my music students a month's worth of lessons in advance (to recoup losses from unannounced cancellations), but in doing so, have lost some students. One step forward, two backwards.
To save on a number of expenses (gross receipts tax, self-employment taxes, etc) I am debating an effort to have employment status in one of my orchestras changed from independent contractor to employee, but have to take the rest of my colleagues into consideration before doing so. Nothing is ever simple.
My car has over 350,000 miles on it, so the question of driving anywhere for music gigs for much longer may be pointless as well.
In short (well, maybe not so short), I am feeling sorry for myself at the moment. I am not one for making New Years resolutions, but if I did it would be to quit everything I am currently involved in and start completely from scratch. I am looking into starting a part-time baking business, and if it happens and manages to do well enough, maybe I can eventually keep that resolution. We shall see.........................
Monday, October 27, 2014
Stress
Mmmmmmmmh......What time is it? Ummmhhhhh... That late? Jeez, gotta get going. Maybe in five minutes....no, gotta get up....Got to....Come on.....Leg out, foot on the floor....That's it, you can do it.....Still so dark out....I can have five more minutes...
Why's the dog barking so much, dammit? It's only....oh crap, it's way past walkies already! Hurry..ouch! Who moved the #@**!! dresser?
Such is the usual beginning. The remainder of the day can be productive, or it can be a complete waste of time. Today was the latter.
After a breakfast of blueberries and vanilla yogurt (the new, healthy breakfast) the dog went for her very late walk. Just in time to go through an unfortunately not unusual, maniacal tug-of-war in pursuit of the garbage truck. And a neighbor's cat. There is physics involved for a sixty pound dog to be able to drag a one hundred twenty five pound human, and my dog apparently knows more about it than I do.
Symphony weeks, particularly when there are more than one at a time can be brutal. Just when all of the little muscle groups in your back, shoulders, wrists and fingers have managed to loosen up after the last round of late nights, it begins anew. Break out the aspirin...
My less favorite orchestra performed a long concert of Copland, Bruch, Gershwin and Kalinnikov with a violinist who seems to struggle with the same problem that I have....She is an artsy woman with a guy's sense of humor. She tried lightening the concert hall mood with a couple of humorous phrases, but they went over like a lead balloon. I felt like taking her aside to say, "sweetie, people just don't expect women to even have a sense of humor, let alone a woman in a glittery gown with a violin in her hands.....They don't know how to react".
We did an extra concert during the week, in a town that is a 3 1/2 hour drive from my home. Got back at 1:30 a.m., then got up at 8 a.m. to start the 2 hour commute to my next job of listening to students all day long (who had obviously not practiced since their last lesson), only to find out that four of them would cancel.
After that, another 45 minute drive to get to the next lengthy concert, and finally the 1 1/2 hour drive home, arriving at midnight. The next day, Sunday is shot, because we do an afternoon performance. Not enough time either before or after to accomplish much of anything at home, because of the commute.
Next day, begin round two with my favorite orchestra. We worked through two contemporary pieces, "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" by Karim Al-Zand and a world-premiere of a theme and variations for violin, "The Transit of Venus" by Tomasz Golka. Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" on top of all that....See any correlation? Hmmmm?
When you are trying to learn your own part of a symphonic piece, you rely a lot on an understanding of standard compositional structure from the 19th century and earlier. You most often already mentally know the piece, at least from hearing it many times, even if you have never played it.
Twentieth century works and newer are a different story. Composers began trying to break out of the same-old same-old, and began using sound effects, lots of accidentals (notes not common to the given key) and crazy, compound meters to elude any potential monotony. This means that musicians have to be alert and counting beats like crazy, every second of the piece. Attempts at musicality tend to be halfhearted, due to the intense focus on simply staying together.
You have no idea how your part fits in relation to any others until you get to your first group rehearsal. The availability of YouTube videos can help a little, but often your own part will be buried in a wash of sound, making it impossible to figure out where you are in the score. And, for a world premiere, of course there is no available recording to listen to.
This creates stress.
The composer of "Transit" was there to provide guidance, and apparently has a great sense of humor about the process involved. Written on one portion of the conductor's score are instructions for him to: "Continue to improvise....Ignore orchestra......Go ape shit".....
Did I mention that this composer is also a conductor? He definitely gets it.
The "Scheherazade" was on the second half of the program, and while a welcome respite from the previous musical maze, it is still a physically demanding piece with concerto-like interludes for the concertmaster to play. Our concertmaster is in his seventies, and even in his prime never really played very gracefully. It was painful to listen to. OMG kind of painful. Conductor needs to do something about it kind of painful.
More stress.
I was popping pain meds every night over the last half of the week, and after finally having a day off, it sort of feels weird to not have a throbbing pain in my back or my head. I don't want to get too used to this, because our next gig is in less than two weeks. Verdi's "Requiem". The "Dies Irae" is a killer..........
Why's the dog barking so much, dammit? It's only....oh crap, it's way past walkies already! Hurry..ouch! Who moved the #@**!! dresser?
Such is the usual beginning. The remainder of the day can be productive, or it can be a complete waste of time. Today was the latter.
After a breakfast of blueberries and vanilla yogurt (the new, healthy breakfast) the dog went for her very late walk. Just in time to go through an unfortunately not unusual, maniacal tug-of-war in pursuit of the garbage truck. And a neighbor's cat. There is physics involved for a sixty pound dog to be able to drag a one hundred twenty five pound human, and my dog apparently knows more about it than I do.
Symphony weeks, particularly when there are more than one at a time can be brutal. Just when all of the little muscle groups in your back, shoulders, wrists and fingers have managed to loosen up after the last round of late nights, it begins anew. Break out the aspirin...
My less favorite orchestra performed a long concert of Copland, Bruch, Gershwin and Kalinnikov with a violinist who seems to struggle with the same problem that I have....She is an artsy woman with a guy's sense of humor. She tried lightening the concert hall mood with a couple of humorous phrases, but they went over like a lead balloon. I felt like taking her aside to say, "sweetie, people just don't expect women to even have a sense of humor, let alone a woman in a glittery gown with a violin in her hands.....They don't know how to react".
We did an extra concert during the week, in a town that is a 3 1/2 hour drive from my home. Got back at 1:30 a.m., then got up at 8 a.m. to start the 2 hour commute to my next job of listening to students all day long (who had obviously not practiced since their last lesson), only to find out that four of them would cancel.
After that, another 45 minute drive to get to the next lengthy concert, and finally the 1 1/2 hour drive home, arriving at midnight. The next day, Sunday is shot, because we do an afternoon performance. Not enough time either before or after to accomplish much of anything at home, because of the commute.
Next day, begin round two with my favorite orchestra. We worked through two contemporary pieces, "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" by Karim Al-Zand and a world-premiere of a theme and variations for violin, "The Transit of Venus" by Tomasz Golka. Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" on top of all that....See any correlation? Hmmmm?
When you are trying to learn your own part of a symphonic piece, you rely a lot on an understanding of standard compositional structure from the 19th century and earlier. You most often already mentally know the piece, at least from hearing it many times, even if you have never played it.
Twentieth century works and newer are a different story. Composers began trying to break out of the same-old same-old, and began using sound effects, lots of accidentals (notes not common to the given key) and crazy, compound meters to elude any potential monotony. This means that musicians have to be alert and counting beats like crazy, every second of the piece. Attempts at musicality tend to be halfhearted, due to the intense focus on simply staying together.
You have no idea how your part fits in relation to any others until you get to your first group rehearsal. The availability of YouTube videos can help a little, but often your own part will be buried in a wash of sound, making it impossible to figure out where you are in the score. And, for a world premiere, of course there is no available recording to listen to.
This creates stress.
The composer of "Transit" was there to provide guidance, and apparently has a great sense of humor about the process involved. Written on one portion of the conductor's score are instructions for him to: "Continue to improvise....Ignore orchestra......Go ape shit".....
Did I mention that this composer is also a conductor? He definitely gets it.
The "Scheherazade" was on the second half of the program, and while a welcome respite from the previous musical maze, it is still a physically demanding piece with concerto-like interludes for the concertmaster to play. Our concertmaster is in his seventies, and even in his prime never really played very gracefully. It was painful to listen to. OMG kind of painful. Conductor needs to do something about it kind of painful.
More stress.
I was popping pain meds every night over the last half of the week, and after finally having a day off, it sort of feels weird to not have a throbbing pain in my back or my head. I don't want to get too used to this, because our next gig is in less than two weeks. Verdi's "Requiem". The "Dies Irae" is a killer..........
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Movie Review: COMA
I remember having read the book when I was 15 or so, but couldn't remember most of the details. Not because it wasn't a good book, but because outside of all the embarrassing stuff you did, you don't remember too much from your teens if it didn't involve whoever you had a crush on.
I also keep forgetting that Michael Crichton was a physician as well as a writer and director, which makes this story quite believable. You like to think that the relationship with your doctors is one of reliability and trust, but "Coma" will make you wonder....
The tension and mistrust is set up from the very beginning, using the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated field to kick off a sense of paranoia. The opening scene has me a little confused though....
The lead characters, lovers played by Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas are both surgeons, and come home together after a long rotation only to argue about who should cook dinner and who gets to shower first, with Douglas wanting to be served a beer, whining about how difficult his day was and Bujold arguing exactly the same thing. Seems like a point is being made about women working just as hard as men, and shouldn't we all be served a beer?
But this conversation is immediately followed with lingering, gratuitous Bujold-in-the-shower nudity, sort of cancelling out the support for feminism token with obviously intentional boobsploitation. Given that this film was made in the 70's, I suppose it implies that back then men thought, if she's going to burn her bra, then what's underneath it must be fair game! Still so much to learn...........
The question as to whether the lead character is delusional and paranoid or justifiably afraid is well played, and carried far enough into the story to keep you guessing. We were kept on the edge of our seats until the very end.
Besides the above-mentioned issue, the only other complaints that I have are with props and editing. Bujold ditches her shoes and panty hose in one scene, climbing up a utility ladder. Next scene, she is wearing the same shoes, but her panty hose are found on the ladder by someone else much later in the movie. What... was she waiting for them to drip-dry? And Michael Douglas (surgeon, remember) drives around in what looks like a Datsun 4-door sedan. I can accept the very small apartment he supposedly lives in, for a single guy in Boston, but a Datsun?
My rating: !#*
! (quite suspenseful), # (you see enough of our star and a few comatose female body parts), * I would recommend this film unless you are already afraid of hospitals.
Keep the remote handy!
I also keep forgetting that Michael Crichton was a physician as well as a writer and director, which makes this story quite believable. You like to think that the relationship with your doctors is one of reliability and trust, but "Coma" will make you wonder....
The tension and mistrust is set up from the very beginning, using the difficulties of being a woman in a male-dominated field to kick off a sense of paranoia. The opening scene has me a little confused though....
The lead characters, lovers played by Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas are both surgeons, and come home together after a long rotation only to argue about who should cook dinner and who gets to shower first, with Douglas wanting to be served a beer, whining about how difficult his day was and Bujold arguing exactly the same thing. Seems like a point is being made about women working just as hard as men, and shouldn't we all be served a beer?
But this conversation is immediately followed with lingering, gratuitous Bujold-in-the-shower nudity, sort of cancelling out the support for feminism token with obviously intentional boobsploitation. Given that this film was made in the 70's, I suppose it implies that back then men thought, if she's going to burn her bra, then what's underneath it must be fair game! Still so much to learn...........
The question as to whether the lead character is delusional and paranoid or justifiably afraid is well played, and carried far enough into the story to keep you guessing. We were kept on the edge of our seats until the very end.
Besides the above-mentioned issue, the only other complaints that I have are with props and editing. Bujold ditches her shoes and panty hose in one scene, climbing up a utility ladder. Next scene, she is wearing the same shoes, but her panty hose are found on the ladder by someone else much later in the movie. What... was she waiting for them to drip-dry? And Michael Douglas (surgeon, remember) drives around in what looks like a Datsun 4-door sedan. I can accept the very small apartment he supposedly lives in, for a single guy in Boston, but a Datsun?
My rating: !#*
! (quite suspenseful), # (you see enough of our star and a few comatose female body parts), * I would recommend this film unless you are already afraid of hospitals.
Keep the remote handy!
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Movie Review: Westworld
In keeping with my gripes about Hollywood in a previous post, I have decided to periodically write movie reviews. Not reviews about brand new, still-in-the-theaters-movies (because we never, ever go to the theater anymore), but old movies. The stuff you browse for on Netflix or down the aisle of your favorite book/music/video store where the dvd cases are jammed so tightly together that it takes knocking half of them off the shelf to get one out, and you have to walk with your head turned at a rather painful, sideways angle and squint really hard to read the spines. Where "Pan's Labyrinth" is labeled a family film, movies from the 80's with Burt Reynolds in them are filed under "classics" and store clerks don't know that the word "The" in a title doesn't usually count when you are alphabetizing.
I will use my own ratings symbols in lieu of stars, partly because everyone else already uses stars, and partly because there are no stars on this keyboard (no, sweetie, *'s an asterisk, and while we can argue for eternity over the word's prefix meaning star, IT ISN'T A STAR).
! = Isn't that symbol obvious?
@ = At what point in this film are we going to see any sort of plot?
# = The pound of flesh given by a superb cast member
$ = Lots of product placement and/or special effects substituting for content
-$ = Dim lighting throughout substituting for special effects and content
% = Ridiculously high percentage of film obviously shot in a location other than where it is pretending to be
(doesn't apply to studio lot films ...the background cheesiness is to be expected in pre-1990's movies)
^ = Make a point of seeing this film, if you have any taste at all
& = Sequel available
* = Recommended, but with following qualifiers or reservations
? = What the hell?
First up is Michael Crichton's cinematic debut, "Westworld". Yul Brynner stars as a realistic android gunslinger in a town populated by android humans and animals, created for vacationers seeking to experience life in a past period of history.
True to nearly every sci-fi story involving computer technology, things start to go wrong....Very wrong. Heroes played by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin discover the trouble and try to stop the ensuing madness.
While the film seems somewhat campy when compared to sci-fi movies of today, one can see where ideas for later movies and television shows came from. It's essentially "Fantasy Island" meets "The Terminator".
A number of cast members have familiar, 70's and 80's-era faces (remember Dick Van Patten, from "Eight is Enough"?), and certain scenes definitely date the picture (people smoking while working at their boxy, pre-Atari-style computers).
"Westworld" definitely has some of the "Captain Kirk fighting the Alien dude" suspenseful action, and I've always thought Yul Brynner was sexy. Something about bald guys with an attitude....The fact of Richard Benjamin's disappearance from the cinema has been confirmed as a "Well, no wonder" kinda thing.
All in all, I'm glad to have seen it. I've noticed the box on video shelves for years, and always wondered about it. If you are someone who can appreciate the campiness, allowing for the time frame of the movie, I think you might enjoy it. My scores: **& *(don't expect much for special effects) *(Yul Brynner does more stalking than talking) & (Futureworld is out there somewhere).
Next in line, coincidentally will be Michael Crichton's second film, "Coma". Didn't plan for a Crichton bingefest, but what the heck...Perhaps we will eventually revisit "Jurassic Park" as the most recent sequel to "Westworld"............................Keep the remote handy!
I will use my own ratings symbols in lieu of stars, partly because everyone else already uses stars, and partly because there are no stars on this keyboard (no, sweetie, *'s an asterisk, and while we can argue for eternity over the word's prefix meaning star, IT ISN'T A STAR).
! = Isn't that symbol obvious?
@ = At what point in this film are we going to see any sort of plot?
# = The pound of flesh given by a superb cast member
$ = Lots of product placement and/or special effects substituting for content
-$ = Dim lighting throughout substituting for special effects and content
% = Ridiculously high percentage of film obviously shot in a location other than where it is pretending to be
(doesn't apply to studio lot films ...the background cheesiness is to be expected in pre-1990's movies)
^ = Make a point of seeing this film, if you have any taste at all
& = Sequel available
* = Recommended, but with following qualifiers or reservations
? = What the hell?
First up is Michael Crichton's cinematic debut, "Westworld". Yul Brynner stars as a realistic android gunslinger in a town populated by android humans and animals, created for vacationers seeking to experience life in a past period of history.
True to nearly every sci-fi story involving computer technology, things start to go wrong....Very wrong. Heroes played by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin discover the trouble and try to stop the ensuing madness.
While the film seems somewhat campy when compared to sci-fi movies of today, one can see where ideas for later movies and television shows came from. It's essentially "Fantasy Island" meets "The Terminator".
A number of cast members have familiar, 70's and 80's-era faces (remember Dick Van Patten, from "Eight is Enough"?), and certain scenes definitely date the picture (people smoking while working at their boxy, pre-Atari-style computers).
"Westworld" definitely has some of the "Captain Kirk fighting the Alien dude" suspenseful action, and I've always thought Yul Brynner was sexy. Something about bald guys with an attitude....The fact of Richard Benjamin's disappearance from the cinema has been confirmed as a "Well, no wonder" kinda thing.
All in all, I'm glad to have seen it. I've noticed the box on video shelves for years, and always wondered about it. If you are someone who can appreciate the campiness, allowing for the time frame of the movie, I think you might enjoy it. My scores: **& *(don't expect much for special effects) *(Yul Brynner does more stalking than talking) & (Futureworld is out there somewhere).
Next in line, coincidentally will be Michael Crichton's second film, "Coma". Didn't plan for a Crichton bingefest, but what the heck...Perhaps we will eventually revisit "Jurassic Park" as the most recent sequel to "Westworld"............................Keep the remote handy!
Monday, September 29, 2014
The Art of Entertainment
Just watched the 21st century remake of "Godzilla", and the conversation early into the film went like this.........
"Did you see what just happened?"
"No, did you?"
"No...I couldn't see anything."
"Yeah, just a couple flashes of light. So what just DID happen, anyways?"
"I dunno, but we've been mispronouncing "Gojira" for about sixty years."
"What, Bryan Cranston is dead already?? I thought he would be in a lot more of the movie."
"Are we ever going to actually see the monsters, or are they afraid of the light?"
"Oh look, there it is....Blurry, but there it is....The producers found an investor! Yeah!!"
"Oops, back to blackness...Something's going on, with all the screaming, but......Okay, how did Godzilla die? When did that happen?"
"Must have been when you blinked..."
Most of what Hollywood is cranking out these days is repetitive, unimaginative drivel. If it's an action film, the more bullets and explosions the better. If sci-fi, either you dazzle the eye with the most advanced special effects, or if on a budget, you create mostly very dimly lit scenes in which viewers can't see any of what is going on. Either way, the story line is nothing new. Romance? Guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy does something selfless, guy gets girl back.
This complaint all by itself is nothing new either, which means the same old stories have been plaguing the screen for far too long. Heck, out of the nearly 200 movies that John Wayne made, how many of them are the same western with a different villain? He even wore the same clothes and rode the same horse in most of them. Not that I would disparage the Duke, because we all watch John Wayne movies to see John Wayne be John Wayne, regardless of the plot.......
Maybe the good ole USA is too safe and secure a place to have many interesting and different stories to tell. It seems that more creative views of the human condition are coming out of parts of the world where we didn't even know there was a film industry. Perhaps it is true that one cannot create truly meaningful art until one has seen enough suffering. The most suffering Hollywood exec's have ever faced is being unable to find a really good dry cleaner.
In watching the premieres of this television season's newest offerings, even the most promising shows are hybrids of other shows. Take, for example "Scorpion"....A show about a group of socially outcast geniuses enlisted by the government to save the world on a weekly basis. Nicely made, but at it's core, basically "The Big Bang Theory" as a drama.
"Forever" is about a guy who is immortal, made to repeatedly suffer the experiences of death and resurrection. On the surface it sounds original....He works currently as a medical examiner (recall "Quincy", and that other show from a season or two ago), helping a local female police detective solve murders (The typical sexual tension side story, the resolution to which will sign the death certificate for the series). In watching for a short while, one is reminded of "Bones," "Sleepy Hollow" and "Castle" all at once.
Remember "Groundhog Day"? The newest Tom Cruise movie, with shades of the invasion of Normandy.
We have blended-family sitcoms, lawyer shows, shows about creepy serial killer types, blatant copies of BBC t.v. series, and the ever-present reality t.v. show pitting neighbor against neighbor. Everything I relate to, and more.
Storytelling is an art, and most movie makers have yet to figure out how to translate the story into a visual that is filled with all of the subtleties and complex nuances of life...instead of hitting us over the head with the obvious. Too often the dialogue assumes that the audience is too dumb to understand any meaning in a character's body language (assuming there is any body language to read).
The funniest film I think I have ever seen is "Mr. Bean's Holiday". British actor Rowan Atkinson, who created the character of Mr. Bean for a BBC sitcom gives a brilliant performance of purely physical comedy in a film with hardly any dialogue at all. In the same vein as Peter Sellers' Clouseau, the physicality is just subtle enough to be believable, and makes for a joyful ride from beginning to end.
I enjoy all of Stephen King's novels, but the movies that have been made from them have absolutely none of the suspense of the books. The film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", despite having a stellar cast turned out to be a lesson in how utterly boring the lives of international spies can be.
"Wait Until Dark" with Audrey Hepburn is one of a handful of examples of artfully suspenseful film making. If you have never seen it, treat yourself! Hepburn is so fragile and vulnerable in her role as a blind woman fending off an intruder in her home, and keeping the majority of the scenes inside her apartment lends to the feeling of being trapped.
"Argo", Ben Affleck's presentation of the side story behind the Iranian hostage crisis is another well-done film. Even though you know how it will end, you are still kept on the edge of your seat until the very last scene. Mr. Affleck was a Middle-Eastern Studies major in college, and this film is a prime example of the first rule of artistic endeavour.....Create from what you know. I would love to see him delve further into this same story line, regarding the Dulles brothers' responsibility for the whole middle-eastern crisis which we currently face. Now, THERE'S a story!
Star Wars, although a well-told story is guilty of ushering in the special effects genre which has been a few-decades-long distraction for revenue-hungry studios. Too many movies have relied on effects to the exclusion of a decent story line or plausible acting, or both. The recent advent of new 3-D technology has renewed some excitement in the realm of effects-as-replacements-for content, but I don't think it will continue to be such a big deal. Beyond a certain point, your audience still needs an engaging story to fill in the spot between their eyes.
From one decade to the next, our film studios cling to the notion that profitability is more important than quality while forgetting that profitability is directly affected by quality or the lack thereof...either that, or they equate quality with "more visual commotion, less substance". I guess too much cocaine does that to your brain.
"Did you see what just happened?"
"No, did you?"
"No...I couldn't see anything."
"Yeah, just a couple flashes of light. So what just DID happen, anyways?"
"I dunno, but we've been mispronouncing "Gojira" for about sixty years."
"What, Bryan Cranston is dead already?? I thought he would be in a lot more of the movie."
"Are we ever going to actually see the monsters, or are they afraid of the light?"
"Oh look, there it is....Blurry, but there it is....The producers found an investor! Yeah!!"
"Oops, back to blackness...Something's going on, with all the screaming, but......Okay, how did Godzilla die? When did that happen?"
"Must have been when you blinked..."
Most of what Hollywood is cranking out these days is repetitive, unimaginative drivel. If it's an action film, the more bullets and explosions the better. If sci-fi, either you dazzle the eye with the most advanced special effects, or if on a budget, you create mostly very dimly lit scenes in which viewers can't see any of what is going on. Either way, the story line is nothing new. Romance? Guy gets girl, guy loses girl, guy does something selfless, guy gets girl back.
This complaint all by itself is nothing new either, which means the same old stories have been plaguing the screen for far too long. Heck, out of the nearly 200 movies that John Wayne made, how many of them are the same western with a different villain? He even wore the same clothes and rode the same horse in most of them. Not that I would disparage the Duke, because we all watch John Wayne movies to see John Wayne be John Wayne, regardless of the plot.......
Maybe the good ole USA is too safe and secure a place to have many interesting and different stories to tell. It seems that more creative views of the human condition are coming out of parts of the world where we didn't even know there was a film industry. Perhaps it is true that one cannot create truly meaningful art until one has seen enough suffering. The most suffering Hollywood exec's have ever faced is being unable to find a really good dry cleaner.
In watching the premieres of this television season's newest offerings, even the most promising shows are hybrids of other shows. Take, for example "Scorpion"....A show about a group of socially outcast geniuses enlisted by the government to save the world on a weekly basis. Nicely made, but at it's core, basically "The Big Bang Theory" as a drama.
"Forever" is about a guy who is immortal, made to repeatedly suffer the experiences of death and resurrection. On the surface it sounds original....He works currently as a medical examiner (recall "Quincy", and that other show from a season or two ago), helping a local female police detective solve murders (The typical sexual tension side story, the resolution to which will sign the death certificate for the series). In watching for a short while, one is reminded of "Bones," "Sleepy Hollow" and "Castle" all at once.
Remember "Groundhog Day"? The newest Tom Cruise movie, with shades of the invasion of Normandy.
We have blended-family sitcoms, lawyer shows, shows about creepy serial killer types, blatant copies of BBC t.v. series, and the ever-present reality t.v. show pitting neighbor against neighbor. Everything I relate to, and more.
Storytelling is an art, and most movie makers have yet to figure out how to translate the story into a visual that is filled with all of the subtleties and complex nuances of life...instead of hitting us over the head with the obvious. Too often the dialogue assumes that the audience is too dumb to understand any meaning in a character's body language (assuming there is any body language to read).
The funniest film I think I have ever seen is "Mr. Bean's Holiday". British actor Rowan Atkinson, who created the character of Mr. Bean for a BBC sitcom gives a brilliant performance of purely physical comedy in a film with hardly any dialogue at all. In the same vein as Peter Sellers' Clouseau, the physicality is just subtle enough to be believable, and makes for a joyful ride from beginning to end.
I enjoy all of Stephen King's novels, but the movies that have been made from them have absolutely none of the suspense of the books. The film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", despite having a stellar cast turned out to be a lesson in how utterly boring the lives of international spies can be.
"Wait Until Dark" with Audrey Hepburn is one of a handful of examples of artfully suspenseful film making. If you have never seen it, treat yourself! Hepburn is so fragile and vulnerable in her role as a blind woman fending off an intruder in her home, and keeping the majority of the scenes inside her apartment lends to the feeling of being trapped.
"Argo", Ben Affleck's presentation of the side story behind the Iranian hostage crisis is another well-done film. Even though you know how it will end, you are still kept on the edge of your seat until the very last scene. Mr. Affleck was a Middle-Eastern Studies major in college, and this film is a prime example of the first rule of artistic endeavour.....Create from what you know. I would love to see him delve further into this same story line, regarding the Dulles brothers' responsibility for the whole middle-eastern crisis which we currently face. Now, THERE'S a story!
Star Wars, although a well-told story is guilty of ushering in the special effects genre which has been a few-decades-long distraction for revenue-hungry studios. Too many movies have relied on effects to the exclusion of a decent story line or plausible acting, or both. The recent advent of new 3-D technology has renewed some excitement in the realm of effects-as-replacements-for content, but I don't think it will continue to be such a big deal. Beyond a certain point, your audience still needs an engaging story to fill in the spot between their eyes.
From one decade to the next, our film studios cling to the notion that profitability is more important than quality while forgetting that profitability is directly affected by quality or the lack thereof...either that, or they equate quality with "more visual commotion, less substance". I guess too much cocaine does that to your brain.
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