Solidarity

This is a picture of my friend Craig walking the WGA picket line in Los Angeles earlier this week. His TV show, Unhitched, for Fox is on hold due to the strike and Craig walked the line in support of the writers.

The day before Criag sent me the photo a former student and teaching assistant of mine who is now in Los Angeles e-mailed me to say she, too, was walking the line in support of the writers. Eliza Hajek is not a celebrity actress but an up and coming editor. She was offered an assistant editor position on Grey's Anatomy, but the show and job is on hold due to the strike.

I think these two stories really highlight some of the overlooked issues of the strike. While Craig is a successful actor who has money in the bank (though I am pretty sure he still owes me $50 from 20 years ago) and can ride out a strike, Eliza and her brethren are a few pay grades lower and while not living paycheck to paycheck, still need to pay the bills. I am glad to see them both on the line putting a different face on the battle between the writers and producers. And for everyone's sake I hope the strike ends soon.

PeterH

All The President's Men

Yesterday's post about Peter Morgan and his films The Deal, The Queen and The Last King of Scotland has me thinking about other movies that depict real news events in a dramatic fashion. How someone dramatizes and makes interesting a story that was recently headline news is beyond me. When it is done well I always like it.

Recently I saw A Mighty Heart starring a nearly unrecognizable Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, the wife of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002 and murdered by members of the Taliban. Jolie is great and honestly I don't know much of her work unless Brangelina is a film I missed. Here is the thing about this film: you know what is going to happen from frame one, yet you are riveted. Go figure. It's part detective story, part documentary, part love story and all terrific.

To me the touchstone of these real life films is All the President's Men. Here is a film that came out not long after Nixon resigned, when the country was Watergated to death, yet the film did huge box office, won Oscars and still holds me in its grip when I watch it.

Both films are about journalists and the slow, often boring process of discovery. Both have excellent performances by big name actors and both are gripping. Even though I know Woodward and Bernstein survived and Nixon would resign I still get spooked when I see Woodward in the garage with Deep Throat.

To me what makes All the President's Men work is the quality of filmmaking. Alan Pakula, the director, brought all of the elements together- great source material, an excellent script, top notch actors and great Gordon Willis visuals. It is a defining moment of translating a real story to the screen.

PeterH

The Real Deal

I saw the British Film The Deal the other day. The film depicts the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown during the Thatcher and Major eras of British politics. It was written by Peter Morgan (pictured here) who also wrote The Queen, The Last King of Scotland - about Idi Amin- and the play Frost/Nixon- which is being adapted into a film as well.

What interests me about Morgan is how he mines real events and real characters to create his drama. In a profile in the New Yorker a few months ago he said what interests him is not so much history, but "narratives in which real public figures are thrown into unlikely relationships." John Lahr reported, "as a storyteller, Morgan is drawn to volatile, ambiguous antagaonists, " and how ambition interests him "because it's sure fire indicator of damage." I wish my students could de-construct and define their work as well.

Peter Morgan came to screenwriting after a bout of stagefright stalled his acting career and I think he is a good example of how there are many different avenues into the film business. Yet, what impresses me the most about his work is how he is so certain of the types of stories that appeal to him. He has found his milieu and knows how to best mine it. I look forward to seeing his next project.

PeterH

More on interns

I am not done with this internship idea yet so hold on.

Another former MBC intern is my friend Jay Smith. Jay came to the museum as a college senior at Indiana University. At school he was a TV major and had a clear plan on how to get a job in the business. His first step was to get an internship at the museum.

The museum internship was critical to Jay's overall plan because MBC president Brice DuMont was also a correspondent and producer at Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW. Jay knew that if he got in good with Bruce he would have a better shot at getting one of WTTW's paid internships after graduation the following year.

Sure enough his plan worked. He parlayed his free MBC intenship to a paid internship the next summer. When that internship expired WTTW hired him full time on their flagship news program, Chicago Tonight. 18 years later he is going strong and is now the managing producer of that program. Over these 18 years he has also written and produced many other programs and documentaries for WTTW, but it all started with a vision he had while in college on the steps he needed to take to get the job he wanted.

So, like former intern Dan in my previous post, this too comes full circle. When I got my Flashpoint job I told Jay he needed to do a piece on the school- the first new college in Chicago in 40 years. He said he would when the time was right. The time was right this past Tuesday. Mayor Daley did the official ribbon cutting at Flashpoint and that evening on Chicago Tonight there was a piece on Flashpoint Academy and brief snippet of the dumb filmmaker. A quid pro quo of sorts.

PeterH

Interns

A few weeks ago I wrote about my internship at a TV station and how valuable it was to my professional development. Today I want to talk about the farther reaching value interns can have.

I have said many times that before my Flashpoint gig I have had only one "real" job and that was from 1987-1989 when I worked for the Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC). At the museum we were lucky enough to have several good interns and many of us remain friends to this day.

Our first intern was Dan Lerner. Hard to believe it now, but he was a senior in high school when we met. Your classic over achiever,Dan was writing for the ACLU newsletter and looking to get his foot in any door when he showed up at the museum. Frankly, I don't remember what he did- he probably watched a lot of old TV and recorded it into our archives. Mostly we talked sports- such great conversations as who would you rather have in centerfield Kirby Puckett or Dale Murphy (years later Dan finally agreed with me about Kirby Puckett.) Dan was a good guy and worked hard and we liked having him around.

The night before he went off to college Mike Mertz, MBC archivist, and I took Dan out on the town and said goodbye. (Out on the town in this case means we grabbed a pizza and went to the batting cages. C'mon the museum only paid me $7.25 and hour and only so much town can be had for that kind of coin.)

Dan and I have remained friends over the years. Today he is a political consultant and filmmaker. I am helping produce his film (four years+ in the making) about rock-a-billy legend Sleepy LaBeef. This weekend Sleepy is performing with lots of other stars at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a concert for Jerry Lee Lewis. Dan will be there, cameras rolling, getting the show and hopefully nabbing interviews with Kris Kristofferson (who saw Sleepy during his college days at Columbia University), Chrissy Hynde and others.

My point with this post is that the benefits of internships work both directions. 20 years ago Dan was a real help to us at the museum and today I get to reciprocate by helping him with his film. Though he has done all the heavy lifting on the film I will get a nice credit and more importantly feel we have come full circle from his days as our intern.

Tomorrow another intern story.

PeterH

Days of Wine and Roses

I often have a problem watching films about addiction and recovery. Even in the best ones there seems to be some sort of artificiality I can not get past. In The Days of Wine and Roses Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick are great, but there comes a point in the film where it gets preachy and we can see the ending coming 45 minutes in advance. Worse, to me, is Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend. Milland set the standard for the bad drunk, but the D.T. scene is laughable- did they spend any money on that fake bat attack? Yet, the film won Oscars and for years was the touchstone for films about alcoholism.

Films just about addiction are no good. I like Leaving Las Vegas and really appreciate the director Mike Figgis, but I don't need to see Nicolas Cage drink himself to death. I get it already. The typical film is this: I am a junkie, it's fun for a while, it gets out of control, I leave a wake of destruction- physical and emotional- in my path, then I die miserably. In other words see Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, ad. nausea.

Films just about recovery are perhaps worse because we see none of the fun and we get preached at for two hours. These films actually make me want to drink. More. Right there in the theater. Where is the Martini concession? Is there a Pinot Noir vendor anywhere?

Take a pass on Clean and Sober (though I like Michael Keaton) and especially When a Man Loves a Woman a Meg Ryan/Andy Garcia film. A good idea by Al Franken gone bad through a series of unfortunate filmmaking events. (No one knew the film they were trying to make.) A far superior film written by the same Al Franken is Stuart Saves His Family. Franken knows something about alcoholic families and co-dependency and Stuart is a surprisingly nice film.

All of this brings me to two films I saw recently that have a different take on addiction and recovery, but to me were maybe the most valid of all the films. Interestingly they both deal with killers, but in very different ways.
You Kill Me stars the always terrific Ben Kingsley as a hit man for the Buffalo, NY Polish mob who is sent to San Francisco to dry out. In S.F. he gets a job in a funeral home, where he meets Tea Leoni (who also produced the film. I wonder what attracted her to the material?) and goes to A.A. He gets a sponsor and gets his life together. There are several scenes in the A.A. meeting and several more with his sponsor, Luke Wilson. Though it is a dark comedy it touches on issues about addiction and recovery that those other films don't.

The other film is Mr. Brooks starring Kevin Costner and William Hurt. Costner is Mr. Brooks, Portland, Oregon's man of the year and a serial killer. (Where do they come up with these ideas?) He wants to stop killing but his alter ego, William Hurt, won't let him. He goes to A.A. meetings where all he says is that he is an addict and leaves it at that.

The thing that struck me about both these films is the power of the anonymous group and how people could sit and talk or not, but it was clear recovery was a process they were all going through. Very interesting, though a little thin on the fake bat attack scenes.

Peter H

A victimless crime?

Years ago a made a film called Victimless Crimes. It was about a pair of art thieves who stole paintings with the theory that no one got hurt. The gallery owner got his insurance money, the artists had already been paid, so why not rip them off. See, a victimless crime. Aren't I clever.

While I enjoy referencing myself and my work, I am bringing it up because of the issues I recently blogged about- file sharing and file stealing. I wouldn't steal a library book or a computer. Why would I steal a computer file? Why would I take something I know has been stolen? Just because the software company, or Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington in the case of American Gangster. Aren't physically around as one takes their property does not make it OK.

On one of my first posts I wrote about You Tube and how much I disliked them. The main reason was because of all of the illegal work up there. At the time I mentioned my own work with Denny Dent was available on You Tube because someone had taken a copy and posted it. While they did it as a tribute to Denny, and at first I was flattered, now I am greatly bothered.

fEERtherepEER, the person who posted it, needs to know that what they did was wrong. And while I appreciate the 47,851 views (minus my two viewings) you do not have my permission to use it. It is my work, my property. Stop.

This is not a victimless crime.

PeterH