MOVIE THOUGHTS: ATONEMENT

Pretentious, self-indulgent, unsatisfying in the end, and full of itself. I know this movie has fans, but I am not one of them. (And neither is the friend I saw it with.)

Pass. See something else.

MOVIE THOUGHTS: CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

Growing up in the general L.A. area, I noticed mysterious notations at the very bottom of movie ads around this time of year: "Academy members: Your card will admit you and a guest to any screening."

Wow, I would think. Not only do the Academy members get the Oscars, they get free movies on top of that!

Some years ago, that perk was extended to the Guilds -- the WGA, DGA... well, not SAG, because they're so huge, but their nominating committee at least. Basically anyone with awards to give out.

Which means it's "free movie" season, and this year we're in a better position to take advantage of it than we have been in a while (all that strike-provided free time). So look to see some movie thoughts appearing here over the next few weeks.

Today, it's Charlie Wilson's War.

Charlie Wilson's War is a pleasant movie, definitely not a waste of time, though I really don't see what all the awards talk is all about. (Probably it's based on the movie's pedigree -- Mike Nichols directing, Aaron Sorkin writing, Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts/Philip Seymour Hoffman starring... and not on the actual movie.)

Based on actual events, Charlie Wilson's War tells the story of hard-drinking, hard-flirting Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson's successful efforts to fund a covert war backing the Afghans against the Soviets in the 80s.

The story is told with a lot of snappy, very enjoyable dialogue, as one would expect of Sorkin. It's pretty straightforward in the telling: Tom Hanks, as Charlie, has his consciousness raised (or something like that) by the efforts of socialite do-gooder Julia Roberts concerning the plight of the poor Afghans being decimated by the Soviets. He teams up with CIA geek Hoffman to learn more, then charmingly twists arms to appropriate money to fund this secret war. He starts asking for $5 million, ends up with a billion and change by the end of it. The Afghans beat back the Soviets. The CIA gives Charlie a secret medal.

Performances are good, with Tom Hanks burying himself in a character more than I've seen in quite a while. When Hanks and Hoffman are onscreen together, things positively crackle. Julia Roberts does the best she can do with a truly horrendous hairstyle that ages her a good 15 years, and with really no purpose for her character (you could pull the character completely out of the movie, tweak a few lines here and there, and move forward without realizing you'd missed anything).

Production values are decent, though the stock footage used to show the Afghan story is a mess. Some is highly degraded, some is fine, but it's all smushed together willy-nilly. Perhaps what we're seeing here is Nichols' lack of experience in directing (or editing) action. If he'd degraded all the stock footage (including the new stuff that was cut in with the stock), maybe sepia'd it all to give it some style, it would have been much stronger (and much less boring).

The reason the movie doesn't rise to award-caliber, however, has nothing to do with the performances (I wouldn't be too surprised to see a nomination or two, though no awards) or the actual production. It has to do with the decisions made prior to (or during) the writing.

Yes, the dialogue is superb. Hilarious, at times. But this is a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. The fact that it's nominated in the "Comedy/Musical" category of the Golden Globes speaks to this: Charlie Wilson's War is definitely not a comedy. But with all that hyper-witty dialogue, and with the lightness of tone that suggests that what's happening here really was just a fun little interlude, it's hard to see it as a drama either.

But it wasn't a fun little interlude. As the movie hints at (with the closing quote, and with Hoffman's enigmatic "Zen master" story near the close), but never never comes out and says, this covert "war" was the immediate cause of the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fact that the movie is scared to come out and say this (only dropping those hints for those already in the know) is almost a plea on the part of the filmmakers for the audience not to take them too seriously.

And that part of the movie works. It's hard to take Charlie Wilson's War seriously. Fun, witty, enjoyable, yes. Important? Award-worthy? Nope.

Now if Oliver Stone had made this movie... that would have been worth taking seriously.

CHRISTMAS DURING A STRIKE

Christmas during a strike turns out to be very odd. We pretend things are normal. But they're not.

No party this year. That was a shock to our kids, who thought of our annual Christmas party as something immutable. Few festivities to go to. (Are people having fewer parties? Or are we not being invited -- to, say, parties thrown by producers -- because we're writers on strike?) Far fewer presents under the tree. No cards. No newsletter. No Christmas picture (another shock for the kids).

In other ways, which I won't detail here, things are strange for us this year. And so we see our kids clinging to every bit of tradition they can. Normally we drag them to light the candles on our Advent wreath. This year at every opportunity they reminded us, "Are we going to light the Advent candles?"

A few years ago, we decided to bake a birthday cake for Jesus. Little did I realize, if we do something Christmas-related only once, it immediately becomes a ritual. This year, Jesus's tastes seem to have become more sophisticated. He's always been happy with chocolate cake from a mix before, but this year only a carrot cake from scratch will do. (So today is baking day.)

Tonight we'll go to the early service at church. We'll come home and each open one present. We'll share Jesus's birthday cake. It will all seem normal. But, at least for me, it's all against a background of not-normal. It's as if we could pull back the camera at any instant and see that we're really on a sound stage and none of this is real.

Tomorrow everyone gets whatever they want for breakfast. ("Mom, could I have a Guitar Hero III for breakfast?" Cory asked.) Sabrina is having chocolate chip pancakes and pomegranate ice cream. Cory is having cranberry bliss bars and pomegranate ice cream. Lee is having orange chicken and fried rice.

Then we open presents (and yes, thanks to that savvy eBaying by mom, there will be a Guitar Hero III... though it will be Sabrina's name that's on it). My mother can't join us this year, for many reasons, so we will go down to her house in the afternoon, then go to some good friends for Christmas dinner. We're extremely grateful for that -- probably the most "real" Christmas thing we'll do.

And then comes New Year's. Usually we look ahead, I make my resolutions, we feel the hope that New Year's brings. But this year, New Year's brings... well, more striking. Uncertainty. Not a lot of hope. Maybe the strike will end in January/February after the force majeure cards are played. But maybe not.

It's odd to feel such uncertainty at Christmastime. I realize most of the world lives in greater uncertainty at all times than we do now. But it's still odd.

Nevertheless, it's still Christmas. It's the Christmas we've got, even if not the one we'd like to have.

So here's wishing you all (those of you who have stuck around despite the dearth of my recent blogging!) (and for whom I'm grateful) a very Merry Christmas and a Hopeful New Year.

IN PRAISE OF THE POST OFFICE

Every year I send a box of Christmas gifts to my stepbrother and his family in northern California. I don't mind the shopping and wrapping. It's the shipping that always drives me crazy. Finding (or buying -grr) the right size box. Packing it, stuffing in newspaper. Sealing it.

Then the joy of standing in line... standing in line... standing in line... to get it weighed and postaged. And of course it's usually right around the busiest post office day of the year (yesterday) that I end up ready to ship. So that line is immense.

This year, I had a little bit of early shipping to do. Okay, I'll confess. My kids want Guitar Hero III for their Wii. Impossible to find. And it costs $100, way out of range for a striking writer. I checked on eBay, but of course there were no deals there, not for something to hard to find. In fact, all the GH III's for the Wii were going for a premium.

Hmmm. Now there's an idea...

So a couple of weeks ago, I happened to be driving on a freeway I never take, through a part of town I never drive through. In fact, I was in Compton, famous for its gangs and homicide rate. And I saw a brand new shopping center off the freeway. Best Buy. Home Depot. Target.

On a whim, I got off the freeway and worked my way back. Best Buy was sold out. But Target had -- get this -- 16 GH III's for the Wii. The only store in town to even have one of them!

I bought 6. One for my kids, 5 for eBay. And I've sold all 5, earning just enough to cover the cost of the game for my kids.

Yes, I know, this is supposed to be about the post office. We're getting there.

I haven't sold anything on eBay in years, and everything I've sold before has been envelope-sized. So I was delighted to see that Paypal would allow me to print and pay for a shipping label for my GH IIIs. Lots of line-standing avoided. Thanks, Paypal!

Back to the gifts for my stepbrother. I got them all packed this morning, got ready for that looooong line at the post office --

And then I wondered. If the post office will let me print and pay for a shipping label through eBay and PayPal, maybe I can just do it on my own.

Yes! I did it at usps.gov. And it was easy. Amazingly easy. And it took a matter of minutes -- less time than it would take to drive to the post office, much less park, wait in line, wait in line, wait in line, and then drive home.

Maybe you all knew this. Maybe you're laughing at me for just now figuring this out. Go ahead. Laugh. With not much to be glad over around here, the sheer ease and efficiency of this just made my day.

And if you didn't know about it, now you can avoid the lines, too!

SEVEN WEEKS... AND A GREAT LINK

We're now in the seventh week of the strike. And it's guaranteed to go ten weeks, as everything is shutting down this week till after New Year's. (There's a big WGA meeting tonight, a rally sponsored by the TV crime writers outside the AMPTP offices tomorrow, and that's it till January 7.)

We should be getting depressed and weary. But somehow, resolve seems just as strong among writers as it did week 1. That's actually pretty cool.

Here's a terrific essay by WGA member Bob Elisberg appearing on the Huffington Post. A quick snip from it so you'll see why you should click over...

Most people misunderstand why the Writers Guild of America is striking, too. But most can grasp it once it's explained. The AMPTP, not so much.

You see, writers have long had a credo of "Pass it on." When I say "long," I mean cave-dwellers, sitting around the fire, enthralling listeners with tales of hope, terror, laughter and enchantment. Passing on stories is a writer's reason for being -- and at the core of that, they pass on their craft to other writers. Writers can be argumentative, isolated and petulant, but they adore what they do -- to sit alone for a lifetime, dreaming up ways to enthrall others, you have to adore what you do -- and so they have a burning desire to see that devotion continued. And so, they pass it on.

I've been saying for a while that there's one thing the AMPTP seems to have forgotten in this strike. They've forgotten that we're writers. For instance, they seem to think that because they pay big bucks to a PR firm, and we have no PR firm, they'll win the PR war. But we're writers. We know how to think. We know how to communicate. It's what we do.

The AMPTP may have all the money. But it turns out money isn't the only weapon in this struggle. If there's one thing this strike has done for me, and for many others, it's to make me proud that I'm a writer. And proud to be a member of my Guild.

Anyway, click over to the HuffPost article. Well-written, well worth reading.

LOOKING FOR A PROJECT...

When you take those "career" questionnaires in college, one of the parameters often used to help you decide what you should do for a living revolves around the concept of whether you're more "routine-oriented" or "project-oriented."

Do you like to do the same thing every day (see patients, answer phones, patrol streets, sell sweaters)? Or do you like to see a project through from start to finish, then start something else (plan events, run campaigns, build houses, make movies)?

For me, it was never a question. Since I was 8 or 9, I've known I'm highly project-oriented. People ask me, "Do you have to write?" And I answer, "No. I don't have to write. Lee has to write. I can write. But I have to organize, to plan."

Right now, however, I have nothing to plan. No project.

Normally, this time of year, I would be up my ears in Christmas. We usually throw a Christmas party, which is usually quite large (120+). We give little gifts to all our guests (something else to plan and execute in itself), and of course there are the invitations, tracking the RSVPs, planning menus, cleaning cleaning cleaning, shopping, wrapping...

We're not having a party this year, for obvious reasons. This is the first time in over 20 years we aren't having any party at all.

Maybe we should be working on a spec script. And we sort of are. But it's remarkably hard to write when you're on strike, I'm finding. And knowing you can't show it to anyone sort of takes the juice out of it all.

Maybe I should find something else to write, then. But frankly, nothing else I could write (not going back to All I Need To Know I Learned From Harry Potter, not either of the screenwriting books) stands a chance of earning back financially any decent recompense for the time put into it, probably not even minimum wage. And when you're on strike, somehow the financial issues come to the forefront.

Even picketing can only take you so far. And the pickets shut down for the holidays in 5 days anyway.

I'm not looking for a way to fill my days (volunteering at my kids' schools, feeding the homeless, walking the picket line, grading papers, running errands). I need a project. Something I can see through from beginning to end. Something I can first plan, then execute, then finish.

I expected to give up a lot in going on strike. My expectations have certainly been correct. But this one caught me by surprise: The need for a project.

MAYBE THEY REALLY DON'T GET IT

The AMPTP has been insisting since before the strike that they don't understand the Internet. "It's too new!" How can anyone possibly figure out how to make money off it?!

Maybe they were (for a change) telling the truth.

The AMPTP has, of course, a website. www.amptp.org.. Rather blah, but it's not like they're writers or anything.

But it seems, when they bought their domain name, they neglected to buy all their domain names.

So a writer did it for them. Check out www.amptp.com. (Hilarious! The best laugh of the strike!)

(A warning: Some language issues, if those things bother you. And I wouldn't encourage you to click on the "Just For Fun" link.)

I guess they really don't know how the Internet works after all...

WEEK SIX OF THE STRIKE

The AMPTP (the organization which negotiates on behalf of the studios andnetworks) walked away from the bargaining table on Friday. Given that theyhad their press release out to the media less than 5 minutes from walkingout (a press release which had to be not only written, but approved by representativesof each and every studio and network ahead of time), it would seem exceedinglynaive to think they walked out spontaneously.

It's going to be a long strike. January. Maybe February. (And if it doesn't settle by mid-February, probably July.)

But there have been some high points.

For instance, yesterday Lee joined the "Star Trek" picket at Paramount. At thepicket were Star Trek stars and writers from every incarnation of the show(George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Brent Spiner, Armin Shimmerman, Walter Koenig,Scott Bakula... and more). Lee went wearing (of course) his WGA-approvedbright red strike shirt, and carried a sign reading, "Studios -- Don't Killthe Redshirts!"

Other signs on the line included "Writers are Not Expendable" (carried by a guy in a red shirt, of course) and "Residuals are Not Futile." And Lee came home with a cool t-shirt -- on the front it says "Logic Dictates that The Needs of the Many Outweigh The Needs of the Few." And on the back it has a "Live long and prosper" image, and says "Trekkies Support the Writers -- Strikedate December 10, 2007."

Okay, we all have to let our inner geek out once in a while.

There's a Heroes picket today, but we're not going to make it in time. A little geekiness goes a long way.

JUST A LITTLE KVELLING, IF YOU DON'T MIND

Sabrina really didn't want to be in our church's Advent musical this year. Or rather, she wanted to be in it, but only if she had a speaking role. Trouble is, she didn't tell anyone she wanted a speaking role. Not me, not the director (who's an old friend and Sabrina knows her well). So, of course, she ended up with a singing role, not a speaking role.

She cried. I told her she had to let someone know if she wanted a specific role. She wanted to quit. I wouldn't let her.

She did get a solo, of course. And then another solo. And then when one of the girls assigned to yet another solo couldn't handle the music, it became a duet with Sabrina keeping her on track. So she ended up with a lot of time in front of a mike.

And I ended up being very proud of her. For two reasons.

First -- the day before the big show, one of the moms involved w/ the staging threw a screaming fit at the director. Right in front of kids and parents alike -- "Your show would be nothing without me!," that kind of thing. Really inappropriate, very melodramatic. Well, it turns out this same mom threw the same kind of irrational screaming tirade at me a year or so ago, and the director knew it. So she called, extremely upset, to tell us about it, and to ask: If the screaming mom pulled her kid from the show at the last minute, would Sabrina learn that child's speaking role and step in?

Well, I was pretty sure this mom would do nothing of the kind. But I told Sabrina about the director's request, just because I wanted her to be aware (just in case), and because I wanted her to know how much the director trusted her.

And here's where I was proud the first time: Sabrina, essentially being offered a shot at the speaking role she had wanted so badly, told me that while of course she would love the role, and of course she would help the director out, she really hoped her friend showed up for the show because she had worked so hard on the role and it would be such a disappointment to her if she didn't get to go on.

Sabrina's friend was late for her call time. So I saw Sabrina's face when she actually showed up. Sabrina was so happy that her friend didn't miss her chance to be onstage. Even in the part Sabrina wanted. And I was proud.

Then came the show. Sabrina sang her solos which, frankly, turned out to be better "roles" than any of the kids' speaking roles she had coveted (all the good lines and funny moments went to the adult characters). One of her solos, in the song "Some Children See Him," was actually quite musically difficult. The other soloists had some problems hitting their notes, but Sabrina was right on. She was luminous and sang beautifully.

And afterward, we were approached by a couple of people. One was a musician we know pretty well at church who praised Sabrina for being rock-solid and absolutely reliable. He had watched her in rehearsals, he said, and not only did she have a beautiful instrument, she got it exactly right every single time. High praise from this guy.

Then I was approached by a total stranger, who introduced himself as a professional singer. He couldn't stop raving about Sabrina's voice (her resonances, something about her soft palate -- someone would have to interpret half his comments to me). He told us that the level of emotion she sings with (something she's had since she was 5) can't be taught and is incredibly precious, told us that her musicality and tonality were incredible, said she was the only real singer on the stage that night, kept saying she has a gift and we must support it. He went on for a good 10 minutes, all out of nowhere. I don't even know his name.

(An interesting side note -- both men told us she shouldn't have voice lessons for another year or two, but that she should start piano right away for the understanding of musical structure that she's going to need. Hmm.)

We've always known Sabrina could sing. We listen to her sing for (sometimes) hours a day. But somehow having these comments come at us drove it home in a new way.

Sabrina's had a rocky year in many ways, and for her to get this kind of affirmation was so lovely. It just made her glow. "I guess I know I'm good at something," she said. (Says the little girl with almost straight A's!)

So pardon my kvelling. But on both levels -- talent and grace -- I was so proud of my little girl this weekend.

GETTING CAUGHT UP...

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted here, and I can't believe anyone's still checking in! Thank you for your patience.

The past couple of weeks have been extremely discombobulating for many reasons, and I feel as if I am just getting my head above water to grab a breath. But a few thoughts....

A Thankful Thought

A long overdue thanks to John Granger for his lovely post on my behalf. It was so nice, in the first days of the strike, to hear kind thoughts from people in my "other" world.

A Weary Thought

The strike continues. Hopes were high among some (not among me) when the writers and producers returned to the negotiating table last week. But though talks resume tomorrow, they appear to be getting nowhere.

A lot of non-industry friends of mine caught the false hope. "I hear the producers have made a really good offer!" they'd tell me. But no. Here's a sample. Right now if a writer writes a half-hour sitcom and it is re-run on its original broadcast network, the writer receives $11,000 and change for that re-run. (That is not a residual payment, by the way; it's part of the originally contracted amount for writing the show in the first place. Residuals are for re-use in a different broadcast venue than the original showing, and a re-run on the same network is not a different broadcast venue, it's the same one.)

But when was the last time you saw a lot of re-runs on TV? All the re-runs are going to the internet. And what do the studios want to pay for that first re-run (same show, same time frame, just moved to a different channel)? Nothing for the first six weeks. (You know, the time when most people would be most likely to go looking for that re-run, the time period in which the studios can charge the most to the advertisers.) And then $139 to cover all re-runs for the next year.

That's not a "good offer." It's a 99% rollback.

So we have a loooong way to go.

My guess is that we won't see movement until January, when the studios/networks are legally able to cancel (or "force majeure") their standing deals with dozens of writers and actors, netting themselves hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm thinking that might be the key moment to get some serious talking going. We'll see.

You can check out more here -- more information, more links to cool videos, etc.

An Enchanting Thought

In the middle of the discombobulation and sweat, we took a moment to see Enchanted. What a lovely movie! Sweet, fun, fresh, relaxing, witty. I'll try to blog a real post about it soon. But don't wait for me to do that -- just go see it!

...

Okay, that's all I can manage for now. Back tomorrow (I hope?!) with either that post about Enchanted or some thoughts that I am still working out about my lovely Sabrina's burgeoning gift and what to do about it....

But at least I'm back. That's a start... Thanks for sticking around.