From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #94 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Monday, June 30 2003 Volume 02 : Number 094 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 16:05:11 -0700 From: "Jongiorgi Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Introductions: Sam Brown Welcome, Sam! I've enjoyed your posts already. Actually, I'm glad to have an MD and a possible researcher in the infectious disease world on the List (just as I'm glad we have at least one astronomer, and a truckload of other really smart, specialized people!). I may want to pick your brains some day on several projects I'm tinkering with! What a fun, diverse and wonderful group is here. Welcome! Jongiorgi Enos - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:54:17 -0400 From: Tony Markham Subject: Re: [AML] (Des News) Dutcher _Joseph_ project Annette Lyon wrote: > "Preston Sturges' masterpiece, _Sullivan's Travels_ > which was, tangentially, provided the germ for _O Brother Where Art Thou_" > > Actually, the opening credits say that _O Brother Where Art Thou_ is based > on the _Odyssey_. Well yes, but in Sullivan's Travels, the successful director, played so wonderfully by Joel McRae, abandons his formulaic fare of romantic comedies to write and direct the Great American Epic filled with pathos and suffering. In several pitch meetings, Sullivan's working title for this film was _O Brother Where Art Thou_. It was his quest to find the source material for this mythic film that became the basis for _Sullivan's Travels_, which is why I called it the "germ" for the Cohen Brothers' film. Turning this back to the original thread, I'd like to see Richard Dutcher write and direct a film about his trials to produce the Joseph Smith story. I vote he name it _O Profit Where Art Thou_. Pun intended. Finally, this coming semester, I have included _Brigham City_ in my film class syllabus. Thanks to Richard for the DVD. If he plans any trips to NY between Sept. and Dec. it would be an honor to have him visit, coinciding with the viewing. Tony Markham - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:29:40 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] D. Michael's Film Lab 5: THE ULTIMATE TERMINATOR PARTY Jared Walters wrote: > I wouldn't be too hasty to count T3 out as bad sequel just yet. Relax, my lack of expectation will likely help the movie. I'm very much sensitive to expectations. The worst thing that could happen for a film is to have a bunch of hype saying how great it is. I go in expecting magic and can often come away disappointed. Not because the film bad, but because it didn't live up to my impossible expectations. On the other hand, if I go in expecting a poor movie because the hype has been disparaging, often I've come out thinking, "That wasn't as bad as they said. I enjoyed it pretty good." So if I'm worried that Terminator 3 will be bad and go in with low expectations, that's an advantage for the film. > While it's true that the odds on a 2nd sequel being praiseworthy aren't good, there are quite a few third movies that turned out quite good. A couple that come to mind are Rocky 3 Rocky 3 may be the one and only exception in existence. The first three Rockies were good (after that, ho hum). > not as good as the first 2 But of course, your opinion here follows the pattern I described. Godfather 3 wasn't a bad movie--it just appeared bad in comparison to the brilliance of the first two movies. (Alien 3, on the other hand, was just bad.) So to say Rocky 3 didn't compare favorably to 1 and 2 is exactly what I'm talking about. > Return of the Jedi (my opinion is that it was better than the first movie), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (not as good as Raiders, but better than Temple) My wife brought these up too when I regaled her with my wisdom on T3. But Star Wars doesn't count. It was envisioned as a single story from the beginning which was told in three installments, not true sequels. Sequels are stand-alone stories where the next continues where the previous left off. For true sequels, the historic patterns have been: GOOD BAD BAD or the more rare GOOD GOOD BAD. For three-part installments, the pattern is usually: GOOD BAD GOOD. Star Wars is a single three-installment story, not sequels. Lord of the Rings is also, and I fully expect it to follow the same pattern. Those middle installments are always tough. (BAD, by the way, is meant relative to GOOD, not necessarily bad in an absolute sense.) Indiana Jones is perhaps the one and only example of sequels that follow the installment pattern: GOOD BAD GOOD. (if it's not, I'm sure I'll hear about it.) But that still doesn't match the GOOD GOOD GOOD I'm hoping T3 can pull off. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:40:08 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] _Paint Your Wagon_ (Review) Tony Markham wrote: > And let's add to the crimes that the film producers replaced Julie Andrews who absolutely owned the role of Eliza Yes, that was a crime with the movie, but doesn't reflect on the musical at all. > with Audrey Hepburn whose singing voice was so bad it was dubbed over. I've heard Audrey's pre-dubbed voice singing "Wouldn't It Be Loverly." She actually didn't do bad. I believe her real voice could have been used without harming the movie at all. In fact, I think it might have made it more charming, instead of that obviously dubbed, sterile voice. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:00:40 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] HOWARD-JOHNSON, Carolyn _Harkening_ (Review) Quoting Katie: Nowhere in _This Is the Place_ is there an LDS character who really loves the Church and really believes it and tries to live a truly Christlike life. They all simply carry a grim sense of duty. Is this being objective? Good to hear from Katie Parker about This is the Place. I agree with you that no LDS person is fleshed out here. The best Carolyn can do, I feel is to portray her Mormon relatives in a loving way. I thought she treated them "fairly" if not "objectively." But you are right. I think what you are asking for is something Carolyn could not have done--deal with an LDS person from inside an LDS person. (This is why it's important for a believing MORMON person needs to write about believing Mormons. According to the nation, they don't even exist.) I also felt the direction in the book was not that compelling, true. However, it was gratifying to read about LDS people from someone who was not completely ANTI, as in most national literature about Mormons (Peter Bart? Etc.). I felt she got things fairly correct, except you are right, she never portrayed a Mormon person who truly believed and loved the church and was trying to live a Christlike life. That's why AML listers need to write their novels! I felt Carolyn is a poet more than she is a novelist. So write your novel! (And send it to the contest by July 1.) Cheerio! Marilyn Brown > - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:09:26 -0600 From: "Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] (Des News) Dutcher _Joseph_ project Interesting post, Sam. I wish you much luck! One of my most compelling goals in life was to write the Joseph Smith story in the voices of the women who knew him. I wrote three chapters and the project was staunched by several untoward circumstances that don't bear repeating. Anyway, I made a decision that the project was much too delicate to treat, a decision that a woman who worked for the Relief Society magazine years ago, Vesta Crawford, made about her treatment of Emma Smith. She had done years of research, etc., and finally kicked it out. The Emma Smith volume we do have is very revealing, but the authors had some trouble, I hear. Anybody know about it? Anyway, I would rather write fiction about myself and my "search" for the truth (a very suspenseful subject!) than take up Joseph Smith and the controversies. However, I will say that I trust Dutcher greatly. Working with his BIGHAM CITY script is a joy. (I'm on page 245 and 43 pages of script to get through) He is clever, careful, and tight. And I will say that the Joseph Smith story will out. It is likely it will become a literary subject, and it will be varied and clarified through the eyes of many artists, but the risk for ME at this time to perform that task is daunting, and I can understand all of the problems he is having. Bravo for his perseverence! Marilyn Brown - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:31:38 -0600 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: [AML] BofM Movie Gossip Here's an item making the Internet rounds: Nephi Gets Nekked Canadian hunk Noah Danby, who will play the heroic role of Nephi in the upcoming Book of Mormon Movie, has appeared completely naked, in bed with another man, in a 2001 episode of the gay-themed miniseries Queer As Folk. As Danby admits on his own website, he has played Tattoo--a gay man with whom Brian Kinney has a one night stand. Queer as Folk Episode 105 begins with a sequence that captures Tattoo and Brian naked in bed. "I'm the guy you f***ed last night," Tattoo explains to a groggy Brian. Danby is also the man behind the mask of Captain Astro in Episode 111 of the same series. So--how does Danby feel about playing the part of Nephi? "He and I are kindred spirits," says Danby on the Book of Mormon Movie website. Although that website lists Danby's many professional credits, his gay roles as Tattoo and Captain Astro are two that the Book of Mormon Movie site conspicuously neglects. Link to Noah Danby's website: http://www.noahdanby.com Link to The Book of Mormon Movie website: http://www.bookofmormonmovie.com Link to Picture 1 (enlarged) http://nephi.gq.nu/images/nephi.jpg Link to Picture 2 (enlarged) http://nephi.gq.nu/images/nephi_02.jpg (Forwarded by Chris Bigelow) - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:35:20 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Next AML Conferences: When? famax@verizon.net wrote: > > What are the dates for the AML Writers' Conference this fall Saturday, Nov 1. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:03:19 -0600 From: "R.W. Rasband" Subject: [AML] "Hancock County" Televised on KBYU-TV According to the KBYU-TV website http://www.kbyutv.org a video version of Tim Slover's fine play about the trial of the killers of Joseph Smith, "Hancock County", is going to be televised. The dates are Sunday June 29 at 9:00 p.m. mountain time and Sunday July 6 at 1:00 a.m. mountain time. For a review of the original production see http://www.aml-online.org/reviews/b/B200220.html R.W. Rasband Heber City, UT rrasband@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2003 10:41:17 -0600 From: "Eugene Woodbury" Subject: Re: [AML] BofM Movie Gossip Well, half a mea culpa, I had no idea a Book of Mormon movie was being made (hey, what's with their publicity department?). Come to think about it, there are precedents here, the series of Book of Mormon animated videos that were released several years ago. Is that an ongoing concern? There was even an outlet at University Mall. I seem to recall--and I do recall my mom's expressed annoyance on the subject (she was teaching Primary at the time)--some grumbling from 50 E. North Temple about the embellishments introduced into the plot lines to make the story more palatable to the target audience. The concern was that these fictional additions were supplanting scriptural facts, much in the same way that when people think Moses, they now think Charlton Heston and Cecil B. DeMille. Though is that necessarily a bad thing? My fallback stance is that Joseph Smith still constitutes a different ball of wax (or celluloid). Amadeus, to compare, was a fine movie, but it was no biography. Attenborough took great liberties with the facts in Gandhi. Biopics about Patton and MacArthur could be narrowed and focused and told basically as war movies. Has anybody made a noteworthy (and accurate) movie about an American president? Nothing springs immediately to mind. I haven't seen Jefferson in Paris, but, again, that was a very small (and controversial) slice from a much larger life. There is, after all, a difference between a "movie" and a Ken Burns documentary. Should some documentary material remain documentary material? Thanks to Mormon's authorial voice, the Book of Mormon has a clear, even strident, narrative pace and intent ("it writes itself"). Stories of Christ tend to fall back on Passion Play structures because that structure is so tried and true (and restricted and limited). As secular examinations of human nature they can be dramatically satisfying as long as you pretty much forget what they're supposed to be ultimately about, but I have found the lot of them to be theologically pallid and almost scripturally beside the point. (Best movie about Christ: Life of Brian, because it was about what Christ represented, not about Christ.) Likewise, Joseph Smith was a person who lived a life, not a script. What thread of that garment do you then decide to pull, and what unravels when you do? Eugene Woodbury - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #94 *****************************