From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #189 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 Tuesday, October 14 2003 Volume 02 : Number 189 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 19:49:27 -0600 From: "Jongiorgi Enos" Subject: Re: [AML] Work & Glory Movie or "Do The Math" - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Samuelsen" >No name stars, based on a book nobody outside (the culture) every heard >of, >and about a story with no sex, no violence and only a little=20 >comedy appeal >to all audiences? Just because it has family values? =20 >Uh, Rabbit-proof Fence? Bend it Like Beckham? Monsoon Wedding? The=20 >Dish? Well yes. Rabbit-proof: Big name star, big name director, brilliant acting, amazing soundtrack, good markeing. Bend it: Lots of comedy, refreshing cast, very well done, etc. Monsoon: no sex? Are you kidding? VERY sexy, great acting, comedy. Dish: HILARIOUS, fabulous acting, the world's more gorgeous blond bombshell, big name star, etc. When I said my list (no star, no story, no sex, no violence, no comedy), I ment it very literally. All of the films you cite, Eric, I agree are all wonderful, and they ALL have wonderful stars, scripts, stories, comedy and tons and tones of sex appeal. So, yes, no quibble. I agree with everything you say. I should point out, though, that The Dish was a gigantic financial success in Austrailia, it's home country. It was that year's "Greek Wedding" Down Under, in relative terms. The under 2 mill domestic gross here in the US is because WB dropped the ball in marketing the film. But its also like saying one of our big hits did only fairly well in France. Dish was HUGE in Aussie-land, financially-speaking, and nobody needed to content themselves that they had made a gem but failed financially. They made BANK. But anyway, you're totally right: > What those movies all had going for 'em is that they were great=20 > movies. They had fabulously interesting stories to tell, and they told > them well. > But I'm stubborn enough to say this: if we make a good enough movie,=20 > someday, it can be a small crossover hit. Richard believes this to be true as well. I hope my cynicism is proved very wrong some day. > In fact, I know this is true. I know it for an absolute fact. Because Neil Labute's already done it > with In The Company of Men, made a brilliant little Mormon movie=20 > cheaply, and had an art house hit. And I doubt fifteen Mormons saw=20 > that movie, and yet it's Mormon to the core.=3D But, I'm not sure how you call "In The Company of Men" a Mormon movie? Can you delve deeper? And remember, I don't buy the definition that if its made by a Mormon and stars and Mormon that its by definition a "Mormon Movie". I assume you don't mean that either, but mean it in a more internal sense. I would love to hear your views as to how its message or mysogny make it "Mormon to the core" in theme or heart. But as a separate discussion to that analysis, which I'm sure will be facinating, whatever your analysis of its core values may be, it cannot be the example you seek. To be "cross-over" by definition, it has to target a niche, and then trancend that niche. "Company of Men" does not target the Mormon niche, and therefore cannot be considered, from a business plan, financial, objective, numeric, for the sake of our conversation, a "Mormon crossover film". It may have some mysterious Mormon core value, but was not marketed as such, and therefore never "crossed over". Any Mormon filmmaker can make a mainstream film that becomes a hit. That is not a Mormon crossover film. That is a mainstream hit made by a Mormon. Very different financial plan, very different elements, very different pitch to investors, very different investors. Your hope that we will "some day achieve this cross-over status" is not proved by your case-in-point. I hope you are right, but ICOM does in no way suggest that you someday will be. Jongiorgi [Enos] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 08:04:57 -0400 From: Sam Brown Subject: [AML] Tarkovsky Hello, Re: Richard and Margaret's mention of Tarkovsky. I would strongly recommend watching Stalker, which I think is his greatest movie (pronounce the L, the way the Russians do, and it sounds less like an "erotic thriller": a "Stalker" is a guide through the post-apocalyptic Zone). Then I would watch Andrei Rublev. A brilliant and haunting exploration of the violent, pagan milieu of Russian Orthodoxy's greatest icon-painter. Then I would watch Solaris (the Criterion DVD version has commentary from a couple of Russian professors that makes the movie make a lot more sense). Then, if you've got stomach for it, I would watch Nostalghia, his darkest, most troubling film. My wife was horribly depressed for 3 days after we saw it. I'm still not entirely sure what it's about, but I remember being horrified (in a way I value) when we saw it. Just had to put in a plug for my favorite director. I think he's one of the best ever. His other films, while still excellent, are even less accessible than these. - -- Yours, Samuel Brown, MD Massachusetts General Hospital sam@vecna.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:12:49 -0400 From: "Debra Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] Work & Glory Movie or Margaret, this isn't the same _Solaris_ that George Clooney was in, is it? Please say no............I wanted to gauge out my eyes by the end of that movie, actually, that's not true, I wanted to gauge out my eyes by the time he was off the e-train. Debbie Brown - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:46:44 -0500 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: Re: [AML] deviant artists - --- Original Message --- From: Sam Brown To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [AML] deviant artists >My only reservation about Thom's post on this topic is his failure to >mention two of our greatest artists, both clearly deviant in this >sense: Neil Labute and Brady Udall. Purely intentional because I don't actually know either of them and didn't feet comfortable talking about their level of "defiance" from the Mormon norm. But I would like to add another playwright to my list of Mortal Gods who I personally know: Tom Rogers. If you don't think he's a little out of the ordinary as typical Mormons go, consider that, while a mission president, he commissioned a production of one of his plays in Russian with a professional theatre company. - -- Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 09:16:24 -0700 From: "Kathy Tyner" Subject: Re: [AML] Typical LDS Disaster Reaction In talking about Mormons in The Stand, the conversation shifted to the LDS reaction to 9/11. Some apparently had no special services in their area and little mention of it in their Sacrament Mtgs. Some of us had lots of mention in Sac Mtg got the satellite feed from Salt Lake That's what I was referring to. And the conversation has branched off into whether we Saints would typically stay with our families if we knew the end was approaching, or gather our families together with other members. Especially thought provoking is what single members would do and who is family to them. Kathy Tyner Orange County, CA - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Rex Mitchell" To: Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 6:10 AM Subject: Re: [AML] Typical LDS Disaster Reaction > Did I miss something? What was the great tragedy?=3D20 > Alan=3D20 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:02:14 -0600 From: "Eugene Woodbury" Subject: Re: [AML] Harry Potter Seconding Sharlee Glenn and Linda Adams, I'll throw in my own screed on the subject, starting with, what do editors do these days? (Not to get off on related tangents, but the same applies to film editors; it seems that every other movie I've seen for the past decade has been at least 20 minutes too long, and I've yet to see a "director's cut" that didn't make me pine for the original.) Granted, I haven't read Rowling's latest, so I'm confining my complaints to the first four installments. Now Rowling, to be sure, has proven herself capable of great storytelling. Important, that. But the second point to nail down is that telling a good story and writing good prose are clearly not the same thing. In the case of the latter, her way with words is too often lacking. Or her editors are too forgiving, too cautious, or just plain lazy. I haven't decided who's to blame. By the forth installment, Rowling's skills had fallen sufficiently short to make obvious these and other failings. To begin with, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a book that could easily be 300 pages shorter. Though it can hardly be called dense, or even long. There's a lot of air in them there pages, which is maybe why they're so easy to turn. If the reader is a car, then Rowling has written an interstate. That I don't hold against her (though she leans over and grabs hold of the wheel too many times). What bothers me about Harry Potter IV is, well, like I said, too many words that throw slop and play into what should be a tight story line; too many adverbs and participle phrases and parentheticals that don't belong in even pedestrian prose. Like: "a very heavy load of homework." There are two unnecessary words in that phrase, maybe three. And: "very slowly and very carefully." How much slower than slowly is "very slowly"? And can you do something very slowly and "not carefully"? Yes, but it'd require some explaining. In his memoir, On Writing, Stephen King states, "adverbs are not your friend." If so, Rowling has surrounded herself with armies of enemies. I feel like a Dictionopolis bureaucrat in The Phantom Tollbooth, calling for strict export controls on "very" and "suddenly." If anything, Rowling provides solid proof once again that story--the basic what-if premise followed by the answer to the question: and then what happens?--wins out over style, character, even plot. Speaking of which, this plot is ten times more complicated and contrived than it needs to be. Red flags should go up when the villain, straight out of an Austin Powers spoof, goes on and on for pages explaining his nefarious plans before getting around to finishing off the hero. Worse, upon closer examination the plot itself falls apart like soggy newsprint. Again, as in a bad spy thriller, there is no logical reason for Voldemort to go to such ridiculous lengths (about 500 pages worth) in order to draw Harry into his clutches. He could have accomplished it in the first fourth of the book (any object can be made into a Portkey, remember), if not earlier. And the backup spoilers--Snape, Malvoy--have become more annoying than threatening. Yeah, Snape's supposed to be playing some sort of double agent, but it's getting old, old, old. Consider, in contrast, what Joss Whedon did with Lindsey, the bad guy lawyer on Angel, who was quite bad, but bad in intriguing and thought-provoking ways. Often doing bad to what he perceived as doing good. And maybe even redeemable. Also from Angel (referring back to the first season), Lieutenant Lockley, a "good girl" who ends up fighting on the same side as Angel--but she doesn't like him, and for reasons that go deeper than some vague sort of free-floating, school yard misanthropy. Not a problem in another approach to comic book justice, Brian Singer's film version of X-Men. One can't help but note the number of scenes seemingly straight out of Harry Potter (remember: X-Men has been around a lot longer than Harry Potter). The scenes in the boarding school for gifted (mutant, not magical, though you couldn't tell the difference) kids run by Professor Charles Francis Xavier made me sit up and say, "Hey, Hogwarts!" Yet in the first handful of scenes Singer establishes the fundamental conflict between the good guys (led by Xavier) and the bad guys, led by Erik Magnus, and the inherent complexity of the conflict: Do we try to live with the humans? Live apart from the humans? Or take over the humans? Especially when these supernatural abilities scare the humans to death and make them want to lock us all away (thus the overwrought allusion to Nazi Germany)? Xavier wants to live with the humans, take his chances, and even help them; Magnus would rather take them over. Evolution, survival of the fittest, and all that. Unlike Magnus, Lord Voldemort asks no questions and provides no answers. He has no reason for being at this point. What does the man want? Money? Probably not. Power? Okay, but to do what? To whom? And for what reason? Something more than revenge, one hopes. And what do his sycophants expect out of the deal? Why are they willing to give up so much in order to play follow the leader who demonstrates no love or loyalty to them in turn? A French Revolution, anybody? Compare and contrast: Shakespeare's Richard III. "Now is the winter of our discontent," Richard declares in Act 1, Scene 1, Line 1 of the play, and goes on from there to describe in almost empathetic detail the substance of his complaints and the subsequent course of his action. Mad villainy is fine, as long as there is reason behind the madness. Not that it'd be hard to come up with reasons why the bad guys would rebel against the status quo. Life is getting creepy at Hogwarts, and I don't mean the undead hiding in dark corners. I don't just mean Hermione's one-woman human rights campaign for House Elves--troubling how no one else gives a fig about this incredibly unjust caste system. I mean their judicial system, apparently inspired by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Here's a Bastille that could stand being stormed, and pronto. It reminds me of all the Dr. Who and Star Trek episodes where our heroes stumble across some utopian civilization that has decided that the best way to keep things merry is to execute anybody who walks on the grass or wears the wrong color underwear, and you have to conclude that what these people really need is a bill of rights, some due process, and a truckload of ACLU lawyers. That Rowling--and Harry--seems oblivious (or morally blind) to these fissures in her alternate universe--or is interminably biding her time getting around to addressing them (from what I've heard, she is getting around to them belatedly)--makes me fear she is caught up in the George Lucas trap, so obsessed with the story that she has begun to confuse narrative detail with the narrative actually meaning something. James Frey argues that what makes a best seller a best seller is the proper utilization of recognizable archetypes. Lewis's narrative in the Narnia series can be dated and wooden; what raises it above the ordinary is Lewis's firm grasp of image and archetype, but also backed by a firm sense of how the real world works--even fantasy worlds require a strong sense of an internal reality accessible by logical means--and a moral vision to match. Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker are an awful lot alike. But there's a big difference between, on one hand, using archetypes sparingly and with literary insight, and on the other blabbing on about good and evil and throwing a lot of mythic types and references into the pot and stirring vigorously. Leave anything in the blender long enough and it turns into mush. Which brings me back to Stephen King and his observation that you can make a good writer out of a competent writer, but to be a great writer you have to be born that way. A corollary to this is that a competent writer who can create compelling stories can make a living at it and communicate perhaps an important message to receptive audience. A great writer who just composes stunning paragraphs of blank verse likely won't do either. Better the former than the latter, frankly, but I was hoping to see some progression in her basic skills as a writer, some evidence of a move up from "competent" to "good." In the end, what disappoints the most isn't dreck that started out and ended that way, but the brilliant idea that begins with promise and fails to live up to its potential. Eugene Woodbury - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 12:31:52 -0500 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: Re: [AML] Work & Glory Movie or - --- Original Message --- From: Margaret Blair Young Maybe the cycle of lousy >movies is waning and disappointed moviegoers can invest in the Utah >Filmmakers Alliance or _The Prophet_. Or, to think pessimistically (since the current investors seem to have no concept of what makes a good film), the money will dry up because the money guys can't seem to tell a good script if it bit them on their expensive butts. I certainly hope not as I'm currently hyping a script of mine, and am hurriedly finishing up a couple others that I've been working on long before Mollywood came to be (I've seen the phrase used twice so far on this list and I love it -- Jongiorgi -- are you the first to coin it?). - -- Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:45:07 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Negative Themes and Artistic Value ___ | I would love to know which contemporary films "glamorize | adultery and murder." ___ _Kill Bill_ does, although one expects that Part II will show more consequences. (It was originally a single movie and it shows -- it shouldn't have been cut in two) The James Bond movies unarguably glamorize adultery. I'd argue that most horror films glamorize murder. [Clark Goble] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:50:11 -0600 From: "Eric D. Snider" Subject: Re: [AML] Mollywood or Holywood "Holywood" is what I was calling it, back when I occasionally wrote about such things for newspapers. I remember discussing the possibilities with friends, and we came up with "Mollywood" but agreed it wouldn't mean anything to non-Mormons. So I vote for "Holywood," too. Eric D. Snider - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 12:08:09 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Women in LDS Film, or Not Pretty Enough, Part 1 ___ Jongiorgi ___ | Marie Knowlton piped in and agreed with Dianna "about the | prevalence of 'Barbies' in LDS Film. This is a dicey=20 | subject, and one that any intelligent male will keep his=20 | nose out of! ___ It is sad that men can't speak on such things since arguably the same phenomena occurs with men in film. Unless people really think the typical American looks anymore like George Clooney than the typical woman looks like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Having said this I'm a tad mixed on the issue. In the US it is expected that films be "bigger than life" and invoke as much fantasy as anything else. I'll fully admit that I wish I was George Clooney in _Oceans 11_. Totally my ideal of what I wish I was like. And I don't mind fantasy. =20 I've notice though that in Canada and even more so Europe, films consist of more average looking people. Even stars are frequently at best average looking. (Gerard Depardieu anyone?) When you see a scene in a European film it looks like what you'd probably see if you were there. Even most walk-ons in American films look like they spend a good amount of time at the gym. It even plays out in locals in American films and such. "Regular folk" have houses or apartments that could only be afforded by people with at least 10 times their income. (Friends anyone? Does anyone think a part time cook, a masseuse and a waitress could get that apartment in New York City? And dress in those clothes?)=20 If LDS film is developing in a typical American film style, then we should expect it to use the tropes of that medium. That means attractive actors, beautiful sets, contrived situations, etc. Why? Because that's the fantasy. What we'll expect in LDS "popular" film is the "popular" fantasies about ideal LDS life. And is that bad? I'm not sure it is, unless someone can explain why these sorts of fantasies are bad. And, let's be perfectly honest, often elements of the fantasies are well within reach if one wants. What some here are describing as "desired" in LDS film could only really be done in the truly "independent film" style. But that doesn't make money even in a more general sense. Further the audience for such "independent film" at art houses tends to be looking for something quite different than what LDS audiences are. (Who, lets be honest, are basically mainly suburbia middle class with similar tastes) Yeah there is the _Bend it Like Beckman_ and similar films. But those tend to be the exceptions and not the rule in independent film. =20 If LDS film goes the independent route, then they need to be edgier or more thought provoking. If LDS film goes the more mainstream route (which seems necessary if they hope to get a return on investment) then they are going to look like typical Hollywood cheese because that's what suburban Americans expect and like. =20 Clark Goble - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 12:37:49 -0500 From: "Thom Duncan" Subject: Re: [AML] Hooray for "Holywood" As I said in a previous post, I LIKE Mollywood. I see the phrase as a kind of loving kick in the shins, tongue-in-cheek reference. "Holywood" wouldn't work for me because it would imply that all of our LDS films would have to have some religious connotation to them. But I promise not to use "Mollywood" Richard's presence. Thom [Duncan] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #189 ******************************