Rango

With Rango, Paramount Pictures, director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp have come up with a worthy parody of the Western genre since Mel Brooks did it with Blazing Saddles back in 1976.

The script, by John Logan (story by Logan, Verbinski and James Byrkit), mines every trope of the western genre, from the films of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood through the halcyon days of the TV format that featured many of the same plot devices used in this film and gives it a new spin in an often clever and humorous way. While not a kiddie film (it features some slapstick humor to keep them amused), it is none the less, and entertaining commentary on the genre itself. Which begs the questions, do kids understand the importance of the western to their parents and grandparents, after the format virtually vanished from film and TV over 4 decades ago?

Sure, we’ve seen the genre from time to time, but it no longer holds the mystic it once did. And I’m not saying this CGI film will resurrect the format -it went away for a reason- but it is nice to revisit it from time-to-time.

The voice casting is good, with the always reliable Johnny Depp bringing a tone of weirdness to even this film. Isla Fisher is wonderful, and brings a conviction to the role as the voice of Beans. Ned Beatty, who had a turn in Toy Story 3 as (villainous) Lots-O’-Huggin’ Bear, gives another great performances as the Mayor of Dirt. And while Bill Nighy and Abigail Breslin are getting the kudos for scene stealing, for me it was Harry Dean Stanton and Timothy Olyphant who stole the picture.

With Rango, Industrial Light and Magic -know mainly as a visual effects company- doing the CGI in this film, they may now compete with DreamWorks Animation and even Pixar for photo-realistic CGI animated films. It’s eye-popping and brilliant to look at.

And maybe, with its $38,000,000 opening weekend, it will show that not all animated films have to be in 3D. This is a glorious film that uses the standard 2D to great effect.

Narnia producer and novelist Perry Moore dies at 39

Producer Perry Moore, who died on February 18, was always “enthralled with comic books and superheroes” as he once wrote on his website. And while he was happy to see comic books finally introducing gay superheroes, he always wanted to see them played in a better light. But back in 2005, something disturbed him so much, it sort of forced him to try and change things.

In 1992, the popular X Men series introduced Northstar, a gay member of that elite franchise. When the character was killed off in 2005 by a brainwashed Wolverine, Moore felt the murder of Marvel’s biggest gay character by its most popular one was sending the wrong message.

In 2007, he released Hero, a novel about Thom Creed, a teenager coping with typical teen issues: stress in high school, a strained relationship with his father and his budding superpowers along with his sexual orientation. The novel won the Lambda Literary Award for best novel for young gay and lesbian adults. The book has been in development as a TV series or movie since its publication, but his death will probably mean it will never see the light of day.

While openly gay, Moore was also a Christian and talked publically about it. It is, perhaps, what led him to join Walden Media, created by conservative billionaire Philip Anshutz. The media companies goals were to produce family-friendly movies, TV shows and documentaries. While there, he was in charge of the film I Am David, an adaptation of the Anne Holm novel North to Freedom.

In 2001, he became “instrumental,” as Variety wrote, in acquiring the rights to the C.S. Lewis classic fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. Thus, he became the executive producer of three films, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and last years Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It has been reported financing for a fourth film, The Magician’s Nephew, had been secured just prior to his death.

He also co-wrote and co-directed, with his partner Hunter Hill, the 2008 film Lake City, which starred Sissy Spacek, and produced a documentary directed by Spike Jonz on legendary children’s author Maurice Sendak.

A sequel to Hero was begun in 2009, and Moore was planning a new fantasy trilogy called Way of the Wolf. Again, whether any of that will see the light of day, is unknown at this time.

Its been reported that Moore died of a drug overdose in his Greenwich Village apartment, but initial autopsy reports have proven inconclusive. His father has told the press that Moore suffered from back and knee problems which kept him in a lot of pain.

A few media outlets have said, while New York police have ruled out foul play, they reported that the highly addictive pain killer OxyContin was found in the apartment, along with other prescription meds.

Sun and a pair

Day Two

So, onto the second day of bankruptcy for Borders.

Since being reduced to 1 shipment a week, and of that, its mostly bargain, I've been able (with help) to get most of our sections back in order (though the damn sex section is messed up again, damn dirty old men and tweens who think its cute). It's getting easier, as some sections are loose and shrinking.

Still, it amazes me how our customers hate us. I mean, really, how difficult is it to put the book you just picked up, breezed through for 10 seconds and put it back in the same place? What makes you just pick up an item, walk around the store with it, and then randomly shove it some other place?

Anyways, it seems all the stores that are closing, they need to close their Seattle Best Cafe's like by tomorrow. I'm sure there is a reason for this, but no one has said what that is. So, our GM was over at Mira Loma today grabing all sorts of food, cups, straws, lids, sugar and everything else associated with the cafe.

I'm told what cannot be taken, will be thrown away. It will be a good dumpster diving for the folks that do that.

Beyond that, not much more has come out, with the exception of a hiring and transfer freeze that came into effect. It seems Borders is forcing the laid off people to re-apply when the ban is lifted. So it forces these staff members -if they want to come back - to go through the whole hiring process again. Which also means they could start at a lower wage than what they were getting before being terminated.

That, if I may add, sort of blows. But that's corporate America for you. And I'm sure all the republicans who want to cut unemployeement for the people, will probably claim it was Borders employees fault that the company had to lay off so many people and close so many stores. Well, at least the frontline workers anyways.

My only thought tonight is when we'll see a return of shipments. Publishers are still not sending us stuff, and despite what happened yesterday, does not mean they will right away.

How thin will our stores get before we see new products?

Borders books a new chapter

With today's announcement that they have filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, Borders finds it self hoping to mine a sequel and stay in business.

There is a long laundry list of reason as to why this happened, but a major one includes outsourcing our online operations to Amazon.com. Back in 2001, Borders made this deal (after about a year or so of trying to launch one themselves - and that's after believing that people would never buy stuff online). That deal, while financially benefitting Amazon, it ceded valuable business to our competitor. It ended in 2008, a year after the online retailer introduced the Kindle. Ironically, had we kept the deal, we probably would have been the official retailer of that ereader, instead of Best Buy and Target.

Anyways, we relaunched Borders.com, only the site is clumsy, slow (it crashed during the peak holiday season in December), and not anywhere near user friendly.

Speaking of the ereader, this was another area Borders stumbled. While the Kindle, the iPad and Barnes & Noble's Nook were winning customers, Borders did not introduced their Kobo until late last year.

But the biggest has been the revolving door of executives. This has led to inconsistency with the management of the company and has lead to poor development and an almost Lucy Ricardo roll out of each new "plan" that was going to turn us around. I mean, in the last five years alone, there has been 5 CEO's (and whether current CEO Mike Edwards can survive is just as questionable).

And while the resession can be blamed for some of the problems of the last few years, most of this began 15 years ago. Beyond the Amazon deal, Borders expanded much too quickly, even going international (which even B&N realized was a pointless). This caused a major problem with workable cash flow, causing us to go further into debt.

Now, 200 hundred stores will close. Here in SoCal, the closings are huge (but like Illinois, California is another large state were Borders has a big foot print). Something like 15 Borders will close, leaving only about 10 to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, in my home state, Borders will close half of the 30 stores they have around Chicago (2 of them I worked in, including the Lincoln Park store, and the Beverly store I help open on the South Side of the city at 95th and Western).

Borders basically ignored all the signs that the book industry, like the music and movies, was changing. They kept CD's long after a good portion of music lovers had moved to digital downloads. The same has happened with DVD's and Blu ray, where Borders became prime game for thieves.

Things that need to change:

Devest all our stores of music and DVD, only keeping new releases (and turn them around ASAP).

The ereaders will not last, as the tablet techonolgy takes over. Yes, there might be a need for a basic, less $100 ereader, but I don't see them becoming any more bigger than they already are. The iPad and other tablets will kill the the basic ereader. We need to be a step ahead here and find a name brand tablet (one that actually works).

Our CEO needs to be from the BOOK business. It's plainly stupid having your leader come from the clothing industry or grocery business. This arrogant position is probably one the biggest reasons that Borders is here today.

We also need to address why customers are not coming into our stores. Think about this, if I can download music, movies and what not from home, why should I come into the store? So that would mean getting events into our stores, thus while people are seeing these things, be it free performances for kids (which is huge aspect we're ignoring), author signings or other events, they can buy things.

Its not going to easy, that I understand. There is more potential closings to come, and the light at the end of the tunnel is not near, but Borders can be saved (though, the end of the bookstore business is coming), but it will not come from the remaining 450 stores; they're already doing that.

Our success will start at Ann Arbor, and whatever plan they come up with. But it needs viable, and logical and above all, the right thing to do for the book business and not the best thing.

That time has come and gone.

Pirates of Who

Photos of DEMONS RUN, the 7th episode (and part one of two) of Doctor Who's 6th season.

Sunday Guys

Books: Starbound by Joe Haldeman (2010)

In the continuation of Marsbound, the sequel takes Carmen -The Mars Girl - and her husband, three self-proclaimed "spooks" and two Martians on a trip to encounter The Others at Wolf 25.

In the first book, Carmen Dula and her family who are heading for the Mars colony, after winning a lottery. There she meets the pilot Paul, who she will eventually marry. While on Mars, she runs afoul of the administrator that eventually leads her to take a walk on the Mars surface and there she encounters the Martians.

The only problem is these Martians are not really from Mars, but a species created by the "Others" to watch Earth and the humans who inhabit it. Predictably, things go awry and the "Others" try to destroy Earth. Only the sacrifice of a Martian saves them.

Now aboard the Ad Astra, the crew begin a long, perilous journey to Wolf 25 (which I kept calling Wolf 325 from TNG episode The Best of Both Worlds) to try and come to some sort of reason with these creatures.

The sequel starts off great, and as a people watcher, I was interested in Haldeman's take on psychological effects of a long space travel on the crew. Everyone of the characters must face a challenge to stay sane, all while thinking that the encounter with the Others may end in their deaths.

About half way through the novel, we encounter an avatar of the Others, whom the crew call Spy, and the stakes are on the rise. But its here where I also began to get bored with the book.

Unlike Marsbound, Haldeman tells this story from the point of view of all the crew, which was very distracting because there were times I did not know who was talking, and mostly because the characters had similar voices.

The ending, while surprising, leaves you wondering what the point of the whole story was. I mean first contact stories are always interesting, and you can tell them in only so many ways, but while the story of the crews morale on long-term space travel is also interesting, I sort of got bored with it and eventually could careless how the story ended (with the idea of a third one book somewhere down the pipe).

Still, Haldeman has an engaging style to his writing, and he does not boggle down the story with too much science babble.

Day After Tomorrow

The north bound lanes of Lake Shore Drive after Chicago's 3rd biggest snowstorm.

Alex Pettyfer

Yeah, he's pretty. And at 20, a possible long career in films. But can he appeal to a larger demographic than 12 year-old girls and gay men?

Military

Redux: Judas Kiss

Working on a film (is it a film, considering it was made digitally?) can be laborous, tension filled and even boring (hurry up and wait can be its motto from time to time). Still, my experience on Judas Kiss has been nothing but joy for me.

Last August, I spent three weeks up in Seattle filming the feature directorial debut of JT Tepnapa (web series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier and the director of the award winning shorts, Masterbation: Putting the Love into Self-Loving, Drag Queen Heist and Begging For Change) and co-writer Carlos Pedraza's (writer on the web series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier and Star Trek: Phase II) dream project. With some crew from LA and other parts of the US, along with an extensive Seattle based members, the filming took place around the University of Washington. The cast includes Charlie David (Mulligans, Dante's Cove and LOGO TV's Bump!), rising superstar Richard Harmon (Cartoon Network's Tower Prep and the upcoming AMC series The Killing), Sean Lockhart, also known as adult film star Brent Corrigan (Another Gay Sequel and the short In the Closet that was featured in Boys on Film 3)and making his English language debut, Flemish actor and singer Timo Descamps.



It was a long, sometimes fustrating three-week shoot (and mostly, because time and money are against these small, idependent made features). Still, it was also the best time of my life. The cast and crew were a blast to work with, and the locations were spectacular.



Having known both JT and Carlos for now going past five years, they are the most accomindating, most sincere people you can know. Carlos is whip smart, funny, and a delight to be with it and along with JT (and his husband Adam) have become some of my dearest friends. The fact that JT and Carlos welcomed me to help them make their dream come true fills me with even more joy.



I seen some of the assembled film, which is due to hit the festival circuit starting in April - a working print if you may- that does not include the visual effects or music score. You'll all see some astonishing work here, from Charlie David to a star in the making known as Richard Harmon. Brent Corrigan will show the world he can be a serious actor, and Timo Descamps (who will also contribute songs to the soundtrack) will find a new audience here in the States -he's pretty popular TV and music star back home.



However, most films are never finished after principle photography. And Judas Kiss needed a few things fixed that were not done back in August. On January 29, 2011 primary cast members Charlie David and Richard Harmon along with co-stars Samantha Rund, Ron Boyd and Dale Bowers arrived back in Seattle for a one day of pick-up shots.



The one striking difference between August and January in Seattle is the weather. I left here on Friday morning, with the sun shining and the warm temps. I arrived at SeaTac with chilly temps in the low 40's and rain. It was a huge change when I was there last summer, when the days were warm and sunny (though there a few days of clouds and some rain drops). Luckly, we got to film inside on Saturday, though we did film one brief sequence outside.



Hopefully, with these reshoots, the film will now come together and be ready for the film circuit. So, I hope when its does come to your area this summer, be it a standard film circuit of a GLBT one, you'll take the time to see this labor of love from my friends.

Weekend Trip

In Seattle for some pick-up shots for Judas Kiss, with stars Charlie David, Richard Harmon and Samantha Rund. Its a short weekend jaunt, be back home late Sunday afternoon.

Books: Horns by Joe Hill (2010)

For over a year, Ignatius Perrish has been the main suspect in the murder of his beloved girlfriend, Merrin Williams. She was raped and brutally bludgeoned to death, but because there was no clear evidence who did it, suspicion has followed Ig like a bad debt.

Then, after a night spent drunk and doing terrible things, Ig wakes up the next morning with a pair of horns growing out of his temples. At first, he thinks he's having some sort of mental breakdown, but soon it becomes clear that there in nothing natural about the horns, and they are way too real.

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power, one that scares him at first. But this new macabre talent also brings a realization to Ig: he can now find out what monster killed Merrin and ruin that persons life. So while he feels everyone, including God, has abandoned him, Ig knows the Devil inside will never forsake him.

With Horns, Joe Hill continues to hone his talents as new writer in the realm that his father, Stephen King made famous for nearly 40 years. Still, unlike his first novel Heart-Shaped Box, the premise and execution reminds me more of his father's style. This is not a complaint, by far. However, I may be doing some unintentional transferring here -after all, I have been reading King since 1980!

Horns is good second book, even though I felt Heart-Shaped Box was stronger. I will continue to read Joe Hill's work, if only because, like his father's work, Hill has created characters you care about, and feel connected too.

I'm looking forward to more.

Guys

Golden Bore

For me, only award show that is worth its spit is the Oscars. So tonights Golden Globes were passed over in favor of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I did see Ricky Gervais' snarky, mean and brilliantly funny opening.

Hollywood is filled with so many phonies, so many ass kissers, that when Gervais makes fun of them, and point out to the audience in TV that these people, while talented, are no more than just people. The people in the audience laugh and guffaw at some of his jokes, but they hit home most of the time.

Gervais' main goal, if I may be so bold, is to point out that our many beliefs about these "stars" are nothing but silly, pointless adulation. Like many award shows, the Golden Globes only award what's popular. Sure it does give them to independent films and actors, but I sometimes wonder how and why these people win. Social Network really the best film of the year? Probably not, but it won anyways.

I'm fascinated why it won, because even writer Aaron Sorkin seems to think its just an okay film.

Anyways, I watch the Oscars and the Emmy's and beyond that, any other award show is nothing but filler for the folks who love TMZ, E! Network, People Magazine and Entertainment Tonight.

And think that they are, somehow, important.

Doctor Who: Season Six switches episode order

Some changes have come the broadcast order to the upcoming Doctor Who season. Showrunner Steven Moffat announced that Mark Gatiss' scripted episode (rumored titled to be What Are Little Boys Made Of), has been moved from its current slot as the third episode to the ninth slot. In its place, writer Steven Thompson, who worked on Moffat's Sherlock, is now handling a new episode three. Thompson was earlier rumored to be writing episode 8, which supposedly involved the return of the original, Mondasian Cybermen. Whether that's true or not, Moffat said the change isn't a reflection on the quality of either episode, and simply an effort to "balance the look" of the show, as both Moffat's and Neil Gaiman's episodes are very dark and interior-heavy.

Since the Gatiss story is already filmed, this now suggests that the huge midseason cliffhanger can't be the game-changer as earlier thought. So anyone thinking that Rory, Amy or even the Doctor were going to die in that cliffhanger, this shifting of the schedule should prove otherwise.

Bond 23 is announced

Not just 6 months ago, the fate of the James Bond franchise was in doubt due to MGM's financial issues with their bankruptcy. Even current Bond star Daniel Craig appeared to be moving on, signing on to star in the Millennium Trilogy, with the first film in the series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo debuting this Christmas. Now with a few souls sacrificed to the Gods of Capital Finances, MGM is back in business and have announced that the next Bond film will bow on November 9, 2012.

Daniel Craig will be back for his third (and probably last?) outing as the super spy, under the helm of director Sam Mendes. No plot or casting has been announced, but filming should begin this summer. I wonder, since he's making so many movies back-to-back, will he have time to do press for his summer release Cowboys and Aliens and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at Christmas?

Familiar faces return for The Hobbit

With most of the primary cast (fairly unknown ones outside the UK) of the two-part Peter Jackson directed version of The Hobbit set, work continues on getting some actors back from the original trilogy. With the expansion of the original novel, and with bridging material provided in Tolkien’s other works that will lead into The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, this has given the chance for some actors to come back to Middle Earth. While Ian McKellen is still working on his deal to return as Gandalf, Andy Serkis will return as Gollum, while Cate Blanchett will reprise the role of Galadriel. Also back is Elijah Wood as Frodo. Word also comes that Orlando Bloom will be back as Legolas and that Hugo Weaving will return as Elrond. Two other actors could be back as well. Ian Holm may return as an older version of Bilbo -which hints of the rumor that the movie starts with Bilbo telling Frodo of his journey with the dwarves, and then flashing back where Martin Freeman takes over the role. It is also noted, however, Holm may end up just narrating the films. Meanwhile, 88 year-old Christopher Lee has expressed interest in playing Saruman again, if only to play the wizard through his corruption by Sauron, but notes that he would not be comfortable to fly to New Zealand at his age. He has expressed interest in voicing the dragon Smaug -which is the primary reason for the journey -, though, which he could easily do from the comfort of England.

In the meantime, filming gets underway in early February on the $500 million prequels. The production is expected to last a year, with part one of The Hobbit due in cinemas Christmas 2012, followed by part two for Christmas 2013.