Not a frequent updater am I. Things are extra-crispy busy 'round these parts, I'm afraid, and the task of journaling tends to be first out the door.

That said, a couple quick thoughts. This year's Buffy is fucking fantastic. Though last night's episode was quite good, last week's Conversations with Dead People ranks among the best ever in my book. Brilliantly scary, funny stuff.

In tangentially related news, my screenplay has gone to Allyson Hannigan and Bradley Whitford's agent for their consideration. If either (or better, both) signs on for the female or male leading role, there's quite a good chance that the project will get picked up by one of the second-tier producers. It's also gone to David Boreanaz's manager along the same lines. Buffyverse connects all over the place. I suspect that this is the first time Bradley Whitford and David B have ever been asked to look at the same part in anything.

Fingers crossed for sure.

I'll be reaching a milestone in my internet life this coming weekend - I will finally meet an online acquaintence in the flesh. Rossi's coming our way on the West Coast leg of her World Tour 2002. She will have the unenviable pleasure of sleeping on our lovely couch and communing with the cat and the rabbit. I'll also be meeting one of the very talented writer/editors of Sequential Tart, and excellent online journal about all things genre related. Also a person called Ashlan, which is one of the best online names I've heard.

All of these articles in the news about people you meet online turning out to be scary - they're wrong, right? 'Cause that Rossi... she seems a little spooky...

Reading Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and have discovered that it deserves every bit of praise that has been heaped upon it. Absolutely essential reading for any comics fan. Trust me. You'll love it.

From a Buick 8 by Stephen King was disappointing. It seems he was trying a return to the type of horror narrative he more or less defined in the mid-eighties, and here is just falls flat.

Haven't gotten to the new Donna Tartt yet, but will post a review of The Little Friend when I have the chance. I'll also try to get out some thoughts about the new Tori album - I think I like it. I think I might like it a whole lot (though anything supplanting Tanya Donelly's Beauty Sleep is unlikely at this point in the year).

Best to all. I'll try to take less than a month this time.

(5 Comments |Comment on this)

The BUFFY survey...
I saw an interesting survey about BUFFY fandom being taken by Laura Holliday, a professor of English at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia that those inclined might want to take a look at. It's a pretty exhaustive piece she's using in preparation for writing a book on the subject. For your amusement, my responses to the first round of questions:

6. What percentage of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV series (BtVS), would you estimate you have seen?
A. 0-25% (one quarter or less)
B. 26-50% (more than a quarter, up to half)
C. 51-75% (more than half, up to three-quarters)
D. 76-95% (more than three-quarters but not almost all)
E. 96-100% (almost all of the episodes)

7. What percentage of episodes did you watch when they first aired (not in reruns)?
A. 0-25% (one quarter or less)
B. 26-50% (more than a quarter, up to half)
C. 51-75% (more than half, up to three-quarters)
D. 76-95% (more than three-quarters but not almost all)
E. 96-100% (almost all of the episodes)

8. What is your favorite season of BtVS, and why?

Ah, now we start with the tough questions. To me, Season Six is a thing of absolute beauty for a wide variety of reasons. The performances of the entire cast of regulars are as fine as they have ever been. Hannigan's Willow is particularly masterful, her deft juggling of arrogance and humility, hurt and happiness, hatred and love should have earned her an Emmy. Indeed, were the television establishment not so frightened of embracing anything that smacks of genre, she probably would have.

There's much talk in BUFFY fandom about the notion of "Big Bads." In S6, the big bad was not Willow or the nerds; it was our heroes' inability to face up to their own weaknesses, to take responsibility for their own actions. To me, the most wonderful thing about sci-fi and horror is that through the lens of the otherworldly we are allowed to wrestle with "real" issues that would be too painful to deal with in more traditional genres. It is in this regard that Whedon & Company's work last year most adeptly excelled: they took a hard look into the darkness of their essentially heroic characters and by extension allowed us to do the same at ourselves.

There is also the sheer virtuosity of the writing. Episodes like "Once More With Feeling," "Villains" and "Seeing Red" are so palpably real in their emotional honesty (despite the nature of the unreal universe in which they occur) that we become more than audience members removed from the action. Instead, it is as though we are actually a part of the action on the screen.

To me, S6 is just the apex of what BUFFY is capable of: making us laugh and cry, to be sure, but more than that, making us think.


9. What season of BtVS do you like least, and why?
Season Four. There are some great moments in this season. The Buffy/Faith body switch is masterfully done. My favorite single episode of the series is "Hush." But overall, things just fall flat. The characters stagnate with little forward movement, the various love plots seem like afterthoughts, and the horror element of the show makes the worst possible sin: outside of the aforementioned episodes, there's just not much that's scary.


10. List 1-3 BtVS episodes that you consider favorites and explain what makes them stand out as favorites.

"Hush": I work in the industry (the film/tv industry that is), and I'm fond of telling people that the most viscerally frightening horror movie of the last five years wasn't a movie at all. It was this episode of BUFFY. The piece works on every level. The villains are horrifying, and their power to silence our heroes robs them of their finest ability (their witty repartee). In some ways, "Hush" goes hand-in-hand with Alex Proyas' DARK CITY - though Whedon's Gentlemen make the Strangers seem positively bland.

"The Body": Another brilliant piece in which silence and stillness are of equal importance with the usual bombast. If Hannigan deserved an Emmy for her overall performance in Season 6, then SMG deserves two for her work in this episode alone. The depth of feeling she brings across is heartbreaking, and the notion of the slayer's impotence in the face of real trauma is almost a deconstruction of the traditional superhero myth.

"Once More With Feeling": The MOULIN ROUGE of television, the thing that most captivates me about this episode is that it succeeds as far more than its gimmick. Yes it's a musical, and one very well done. But the layers of drama and performance beneath the sing-song hook are as good as anything on TV. The music here shares more with Shakespearean soliloquies than some lame Lloyd Weber piece, showing us the true heart behind the strong faces characters choose to show.


11. A. How many BtVS episodes do you think you have seen more than once?
Most of them. The beauty of syndication.

B. Which episodes or scenes have you watched the most? How many times have you watched them?

I've probably seen "Hush" five times - I just love it's visceral power. I've seen "Seeing Red" several times; Willows turn at the end is so painful that it actually turns my stomach. Same with "The Body."

C. What is it about these episodes or scenes that makes you want to view them over again?
As above, I love episodes (and songs, movies, etc) that induce a genuine emotional response. It's sort of cathartic, and it is what drama was created to do (Brecht's BS aside).

D. What are the rewards of viewing episodes or scenes over again? That is, what do you get out of seeing episodes or scenes multiple times?

Again, it's a corallary to the note above - multiple viewings allow you to relive the emotional experience of seeing a given episode for the first time (though this tends to mute over time). From a broader perspective than only the specific episodes that I love, the fun of watching the whole BUFFY series multiple times is similar to watching THE SIXTH SENSE more than once. Joss & Co are so good at setting things up over the long haul. Willow's problems with Magick are foreshadowed in Season 2; Joyce's brain disorder is glimpsed in Season 3 - these guys are good.

12. A. When did you become a regular viewer of BtVS?

Season 3.

B. What initially attracted you about the series?

I've always been a nut for genre stuff, but I hated the BUFFY movie. It took two full years of prodding for me to actually sit down and watch the show. When I did, I was amazed at the level of dialogue and characterization that appeared. Besides, cute girls kicking ass is always good with me.

13. A. Do you consider yourself a BtVS fan? Yes.

B. If so, what was the event or episode that transformed you from being a viewer to being a fan? "The Body."

C. In your opinion, what is the difference between being a viewer and being a fan? It's very subjective, I suppose. For me, crossing the line meant discovering BUFFY on the internet. Interacting with other self-described fans, reading spoilers and things of that nature.

There are a couple dozen more questions in the survey... it's thought-provoking stuff.

(Comment on this)

A very sad day...
Two deaths today have left great holes in the fields of the departed.

Senator Paul Wellstone (along with his wife, daughter and six members of his team) died in a plane crash in rural Minnesota. Wellstone was a rare thing in the contemporary Senate: a liberal who stuck to his guns without being a simple idealogue. He was an intelligent man who weighed issues carefully. Even on the instances where I disagreed with his votes, I had the real feeling that he had weighed the issue carefully and spoke out in line with his conscience. In a congress as divisive as the next one is likely to be, he will be tremensously missed.

The other sad passing today is Richard Harris. A truly gifted actor, he has recently had a renaissance with wonderful roles in the first two HARRY POTTER films and GLADIATOR. His King Arthur in the film version of Lerner and Leow's CAMELOT is for me the definitive interperatation of the great, mythic ruler. Even more than that, his sadistic, sad performance in Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN stands out as one of the most memorable supporting roles I've ever been fortunate enough to view. He always imbued his characters with a depth of emotion that made them real, even in the most supernatural situations. I had always hoped to work with him one day, and am personally saddened that I will never get the chance.

Raise your glasses this night for two fine men.

(Comment on this)

Buffy fans...
http://www.geocities.com/newcassie/index.html

See the site before tinight.

(Comment on this)

Xander digs waking dreams...
Working on the outline of the next script. For your readig pleasure, below are the broad story beats for GUARDIANS. Nothing like a little Lovecraftian horror to make the day go down smooth...

“We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
William Shakespeare


G U A R D I A N S



LOGLINE: When a team of researchers successfully opens a gate into the unconscious, they discover that the doorway is only one-way, and that the nightmares of man are coming out. FLATLINERS meets HELLRAISER.

Act I: A schizophrenic’s daily life is worse than the most desperate night terror. We begin out tale in such a state, following a man through a simple trip to the drug store…voices whisper into his ears, phantom images dance at the corner of his eye, people stare and grin. Just when things are at their worst, when we think we are going to go mad, everything changes. The voices whisper good things and the malevolent grins become genuine.

The man pulls off a pair of VIRTUAL REALITY GOGGLES and we realize that this frightening journey through Rite Aid was an experimental simulation. Dr. VANESSA GODDARD is a brilliant young dream researcher helping the mentally ill. Using a technique that infuses real psychotic experiences with archetypal dream imagery, she can literally guide people out of their madness. Indeed, Vanessa’s WHOLE WORLD has a faintly dream-like quality that puts us on our guard. Her techniques are radical and provoke the ire of both psychiatrists and psychologists at the university where she works. Just at precipice of a great breakthrough in her work, her funding is yanked by the college.

Standing in her empty lab, she is approached by a Bill Gates type computer impresario, ANDERSON KAI. A board member of the university, he has watched her work with interest. Now that she appears to be free, he has an employment opportunity for her. Kai is secretly developing the next generation of interactive entertainment console. Far more than a PS2, the new system will literally hit people in their very modes of perception. Without a job or any real prospects, Vanessa reluctantly agrees.

( Read more...Collapse )

(Comment on this)

Xander digs waiting...
Nine days removed from my script going out to the town and I'm going fucking mad. On the good side, those who have passed have been overwhelmingly positive in their assessment. The most common reasons producers have given have been the the script is "too dark to set up" or had "problems in the third act." Fair enough, I say, particularly since it appears that I will have about twenty-five meetings born of the process.

And from meetings, writing assignments are born.

The frustrating thing is that at the end of the day, when no huge offer to buy (or any offer at all) has come in, I sort of make peace with myself. I sit back and say "okay. Nobody's bought and the game is up. Let's move on to the next thing." I say it mantrically, repeating the notion until I start to believe it myself. Then Dave calls.

He enthusiastically tells me that SKIN is not dead. That this or that studio is making interesting noises (or at least hasn't passed). That there is still a real chance of selling the piece.

Then those damndable little hopes and anticipations spring up again. I don't know. I think that there are many folks out there with the kind of focus to drown out the chaos of trying to sell the current project in favor of creating a new one, but not me. I'm obsessing despite myself.

Onto some brief notes on things other than me. The season premiere of BUFFY was absolutely fantastic. I have very high hopes for this season.

Stephen King's From A Buick 8 is by all accounts a scary yarn of the highest order. I'll be plunking down a chunk of my paycheck this week for that. If anyone can take my mind off things, it'll be Steve.

Also on the literary front, I am extremely excited to see that Donna Tartt's new novel The Little Friend is coming out in November. Some of you may remember the long-winded appreciation of Tartt I wrote here, so this is amazing news. Ten years between novels. Makes my output seem positively prolific.

Finally, I discovered that Caitlin R. Kiernan has a journal. Caitlin is a very good author of dark fantasy and horror. Those of you who are comics readers will remember her as the chief architect of the Sandman spinoff, The Dreaming. More, she's also apparently championing some kind of "Save Farscape" campaign, so you wacky kids who love the show might get a kick out of her outraged venom.

Off to more waiting.

(Comment on this)

Xander digs stress...
Well... today's the day. I looked back through my journal and found that I first wrote about the most preliminary ideas for my screenplay, SKIN last August. Now, just over a year later it is going out. The initial list my agent put together shows 36 producers on the list.

Heart in stomach.

Ever since I moved out here to LA, I've said time and again that I just wanted a shot. Well here it is... and it's horrifying. In my job, I've watched the stress writers go through when they're screenplays are out to the town. From as detached a point of view as possible, it's interesting to observe the same emotions in myself. If I had more Zen going on, this would be a fascinating case study in how we are ruled by emotion.

Anyway, if any of you fine folks could take a moment and send some good vibes this way, I'd appreciate it. I need as much good energy as I can get today (and if you had ever told me that I would be saying something as New Age as that...).

Man. I need to investigate decaf.

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Resolve.
"This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

(Henry V, iv, 3)

(Comment on this)

Andraste's writing survey...
andrastewhite posted this survey the other day, and though I think it's fairly specific to fanfic, a great deal of it applies to writing in general. Besides, it seems like an excellent way to wax poetic about the craft (that is to say, waste some valuable time on the boss' dime). EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION: I gather 'draste didn't actually write the survey (though her responses were muse-like). My apologies to the creator

Do ideas come in little tiny pinpricks and then get expanded, or do they start great big and scopy and then get refined?

For me, I tend to get an overarching idea of a story first: a female police detective investigating a series of brutal murders discovers a mysterious underworld convinced that the human body is the key to the divine. The antagonist is a plastic surgeon who has built himself working wings. In the end, our heroine saves herself by taking on qualities of the very people she's been pursuing.

Once this basic skeleton is in place, though, I can spend literally months getting small pinprick images that put flesh on the bones. I'll get an image: a woman squeezes her wedding ring inside her fist so hard that her knuckles turn white. A cop has to crawl into a crematorium that's still warm in order to retrieve something left after a body has burned away. A lone boxcar in a massive trainyard has a whole murder of crows congregating on its roof.

After a while, motifs of imagery recur and I begin to see how characters relate to them. Very often, characterization itself flows from the visual images I see in my minds eye: the woman is squeezing the wedding ring because she's a widow. Today was the first day she had it off in ten years. The thing in the crematorium was fused to the body's bones, and it's the piece of evidence the detective has to have. The crows are on the roof because there's something in the boxcar they want to eat. Something wet, and warm, and dead.

After a while, I sit down with all these ideas and do a fairly long outline listing the beats of the story in sequential order. By the time I actually sit down to write the piece, it flows rather easily from there - though I usually find a lot of changes from outline to finished rough draft.

Why do you choose to write in the tenses you do (present tense, or first person POV, or third person) and how do you choose particular styles for particular stories?

Most of what I write is in the screenplay format as an occupational hazard. The narrative descriptions there are generally third person, present-tense with occasional first person plural interjections: We SEE a spider crawling over the sleeping woman's face. She bats at it laconically, unaware of the danger she's in.

In prose stories, I suppose the tale itself dictates in what person the story is written. To use a couple of fanfic examples, Half Lit World was (is) a massive ensemble piece with eight major characters in multiple locations with storylines that don't dovetail until very late in the game. Third person is the only approach that makes sense for a piece like this. Further, given the epic scope of the project, it really felt like the past tense gave more gravity to the morality play than present (with its automatic "documentary" feel) could have allowed.

Hellraiser: Hellfire also had multiple locations around the world, but its narrative thrust was much easier. Though we follow a dastardly villain throughout, the conceit of a "hero's journey" made choosing the first person very easy. More, I think that first person works especially well in horror - the more the reader finds himself inside the subjective experience the person being frightened is party to, the more fear they are likely to experience themselves.

Do you have music that inspires your writing? (That you listen to while writing, or certain songs that remind you of certain characters.)

Constantly. When I sit down to focus and write for a ten-hour stretch, I usually have a stack of cds with me that seem mood appropriate to the circumstance. As I was writing the first draft of Skin, for example, the Hellraiser soundtrack and the Harry Potter disk were mostly on repeat.

I generally don't listen to pop music when I'm writing, and especially on the first draft. Even stuff that fits the mood - Portishead for Skin, say, or NiN for Hellfire - distracts me. Maybe my attention span is just too short to deal with lyrics.

( Read more...Collapse )

Well this has turned into quite the treatise, hasn't it? What began as a way to kill an hour or two has become two days of thinking about how I write - most enlightening. Thanks again, Andraste.

(Comment on this)

Xander digs Neil...
Just a quick note today as things are really busy here. If any of you haven't heard, Neil Gaiman's AMERICAN GODS won a very well-deserved Hugo Award for best novel at WorldCon. This was a fantastic, engaging novel that shares quite a bit stylistically with the best work of Peter Straub or Stephen King - you should definitely check it out if you haven't gotten the chance.

In personal news, my screenplay SKIN is going out on September 17, so if you have any sexy mojo to send my way that week, I will happily buy cookies for all if the piece sells. Chocolate cappucino cookies. Mmm...

The 17th is also Penny and my anniversary. We've been together for nine years now, making us common law in most states. We've already started getting our "when are you getting married" calls from family (as we do every year at this time). Frustrating because it's always hard to tell our parents "get married? Why? Because of your various successes in doing the same thing?" Ah, bitterness...

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," I say.

SIGNS continues to be a juggernaut at the box office, which pleases me to no end. I'll try and write a summer movie wrap-up at some point this week. Overall I think the season was pretty good for movies.

Finally, on the MTV awards: Eminem is really the best rapper going right now, which is too bad. It always sucks when people whose creative endeavors you admire are absolute assholes in their daily lives. Does anyone out there in Lj land know what the story behind his hatred of Moby comes from?

Anyway, best to all.

(7 Comments |Comment on this)

Xander digs comics...
There is a comics renaissance underway. It may not have the explosive redefinition that typified the fantastic work in the early-mid eighties (with Miller's Daredevil and Moore's Watchmen leading the pack), or the introspective brilliance of the early nineties (Sandman, Ennis and Fabry's Hellblazer run, the indie work of Chester Brown and Julie Doucet), but it is reawakening readership both in terms of numbers and in sheer imaginative depth.

I, for one, am loving it. For the first time since roughly 1994 I find myself excited to hit Golden Apple every Wednesday. Unfortunately, I also find that my monthly comics bill is spiraling higher and higher. Still, it is really fun money to spend. This, then, is Xander's monthly reading list, filled with graphical delicacies for your reading pleasure.

The Filth: Grant Morrison is fucking with us. Literally. With his brilliant, disconcerting new book I think he is quite consciously attempting to alter our state of consciousness in the same way as a hallucinogenic drug - he's fucking our minds. The story is almost secondary to the effect it has on the reader. Sure, there are Morrison's usual obsessions: people who lead lives hidden even from themselves, sex as a ritualized shedding of self, breaking down the walls between realities. Really, though, what I suspect the writer is doing is taking us into a ritualized, sacred mental state. The dialog is peppered with multiple meanings, the jarring "cuts" between scenes and realities toss the reader too and fro, and the illuminations of meaning that occasionally reveal themselves open our eyes more than the characters. The Filth is a challenging, involving read that gives us more than the sum of its parts. It's a chaos ritual in action, and I can't wait to see the end result.

Fables: In Hollywood vernacular, we would call the premise of this series "high concept." It's simplicity itself: what if the characters from all our childhood fairy tales (Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Blackbeard, etc.) were exiled from their native realities? A people on the run, what if they decided to form their own community in New York? The answers to these rhetorical questions makes the backbone of the series. The first arc Bill Willingham has created plays as a murder mystery - Rose Red appears to have been killed, and the resident detective of Fabletown must hunt high and low for the truth. This kind of narrative is perfect to introduce us to the world - a detective must talk to everyone on his search, so we get to meet the citizens of this peculiar world and learn the way it's organized. The most fun lays in the possibilities for future stories, though. There are so many conflicts ready to exploit in this world - old grudges between the fable characters, the clash of modernity with traditionalism - that the canvas it creates could be masterful.

New X-Men: How long could it be before I get to an X-title? Ah, well. Look, it's trite to say, but what Morrison has done with the X-Men is nothing short of masterful. He has reawakened characters I had given up caring about, created new ones that are absolutely compelling (Cassandra Nova, Emma's Girls), and created storylines that are legitimately fascinating. In mixing his predilections for the grotesque and perverse with the mutant universe, it seems that Morrison has finally found a playing field on which his indulgences can be used to their fullest extent. With Doom Patrol, Arkham Asylum, and JLA, I always felt that the traditional super hero form left the writer searching for an appropriate voice. Even in his wonderful run on Animal Man lacked something until he completely tore his lead character out of the DC Universe. With New X-Men, though, it seems to me that Morrison has found the perfect balance in his writing and has created a superhero team (though they would currently disagree) that works for both kids and adults.

Lucifer: This is a series I'm reading a graphic novel at a time because the anticipation of a monthly would be too much. Springing forward from the mythos of Gaiman's Sandman, this book seems to be following the same narrative pattern. Great Cosmic Forces mix readily with the minutiae of everyday character, and it's clear that storyline by storyline the ambitious Mike Carey is leading us to a Big Finish. Indeed, my only complaint about the book is also a backhanded compliment: Carey is building a story that is very much a part of Gaiman's style. Nonetheless, Lucifer never fails to intrigue, and the lead character really garners sympathy for the devil.

Elektra: Greg Rucka has really created a first-class action/adventure series about redemption, alienation and cold-blooded sociopathy. Stepping away from her usual Marvel Universe depiction, this Elektra shares more with Jean Reno's character in THE PROFESSIONAL than her superhero roots. She is an absolutely ruthless killer, better than the many opponents her enemies place in her way. At the same time, though, she is a woman at the end of her rope who has slogged through so much blood she can't see a way back. Indeed, Elektra only has one skill-set. Despite this, we find ourselves sympathizing with our heroine, rooting for her to overcome her demons.

The Call of Duty: The Brotherhood: Maybe it's just that I wanted to be a fireman when I was a little kid. Or maybe it's that the first issue contained the single best splash page I've seen in many years: a fire fighter desperately moves from room to room searching a burning apartment building. He finally rounds a corner into a kitchen to find an absolute inferno. In the middle of the flames, absolutely untouched is a cute little blonde girl. She looks at him with virtually no expression readable on her face. "You're all going to die," she says quietly. I read that and was hooked. While the other two Call of Duty books don't match up to this one, The Brotherhood works both as a realistic depiction of firefighters and their lives and as a supernatural thriller of the highest order.

There are a few more titles I like. Less cerebral than Morrison's work, Mike Casey's just-concluded run on Uncanny X-Men was an extraordinarily fun ride. Likewise, Ultimate X-Men is a guilty pleasure. While it doesn't have the depth or scope of the aforementioned X-titles, it's splendid mix of action and humor makes it a good time. Plus: from a fanboy perspective, Jean Grey is hot.

The only thing I'm not liking in comics right now is the lack of really innovative independent work. I haven't found anything recent that matches the self-disclosive pain of Chester Brown, the sheer weirdness of Dame Darcy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (as well as mainstream comics you folks like).

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

frito_kal Linked to this op-ed piece in the Baltimore Chronicle. A wide-ranging and sometimes thought-provoking indictment of American culture and attitudes, the piece ends up being something that puts be in mind of Ted Kaszinski's Unabomber Manifesto. Before I begin, let me remind my loyal readers of my bona-fides: remember, I am not some mindless drone in lock step with the U.S, Government. I worked hard to get someone other than the current occupant of the White House elected, give a goodish amount of time and energy to causes this administration would blanch at, and have actually gone to jail for taking part in direct actions involving causes near and dear to my heart. That said, the frightening ramblings of "W.R. McDougall" have caused me to put on the ole' boxing gloves. Or maybe to take them off.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to refute the paranoid arguments in the letter one-by-one. However, the slight sprinkling of truth the letter contains doesn't mask the gaping holes in logic and fact that the delusional writer propagates.

When I was in college, I worked a summer internship in the editorial department of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution. This was 1996, the season of the Olympics, the Southern Church Burnings, several abortion clinic bombings and the Presidential Election. Not a day went by that we did not receive at least three letters filled with the kind of vitriolic assertions this writer insists on making. Like the Washington Post, we refused to publish garbage like this on the grounds that extremist rantings without at least a modest threshold factual reality did not meet the requirements of publication.

Naturally, after several days we usually got angry calls accusing us of being part of the liberal/conservative/Zionist or other conspiracy (depending on what kind of extremist the writer was). This is the difficulty in arguing with fundamentalists regardless of what color their stripes are: from within the complex reality they have constructed to view the world from, it is impossible to argue against it.

So what are we left with? A series of hard facts.

Is George W. Bush too corporate? I suspect he is, and fully fifty percent of the country agrees with me. Remember, this guy lost the popular vote.

Is he completely correct to pursue an aggressive military campaign against terrorism? I think he is.

Is the war on drugs a failure? By most accounts it is. Is it some conspiratorial attempt to prop up drug cartels? Absolutely not. Indeed, it is a policy that comes closer and closer to being changed with each passing election cycle.

The Palestinians as poor, put-upon victims of the evil American and Zionist machine? Please. The anti-semites who regularly make this kind of argument love to ignore the fact that Arafat rejected an offer that gave his people 98% of what they were asking for in September 2000 and began a systematic campaign of violence targeting civilians.

Is Sharon too violent in his responses? Sometimes, but if one's people are being randomly murdered in the streets, I find it hard to think that any leader would not be pushed to extremes. Besides, every time he pulls his forces back, more Isrealis are butchered.

Speaking of the anti-semitism in McDougall's diatribe, let us not forget his indictment of the Federal Reserve and the "money men" pulling the strings. Again, the writer here uses a fun-filled variety of code-words familiar to any student of racist literature. The world view comes right from any number of Mien Kampf clones: the American people have been duped by the evil Jews and their money grubbing puppets. The part of the argument that remains implicit is what we should do with those bastards when we "wake up."

The argument the writer makes stems from the same political ideology as The Turner Diaries and ought to be regarded with the same grain of salt (keeping the writer in mind when the next clinic is bombed, of course). I wonder if his follow-up to the Post will accuse them of being an agent of the dreaded ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government, the secret cabal of Jews who run the country yet have failed to invite me to any meetings).

As to McDougall's thoughts about the FBI's assassination of JFK... well, I guess we have to give him that. ;-)

(Comment on this)

Xander digs Lex...
Having missed the internet boom by miles, I've only recently begun investing in the stock market. Now, as a vegan/animal rights/all around good fellow, I tend to put my money only into environmenally friendly companies. The exception to this is my pitifully small holding in LuthorCorp, a diversified technology/agriculture/robotics/high yield weaponry/meat packing firm based in Metropolis (and recently rated a "BUY" by Morningstar). Of all my holdings, it has performed the best by far.

Imagine my delight to discover that one of the firm's major VPs (and rumored successor to company president Lionel Luthor) has a LiveJournal. It's true! Alexander "Lex" Luthor has an Lj at ajluthor. He's a funny, funny guy.

I worry a bit about the future, though. The guy seems bright enough. He's just a little... I don't know... sociopathic?

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Xander digs choices...
So it was roughly a year ago when I wrote the initial idea that became SKIN in this journal. As that script (finally) readies to go out after labor day, I thought I would play a little of the "choose your own adventure" game and lay out two of the ideas I'm thinking about for the follow-up piece. The first is more straightforwardly horrific, while the second is both more action oriented and (perhaps) more commercial.

Let's see what YOU think...

GUARDIANS: THE FIRM meets HELLRAISER. A balls to the wall horror movie with plenty of creatures and world-ending evil.

Vanessa Peters is a brilliant young dream researcher who's just had her university research funding yanked due to the controversial nature of her studies. She believes that Jung's idea of the collective unconscious is more than just a nifty metaphor to assist in psychotherapy - she thinks it's real. That it is actually something that can be accessed, and she is right on the edge of a breakthrough when her funding is pulled.

When a Bill Gates type computer gaming offers her a job that would allow her to continue her work, she jumps at the chance. He wants Vanessa to come in and apply archetypal dream image structures to a top-secret video game project. She does, and as the game is developed, things begin to get crazy. More and more, strange objects and images from dreams begin to appear in the real world. It starts small: classic boogeyman figures are reflected in windows as she walks down the street; noises from the closet become pronounced and terrifying in the dead of night. Vanessa becomes concerned and figures out the real nature of the project: the Gates figure is attempting to create something akin to a computer virus that leeches into people's minds (maybe he's really working for an intelligence agency that wants to access secrets by reading the unconscious minds).

Just as she makes the discovery, the game goes live. Instead of acting as a gate into the collective unconscious, though, the gate goes the other way. The icky things we all hold as our deepest fears begin to rush out into the real world, nightmare creatures with a lust for the light of day. Worse, the infestation spreads like a virus. The horrible things from dreams begin to spread from the compound where the research is taking place into the surrounding area. If Vanessa and the other good guy characters (read: potential victims) can't find a way to close the doorway by, say midnight, then the monsters from the id will roll across the earth.

There's an opportunity for some kind of SIXTH SENSE "trick ending" here as well. Obviously, the Guardians are actually the "heroes" here (from a certain perspective). They are actually trying to prevent a bad man from accessing all of our minds. There is probably some way to turn the action in the third act in such a way that Vanessa realizes that everything she's thought is the case is actually something else entirely - maybe the Bill Gates figure is actually a dream himself? Something like that that will make people say "holy shit."

As to the end, I suspect that Vanessa will find a way to shut the gate. As in all horror movies, though, some vestige of the land of dreams will stay free (possibly inside herself).

BENEATH: THE MUMMY meets BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. There's a New York legend about Grand Central Station. People whisper that it goes far deeper than seven levels down, that its superstructure reaches deep into the earth with floor after floor of completed level that haven't been viewed since construction began in the 19th Century. BENEATH, then, is a supernatural action story about a group of people paid to travel into these hidden catacombs and retrieve something (it remains to be figured out what the McGuffin actually is).

Basically, the storyline is that an old reclusive billionaire hires a diverse team to go under the station. A cave rescue specialist from FEMA, a rare books archivist, a cagey New York historian and a soldier of fortune type - a very diverse bunch. If I go the supernatural route, they will be off to find some Necronomicon type book, or maybe a fountain of youth type object that offers eternal life. This would allow us some monstrous creatures to try and keep our heroes away from their prize. More prosaically, this set-up would also work if it was just a treasure of some kind - diamonds or something.

Regardless, our team has to deal with both internal strife and lack-of-trust among themselves, and a wide variety of external problems. There are the dangerous Morlock types who dwell beneath the city, giant rats and alligators, physical obstacles (deep crevasses, sudden floods), and even some more strictly supernatural barriers if we go that way (statue guardians, mystical barricades). There are probably massive doors that have to be decoded to enter.

In terms of plot, it is obvious that the final confrontation will be with the old man himself - he's the Big Bad of the piece. We will probably also have one of the team turn to the dark side (wanting to take the item for him or herself or working as an agent for the old man - either way, they would want to kill the rest of the team). As in most set-ups of this type, the person we expect to be the bad guy (the embittered soldier) will not be the one to turn.

Though this seems rough, once we figure out what is being sought (mythical or mundane), the story almost writes itself. Act I assembles the team. Act II puts them through their paces as they overcome the many dangers in the bowels of New York (each team member utilizing their particular skill-set to save the day in turn). Act III gets them to the dragon's layer, let's them overcome what they think will be the final obstacle, and reveals the big bad for the Final Conclict.


Anyway, thoughts are always appreciated from you crazy kids.

(Comment on this)

Xander digs the volume...
So I looked at my Lj user-info page for the first time in forever and discovered a new reader. tieleen has jumped on board this good ship Lollypop, and being a curious soul, I thumbed through her old entries and found a wealth on interesting material. One of her musings particularly stood out. Back in January, River wrote a fascinating piece on feeling alienated in high school, and the redemptive power of the pre-grunge film, PUMP UP THE VOLUME.

Man, oh, man. Did that bring back some memories...

As many of you know, I dropped out of high school as soon after my sixteenth birthday as was possible. It would have been the very next day, but we were out of school due to snow - an extreme rarity where I grew up. Now, you know that with - God - thirteen years of 20/20 hindsight I wish I had stayed in. It would have spared me four years of waiting tables, drinking, debauchery and general aimlessness before I went to college. But at the time, it seemed the only sensible thing to do for a kid with a dream. At that point I was bound and determined to be a rock star.

Anyway, in the summer of 1990, I saw PuTV many, many times. I wanted to be Happy Harry Hard-On, hornier than a ten-peckered owl and waiting to Bust Some Wisdom on the kids (the notion that I had any wisdom to offer seeming perfectly natural at the time). I had moved to St. Louis, MO to play with the proto-grunge punk band I was working with at the time, and lived in a cruddy little basement apartment in the 'burb of metropolitan Clayton.

On a rare sober night without a gig or a couch to watch movies on, I decided to go through the piles of boxes left moldering in the corner by previous tenants. Amongst the photo albums, wrapping paper and similar detritus I found the most dangerous weapon a boy of sixteen could hope to possess: a can of black spray paint.

I went out to a nearby bridge and wrote the words in a trance: TALK HARD. I backed up and looked at them, puffing out my chest and smiling at their talismanic power. Then I went across the empty street and tagged down the other half of the twins: STEAL THE AIR. Regarding the brilliance of my work, I went home for the night and slumbered in the sleep of the just.

To pay the bills, I was working at this third-rate Itallian restaurant bussing tables on a fake ID. My shift ended at three the next afternoon, and on the bus-ride home I passed under the bridge where I'd made my Profound Statement the night before. What I saw, I think, was the first inkling I ever felt that the aimless rage I was so fond of as a boy had implications beyond myself.

A bus from the sheriff's department was parked on the side of the road, and a group of county prisoners were walking around picking up trash under armed supervision. Two pairs of the guys were busily scrubbing off my handiwork. I wish I could say that I never committed another pointless act of rebellion, but I did plenty. I never did grafitti again, though.

The worst part is that I thought about what good ole' Hard Harry would have thought. It's not that he would have been displeased with the act of spray-painting one's thoughts on the wall. No. What would have pissed him off was that the thoughts were not my own. "Just another fucking clone," Eddie Vedder might have said two-years hence.

Let's not end this on a down note. PUMP UP THE VOLUME, in addition to being a fantastic piece of rebel-teen wish fulfillment, also features one of my favorite screen kisses ever. It's not sweaty, or wanton with desire. What it does, though, is perfectly capture those blessed butterflies of teenage love that us grown-ups find easy to forget nowadays.

On the day after they have revealed themselves to each other Mark (Christian Slater) and Nora (the underutilized Samantha Mathis) walk across the school-yard together. They circle one-another in a dance of nervousness and need as the other kids wander too and fro, whirling blithely around them. Like great ballet, they finally find this island in and among the activity. When their lips finally meet, it is simultaneously chaste and brimming with meaning. It's a perfect kiss.

I had a thing for Samantha for years. Have a thing, I suppose. If I shot my script for SKIN on a low-budget, I would cast her as the lead in a heartbeat.

Until next time: eat your cereal with a fork, and do your homework in the dark...

(Comment on this)

Xander digs DEADER...
My favorite horror movie will never be made. Let me revise that: it will not be made in it's brilliant, skin-crawlingly terrifying original form. Dimension Films, in its infinite wisdom has elected to gut the script (which they paid $500 grand for) and turn it into the next installment of the HELLRAISER franchise. This is a fucking crime, so let me tell you a thing or two about Neal Marshall Stevens' gloriously horrific screenplay, DEADER.

My first gig out here was at Trimark Pictures. Shitty company, to be sure, but a great first gig because, as a buyer, we got *everything*. I read romantic comedies, urban dramas, action pictures - you name it. Given my interests, though, the scripts most often thrust in my hands were horror movies. I grew up on them. My dad took me to movies any responsible parent would have blanched at - I saw DAY OF THE DEAD at eleven-years-old at the now defunct Atlanta Fantasy Fair, the same convention where I got Ray Harryhausen's autograph. I caught the fear bug early; I learned to love the out-of-control feeling of adrenaline dumping into my stomach when a good scare popped on the screen. My bosses new my taste and they acted accordingly.

Anyway, one Thursday in 1999 I get a script from David Greathouse at Stan Winston's company. All I know about it is that it's only gone to five companies - us, Dimension, Artisan, a couple more. My boss tells me he thinks it's hot, and to cover it right away. I crack the cover, and before twenty minutes have elapsed, I find myself genuinely frightened in the middle of a sunny summer morning. "Pricly things on the back of your neck," frightened. You know the feeling I mean.

Why? Because DEADER is more than creepy, intense, and jarring. Deader is a near-perfect horror movie. Peppered with Lovecraftian touches that remind one of the best parts of "Hellraiser" or "VideoDrome," the sense of setting this script conveys is incredibly atmospheric. Indeed, Clive Barker or David Cronenberg might well feel comfortable directing this piece. The powerful, almost archetypal fears this script preys upon include everything from truly disturbing images of the grotesque to an intuition of mounting dread that moves from the subliminal to the dry-throated. The plot itself is secondary, even tertiary to what this project is really about: scene after unrelenting scene of utter terror.

I could give you a synopsis of the piece. I could write about Amy Klein, a jaded reporter so close to the edge at the onset of the action that horror is barely a lateral step for her. I could tell you about the Chinese Restaurant, about the eyeless busboy trailing gore behind his filthy mop, about how Amy spends hours with a knife driven through her back, pouring blood but unable to die, to even feel. I could tell you about the Deaders, but it would only make you sad that the film will never see the big screen.

Suffice to say that DEADER is almost a well-crafted collage of other effective movies: the double reality of "The Matrix," the horrific snuff-film opening of "8 mm," imagery from sources as varied as the aforementioned "Hellraiser," music videos by Nine Inch Nails, art films by Peter Greenaway, and half-a-dozen other sources. As random as this may sound, the puzzle pieces fit together tightly. Some of the scenes are so scary, so utterly disturbing that they stick with the reader like images from a particularly bad night terror.

They stick with me. They damn sure stick with me.

Next up, I'll be writing about the genius of SIGNS, the brilliance of UNBREAKABLE, and why the Shamaylan-verse is moving me closer and closer to writing some scary-assed fic.

(Comment on this)

Xander digs half-assing it...
So I'm going in for my second pitch with Dimension today on HALLOWEEN 9. Instead of spending days going over the complexities of plot necessary to create a truly genius, post-modern deconstruction of the slasher genre from within its own cultural enframement, this time I drank a lot of coffee and dashed off a beat sheet in about ten minutes. You will find the nonsense ( here.Collapse )

On a completely different note, the other day a correspondent asked me what the deal with my "Xander Digs whatever" salutation was. I figured everyone knew, but going back I realize that I never properly tipped my hat. As many of you know, my online journal was created mostly due to the muse-like inspiration of lisew. "Xander Digs," then, is a reference to Lise's typical opening: "I'm on the road to..."

There you have it.

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Xander digs sneezes...
... because you have to love the release. Been suffering from a terrible summer cold all week, thus my usual wit and verve is heavily blocked by phlegm. More information than you probably wanted.

My pitch for HELLRAISER was passed on. Though I would have loved to do the project, I'm not terribly surprised. The likelihood of a new writer setting up a pitch is always low, particularly when there are in-house writers with more experience vying for a project. As it happened, the movie ended up going to Joel Soisson, who has written at least four projects for Dimension in the past. D'oh!

Though I wanted the title of "First Fanfic Made Into A Movie," we'll now have to reserve that accolade for dexfarkin. I really think that a properly executed SUM OF ZERO could sell for some serious green.

The HALLOWEEN 9 pitch I did with Sean went reasonably well. The executive who heard it wants us to make some changes and come back next week, so I'll be spending the weekend with the lovely and talented Michael Myers once again. I wish I could get more excited about the project, but I'm really moving forward with something of a gig mentality on this one. Still, if I get the job my apathy will not prevent me from cashing the check.

In SKIN news, my agent, Dave Brown finally found a home. Long story short: he was at a small agency that was consumed by Innovative Artists. Innovative didn't want to give him the money he felt he deserved so he shopped himself around, ending up in the enviable position that two large agencies bid for his services. Dave ended up at Genesis Agency, a great shop representing only writers and directors. Whoo for me (and Dave as well). Now it appears that my script will finally go out to the town either right before or after Labor Day.

Then my agnostic tendencies go out the window and full-on prayer begins.

A number of months having gone by, I've started putting together ideas for my next script. When they're a bit more codified, I'll probably throw them out here to get thoughts from you lovely people.

Speaking of material germane to this journal, I will soon get to the essay in praise of BUFFY's sixth season, Willow, and the current proliferation of women empowered by rage in contemporary film and TV. When those regular readers from the Land Down Under have finally seen the end of the season, they should post. I'm loath to spoil anything and my thesis is predicated largely on actions in the final two episodes.

Excuses, excuses...

(Comment on this)

Xander digs irony...
Just a quick entry as things are busy here - good busy, mostly.

I still haven't gotten a firm rejection of my HELLRAISER pitch, but things don't look good. Apparently, the president of Dimension has a writer in mind for the project. If they can get a deal done with him they will do it. However, handshakes don't mean a great deal in this town, so if that falls through I could be brought back in the running. Knock some wood for me is any is available.

In somewhat more absurd news, that frozen pitch has netted me another one. I gather I impressed the Dimension Powers That Be enough that they want me to come in and pitch on another of their franchise projects. Those of you who remember my excoriating diatribe about the failure of HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION will be particularly amused to find that I will be pitching an idea for HALLOWEEN 9.

Dimension wants Busta Rhymes back as the male lead. I am overjoyed by this prospect.

Anyway, as I have nothing much original to tell you fine people today, perhaps I can amuse you with this: beneath the cut below you will find my first draft of a beat sheet for HALL9WEEN (developed with Sean Hood). It's appropriate to post here; after all, until it's bought the piece is only fanfic. Lame, by the numbers fan fiction at that. To fill you in, Freddy is Busta's character, Sara was also in RESURRECTION, and Mr. Chen is the father of one of the dead characters.

( MichaelCollapse )

(Comment on this)

Surveys make excellent time wasters. I pilfered this from katemonkey's journal, though I suspect that mine will be a bit less Buffy oriented. A bit.

Fictional character I would...

Spend the rest of my life with in perfect bliss:

Eilonwy from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. She was really my first literary crush (in much the same way that Taran was my first avatar). I suspect that the spitfire princess with red, gold hair actually influenced my dating life when my teen years rolled around. A propensity (or fetish, I suppose) for going out with smart redheads with attitude has pretty much been with me as long as I've been old enough to have a "type." So, yeah, spending forever with Eilonwy would make perfect sense.

Have an emotionally void but wicked hot one-night stand with:

Here we come to a much more contemporary reference. I say Diane Selwin from Mulholland Drive. As horribly self-destructive and insane as Diane was, it's pretty easy to tell that a night with her would be... strenuous. Provided you survived.

Set up with my best friend:

Clive Owen's character from Second Sight, a fantastic English detective show. My friend Lauren would go nuts for a guy like him.

Get wasted with:

John Constantine. No question. Hopefully at a little bar in Arkham, Massachusetts (fictional town for a fictional character) as much trouble would be gotten into.

Employ as a live-in masseuse:

Faith from Buffy. What's the old Mellencamp song? "Hurts So Good."

Given the developments of the most recent season, Brenda from Six Feet Under might be interesting as well.

Use as a human pillow:

Emma Frost. I just want to be envoloped by her.

Bring home to meet the 'rents:

Heh. Given my dad's undying love for Philip K. Dick, I'd have to go with Horselover Fat. Two neurotic con-men might be too much, though.

Tie up in your basement and kick when you're feeling frustrated:

The coward character in Saving Private Ryan. There are a great many flaws in that movie, but I can safely say that I have never been so unrelentingly angry at a fictional character as I was at that little bastard. As an alternate, I would probably pick Thomas Covenant from the Stephen R. Donaldson books - of course, if you hit him too hard, he would leave pieces.

(Comment on this)