Tag Archives: Rants

Rant: Repainting films

Posted on by
6

I’ve spent many days and evenings escaping real life and CF by watching movies – good, bad and mind-blowing. However, I’m irritated by trend of the enhanced version, or director’s cut, or need to release a second version of a great film for increased profits. It cheapens classics and makes me wonder why this craze haunts the film industry and not other art forms. What about novels and paintings?

Apple products would have a huge role in the new version. HC can visit the NYC Apple store.

If we can re-do films, why not pen updated versions of the Catcher in the Rye or Catch-22? Or paint new brush strokes on the Mona Lisa. Perhaps my examples are cheating, as the novels came out in a different time period when movies didn’t get updated (along with the fact J.D. Salinger, Norman Mailer and da Vinci are long gone).  However, should that really matter? Couldn’t these works be freshened up for modern audiences? Think of the possibilities: Mona Lisa sports a Bluetooth headset in her ear, reflecting the busy, independent woman she is now. The current painting doesn’t do her lifestyle justice. In the repainted version, the porcelain veneers of her $10K J Lo smile sparkle when she’s caught mid-sentence ordering another five thousand shares of DreamWorks stock.

Let’s not stop at paintings. Think of the possibilities when it comes to adding modern, marketable technology to novels. Holden Caulfield gets a cell phone to use in TCITR II, the Technology Cut. Or better yet, Holden gets an iPod playing marketable hits while he walks around New York City contemplating life, which will be the cherry on top to sell the music rights for a massive amount of money. Now there’ll be a Catcher soundtrack album, or two, and a Holden Caulfield special-edition iPod. And McDonald’s Catcher in the Rye drink glasses that will be recalled due to some nasty Chinese metal in the coating that causes us all to want to kill ourselves, which is how I feel thinking about this.

There is no greater example of my hatred of revisionist history than Star Wars, which I remember waiting three hours to see when it was released and have since seen a dozen times. But, and it hurts to say this, George Lucas has killed it for me with updated versions that include added scenes that weren’t part of the original footage. In the ultimate unfair do-over, he added scenes created with new special-effects technology. Why not just re-shoot the entire movie with new technology, George, if you’re going to apply that rule? Why make a quilt of old and new? Might as well get rid of the cheap masks in the cantina scene while you’re tinkering with your masterpiece.

Imagine the Na'vi in pink or purple or ecru or Home Depot orange, the latter creating unique marketing opportunities

Why not re-shoot the whole damn thing, George? Re-shoot it every year with new actors and you’ll have a billion-dollar hit every June. Or, instead of re-releasing 4 or 5 different versions of your crowning achievement, as you clearly screwed up the last four of the movies you made, why not let someone else take a spin with the characters and make new movies? My eight-year-old daughter would jump at the chance to see new Star Wars films, not Star Wars films with new scenes.

I know my cause is hopeless. There’s too much money involved. And that’s our world now. Marketing and packaging – or repackaging. Maximizing the return. I don’t blame anyone. I would do the same thing if given the chance. If I had made Avatar and had had total artistic control, I wouldn’t release a second version less than a year later like James Cameron did. No, no, no –  I’d release a new version every month with different skin colors for the “Na’vi.” Then, when I ran out of colors, I would give the Na’vi iPads. Today, Avatar 1, version 27, would be in theaters.

Oh, well, it’s a shame some artists can’t leave their masterpieces alone. It makes me sad, though hopeful that one day someone will release a director’s cut of Troll 2. Hopefully the new version will be a total of nine minutes long and come with 100 dollars in cash for those of us who wasted two hours of our lives watching it the first time. One can only hope.

I Want To Be Jack Nicholson

Posted on by
8

Visit to the optometrist

The eye doctor told me I needed new reading and distance glasses. I thought I’d have to buy two separate pairs, but she told me I could get one pair with “progressive” lenses that covered all distances. Sounded great. Not sure how the magic works, but I love saving money.

Here I am wearing the glasses in question. Finally, no bag over my head, though I'd look better with one on.

To prevent a fashion faux pas, I brought my wife. And after trying on a dozen styles, she helped me choose a pair of tortoise-shell Nike glasses with a green inner frame, which was a hip, youthful touch. They seemed okay, but I didn’t have lenses in them so I couldn’t get a clear image of how I looked. But my wife told me they looked good.

After the frame was picked, the sales guy tried to sell me every 80 dollar add-on I didn’t need. I gave in for the glare protection because that feature might help at night. Even with insurance I got pounded for over 250 dollars.

A week passed and I picked up my glasses. Looking in the mirror with them on, two things happened. First, I realized that I looked like Robert De Niro at the end of Casino when he wore huge old-guy glasses. Second, I couldn’t see clearly because of the progressive lenses, which require you to look out of certain parts of the lens to see close up, medium or far distances. Oh, #!$* me.

The sales guy told me not to worry because it takes a week to get comfortable using them, but not to walk down stairs or drive with them yet. What the? Do I have to visit a mall parking lot like I did at age 15 and learn to drive again in these things? Are you kidding me? How did I go to eyeglass hell and not know it?

I was pretty upset at that point. I looked 80-years-old and couldn’t see well (that is probably how I’ll be at that age if, by some miracle, I outfox CF). Yet, the coup de grâce was still on the way. When I got home, I asked my wife if she thought the glasses looked good on me. She shrugged her shoulders and said something like “I thought they did.” Oh, being married some days. Argh, argh, argh. You thought they did? Past tense? What about now, at this moment?

The real blow to the head came when I tried to use them while doing computer work. Impossible, as they had no sweet spot that allowed me to focus clearly on the computer monitor. I could eek out a “less-blurry” image if I tilted my head sideways at just the right distance, and held one leg in the air, but I wouldn’t be able to maintain that pose for the 10 to 12 hours I spend looking at three monitors.

Give me a new pair and I'll let you live. Maybe.

I hate situations like this where I feel like I got hosed. I wish I were Jack Nicholson with his unlimited funds and volcano temper and I could stand in the middle of the optometrist’s office, with the joker who sold them to me sitting there, and the doctor who told me progressive lens were the way to go looking on, and throw the new eyeglasses to the ground, then jump on them until they became a mass of pulverized Nike plastic.

I’d calmly say: “Now how about selling me a pair of glasses I can see out of and use for work without tilting my head like a curious dog waiting for a treat – a pair that doesn’t make me look like I accidently walked out of the nursing home during a game of bingo and can’t find my walker or my way back?”

Is there anyone here who can do that? Is there anyone here who knows what the *$&# they’re doing?

Of course I’d take a 9-iron to the racks of crappy glasses on the walls, destroying them all. Then I’d drop my credit card on the counter and say, “I didn’t see anything I liked today. Call me when your new inventory arrives.”

Oh, how I wish I could do that. Instead, I have to go back and see how much it’s going to cost me to get new ones. I can’t wait to take it in the shorts – again.

I’m living proof some of us don’t get smarter as we grow older. We just get fuglier.

Stay well.

60-Second Sunday Rant

Posted on by
8

We need more people who are mad as hell

I’m looking at the front page of the L.A. Times right now. There’s an article about an automotive company that’s been in the news recently for problems with its vehicles. This article states that the company “sought to cut costs by limiting the scope of repairs.”

I’m not going to debate whether they did this or not. I’m upset because in five years this company will still be around and still prospering. I’m happy for all of the people who work there, but at what point are we as consumers going to say enough is enough? Do the right f’ing thing, companies. Don’t let us read about you in the L.A. Times again.

And the next time somebody says to me that we don’t need government regulation of companies – that companies will do the right thing on their own – I’m going to take a baseball bat to that person. Companies continually prove that they won’t do the right thing on their own, that they will always put profit ahead of customers’ best interests.

What’s sad about these poor decisions is that they are made by people working at these companies. And I wonder what these people would think if they were on the other side of one of these decisions? If their house was being repossessed because the person at the bank lied to them about the loan agreement? Or the product caused them to get cancer? Or if a known vehicle defect wasn’t disclosed to them before they loaded their entire family into the vehicle for a Sunday drive to the mountains?

At what point are we as consumers going to draw a line in the sand with the people who run these companies and take our business elsewhere? I guess at the point when we don’t let our desire for their product overrule our memory of their actions. Wishful thinking?