Busy Saturday

Well, I got a call from my wife. They have been very busy since arriving in Washington DC last night, seeing the Capital Building, the Washington Monument and are now on their way to the WWII and Vietnam memorials. One of my scripts, a corporate spy thriller called Chameleons, actually ends at the Washington Monument. Ever mindful of this, my wife has guaranteed that she's taken plenty of pictures for me.

She said we could spend a week up there and still not see everything.

Meanwhile, my son and I had baseball tryouts this morning, we're going to Mass this afternoon and I'll be writing the last act of Severed this evening.

I also received a short DV film called Broken in the mail today and I'm looking forward to viewing it. They really created a dynamic film look using prosumer quality digital video equipment.

So, I've got to get back at it. Have a great Saturday, everyone!

A Lukewarm Society

I am amazed at how many people give no thought or weight to their immortal resting place. Whether it's online with message boards or blogs or at work with co-workers, so many people simply don't put their soul to high esteem. They'll joke about going to hell or off-handedly say with a certain level of pride that they no longer attend any church services.

The flippancy of their attitude toward faith is so astounding to me. They either know the consequences but don't care or have dismissed the idea of consequences all together. Either way, the trend is concerning.

Growing up it was the rare case of a family that did not go to church regularly. Now, I am in the minority. The fact that we go to church every Sunday, that my kids are involved, that my daughter goes to youth group... these are all the exceptions, not the rule.

I wonder how our priorities got so out of whack. No wonder the moral center of the country is up for grabs now. Instead of most of society gravitating toward a common moral core, we are left with millions of individual ideas of what is morally acceptable. Combine that and the power of the media working hard to lay out their own version of universal truth, i.e., moral relativism, and we are now what the bible calls a "lukewarm" society.

The bible does not speak highly of those that are lukewarm. Perhaps we have been too prosperous. Perhaps the struggles that forged our moral center, two world wars sandwiching the great depression, left our parents and grandparents with a greater respect for those things outside of our control that can affect our lives.

After years of relative calm, growth and greed, our focus has naturally turned inward, selfish, and now it's all about us... we've forgotten or have little practical experience with the ravages of life that can turn our safe worlds upside down.

You would think that 9/11, or the multiple hurricanes or the tsunami would have shifted our focus back to God, but we have become desensitized to it all... these events are just five channels of five hundred distractions on our cable box.

My hope and belief is that there is always a path back to God. I just wonder what he's going to have to do to get our society back on his path. I fear it won't be a subtle event, but something much more drastic than what has occurred.

I hope we "warm up" to Him before then so that our chastisement will be lessened and our focus where it should be... back on Him.

March For Life

This weekend my wife and daughter are joining other members of our church for the March For Life in Washington, DC. The long weekend is full of sight seeing and an all day vigil at church. Having never been to DC, having to work this weekend and my son and I fighting colds, I kind of envy their upcoming weekend events. The trip culminates, of course, with participation in the March For Life against abortion.

Please keep them in your prayers this weekend.

Fantastic Four

It's hard to imagine that a Hollywood "Tent Pole" film, a film that is the cornerstone of a studio's release for the year, can have been written and directed more poorly than Fantastic Four. It reminded me to Star Wars 1 - 3, where the film is full of imagination in everywhere but the script. The dialogue is stilted and forced, propped up by a paint-by-the-numbers unfolding plot with occasional jaunts into a lapse of logic. For example, I found it funny that one of the main characters comes home to find a stack of Final Notices from bill collectors, but has enough money to create massive technology to try and revert the effects causing the mutation to the Fantastic Four. Or that, even though the live in New York city, when a large action event occurs, all of the main characters are able to arrive on location within minutes, even though there are thousands of spectators between where they were and where they wanted to be.

Jon Favreau (Swingers, Elf), actor/writer/director, has a show on the Independent Film Channel called Dinner for Five, where he and four other Hollywood industry professional chat about the business. Favreau once stated on that show that film projects have three major areas; writing, acting and directing. You can only risk one of those three and hope to have a good film... so you can have a new writer but a proven director and actors, or a proven writer and director with new actors, or a new director with a proven writer and actors.

Fantastic Four is missing two and a half of the three main ingredients. As stated, the writing is poor and unimaginative with cliche relationships. Strike one of three. The directing is unimaginative and inconsistent by Tim Story, of Barbershop and the universally panned Taxi fame. Strike two of three. The cast includes Ioan Gruffudd (Horatio Hornblower) as Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba (Into the Blue) as genetic scientists Sue Storm, Chris Evans (Cellular) Johnny Storm, Michael Chiklis (The Shield) as The Thing and Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck) as the ominous Victor Von Doom. Bad actors can always ruin good writing. Only very good actors can elevate bad writing. Unfortunatley, this cast seems to try so hard to overcome the script that they just don't come off as natural. This normally talented cast underperforms, for the most part, which only accentuates the flaws in the story and execution.

Evans, whom I loved in Not Another Teen Movie and in Cellular, is the exception to the rest of the cast. Perhaps because his character has the most interesting things to do or because he was given latitude during filmming to improvise, whatever the reason, without Evans the Fantastic Four would be a completely painful experience. He is full of life and energy and charm. McMahon, as Von Doom, soaks in the egotistical role to its greatest extent, but can only take it so far.

In the end, this is a very disappointing film when you consider all of the possibilities. However, it appears that Fantastic Four made enough money because they are making a sequel. I can only hope, for all of our sakes, that it is better than the original.

Defending Your Faith

My brother Paul and I were discussing Father Miguel Pro's life and some potential cinematic aspects to his life story. The discussion turned to peace movements... the church obviously prefers a peaceful resolution over a violent confict.

There can be a paradox to peace movements. For example, in the war in Iraq, many people did not want us to go to war there. They feared the impact of the violence on the innocent people there. However, they were being persecuted by their own government. More and more mass graves are being found, so should not those same people who aggressively opposed a violent solution to Iraq leadership be equally opposed to the violence perpetrated by that same leadership? I'm not trying to argue in favor or against the war, simply the complexity of such a peace movement.

Then you have people like Martin Luther King who led a peace movement to great effect. Perhaps his success, and the potential formula for success for future peace movements, is that there was an overwhelming number of people in favor of the peaceful change and a small number of people in power fighting that change. I can't see a peace movement being truly successful with numbers being any different.

My question is, can violence be justified if it is considered self-defense of the faith?

The Jews were persecuted numerous times during the Roman era... how would the Jewish faith look now if they never fought back?

Jesus said if we live by the sword we will die by the sword. But, if our faith is being attacked, are we not called to defend it? If it is being attacked by violence, should not we defend it equally so?

I don't know the answers to these questions... but I'll try and figure it out.

Mid-Severed

In less than two weeks I've reached the mid-point of this first draft of the screenplay Severed. As my brother Paul called it, you could categorize the film as a Christian Die Hard, so to speak. Sixty pages in two weeks is really rockin' and rollin' when it comes to writing, so I'm very happy with it.

I've really enjoyed the process because the steps of the story have been clear, which is not always the case when writing. It has been a lot of fun creating action and suspenseful sequences. If shot well, there could be some really juicy moments in it.

My goal is to pump out this first draft as quickly as I can, then let it sit so I can revisit it in a few months with fresh eyes.

The best part of writing is that it's the only part of the filmmaking process that is pure. There are no budgetary or talent or time limitations. The story is exactly the way you want it to be. If it gets made, then you'll have to adjust the story to fit the location or budget or a numerous other variables.

So, I'll enjoy this process of writing the film exactly as I see it.

Come and See

In yesterday's Gospel from John (Gospel - Jn 1:35-42), two of John the Baptist's followers begin to follow Jesus after John calls Jesus the Lamb of God. When they begin to follow him, Jesus turns to them and asks, "What do you seek?" And they said to him, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" Jesus then says to them, "Come and see."

I found the interaction between Jesus and the two followers humorous. Jesus notices he's being followed... his first followers... and asks them what they want. They, apparently, don't know. Their response sounds like they're just making something up... "ahhhh... where are you staying?" That's an odd answer to the question, "What do you seek?"

I thought that you could remove the Apostles' response to the question and, if you simply leave them not answering at all, then Jesus follow up sentence works just as well.

Jesus: What do you seek?

The Apostles do not know.

Jesus: Come and see.

It occurred to me that Jesus' answer may not have been in response to the question of where he was staying, but instead the answer to the question in their hearts as to why they were called to follow him... the answer of which his actions and example will eventually show them.

I'm not theologian, but it seemed plausible. And it made me realize that when we are also called to follow him that the answers to our call will not be in words, but will be held within his living example.

Revisiting Tanglewood

Yesterday my parents came up to our neck of the woods for some appointments and we took advantage of that opportunity to spend some time with them. My son and I, along with my brother Charles and his son Chaz, went to the driving range with my Dad, who's greatest personal passion has always been golf.

We cherish days like this as my father has been struggling with Parkinsons... he has good days and bad days. Yesterday was a very good day. We originally were going to use a driving range near my brother's house, but it closed at noon, so we drove to one of my father's old golf stomping grounds, Mangrove Bay.

The Mangrove Bay Golf Course is located near where I grew up, in between my elementary school and my middle school. Before the links were built there, that location was the Spring Training facility for the St. Louis Cardinals. I have fond memories of riding my bike up there during spring training watching them play. I got Lou Brock's autograph, Reggie Smith, Keith Hernandez, Ted Sizemore and many others. I remember riding up there with my friend Johnny Guess... we saw a lot of people getting autographs from this non-sports guy with a really big, bald head. We didn't know who he was, but he seemed important. It wasn't until high school when I recognized his autograph... Joe Garagiolal.

At the driving range we got a big bucket of balls and did our best to fight the strong wind and dropping temperatures. After a few strong breezes almost knocked over my father and tipped over the golf bags, we called it quits. Instead of going home, we decided to continue our drive down memory lane.

It was neat to show my son where I went to school, where I lived... giving some locations to back up our tall tales. We pulled up to our old house on Tanglewood Drive and got out... I showed my son the light pole under which we played Kick The Can, the bushes we crawled under playing German On The Light, the large oak tree that we planted as a twig, the place where our neighbor's car burst into flames, where we played football, jumped bikes and swam across our canal to a shallow river and played army in "Guadal Canal."

It was amazing how many things I had forgotten suddenly came streaming back into my head. I couldn't process them all quickly enough.

We remembered the nicknames of all of our neighborhood kids... Jungle Rot, Wallop Head, Concrete Legs, Pickle Juice, Fumble King and Scaggly Legs. Looking back those are awful names... but kids don't always grasp such things.

The nicest surprise was visiting with our neighbor, Mr. Pearson. He remembered us and told us his son, Paul, managed his own construction company in Panama City and his daughter, Debbie, was living locally, was married and had a child.

What started out as a simple day to spend some time with my father hitting golf balls turned into a very special day with my father and as a father to my son, sharing my childhood memories and places with him.

It turned out to be a very cool day... strong breeze and all.