Brian De Palma's movie - Redacted

I just watched the film by Brian De Palma: "Redacted".

What a great film. Even if this is only showing the negatives of what has happened in this war, it's valuable. De Palma, known for such films as most notably 1983s, "Scarface", and "Casualty of War" with Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox, has revisited the situation from that previous Vietnam era film about rape in war and how the dehumanizing effects of war lead to war crimes in an environment that makes moral accounts unqualified muddy affairs.

Brian de Palma on set

I heard Redacted was a good movie so I queued it up on Netflix. I watched it, unsure of the film as it went along. Then toward the end, it barreled forward on me and when the end hit I was sitting there like someone had hit me in the face with a mallet. That surprised me and confused me. I couldn't figure out why until I saw who had directed it and then it all made sense.

One of the things this film drove home was what the Iraqi people (and therefore, others in this situation) have suffered through. I don't take this film as an indictment of what all our troops have done in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere, but it did drive home how this kind of thing is possible, and that anything can be possible when dealing with this kind of situation and these kinds of numbers of people; something typically will happen. And if it can happen once, well....

Think about your local school bully. Now, give him a gun and an unaccountable situation; free range to satiate his more base desires, in a country where so much is forbidden.

The images of the Iraqi family being intruded upon by soldiers, for apparently the right reasons, in searching for a terrorist killer, then later, intruding on this family for no reason other than lust, is sad, fear invoking, immoral and unbelievable, but this kind of thing does happen. It happens here at home, it happens far away in a war situation even more easily. This is based on a true story after all.

It is worth struggling through this kind of film just to remind yourself of why war is hell and why we need to stop doing it, allowing it.

Two interesting bits of trivia according to IMDB:

Magnolia Films requested that Brian De Palma blacked out the faces of dead Iraqis in the disturbing photo montage at the end of the film. It was feared that families of the dead could sue.

---

The genesis of the film began when HDNet Films approached Brian De Palma in 2006 to make a film with only two strings attached: it had to be shot for $5 million and on HD

Clive Barker

I first met Clive back in the late 80s. I worked at Tower Video, just out of University. I was reading a Newsweek magazine. There was a blurb in it about Clive Barker, this new British Horror Writer who was taking the world with his Books of Blood anthologies. Steve King, the "King of Horror fiction" said of Clive: "I have read the future of Horror and it is, Clive Barker." Nice blurb, huh?

About what I looked like back in the late 80s

For some reason, I decided to write to both Steven King and Clive Barker. Clive wrote back. I never heard from King. Nothing, nada, zip, not even the standard fake promo material. Well, now, admittedly, Steve was an icon even then. So I didn't expect much. But Clive actually wrote back. So I wrote him again. And he wrote back.

Clive Barker some years ago

One day, I heard he was going to be at Tower Books, so I was first in line to meet him. While I stood there, I listened to those in line behind me. It seemed like forever when Clive arrived. I had by now, read his books. He came in, wearing a light colored suit and a man asked him if he could get him anything. Some kind of aide or handler of which there were two. Clive said, coffee would be nice and the one man asked her he would like it. Clive said "White," and the man was totally confused. The other man jumped in and said to Clive, "okay, no problem, thank you," and walked off telling the other man that "white" was another way of saying milk or cream in it.

I was first in line and Clive looked up at me and smiled and said, "Hi." I said, "Hi." And we started talking. I told him that most the people in line behind me were Steve King fans. They were there to give Clive a chance. Etcetera. Clive got a kick out of it. He said, "I'll take fans where ever I can get them." He signed my books. All of them. I was married at the time, so I even had him sign some so she could have her own collection.

Funny story. After we divorced, I was at her apartment one day to pick up my son. Now, I had been missing one of my Books of blood and couldn't figure out where It was. As I was waiting for her to get our son ready for me to take him for the weekend, I noticed on the floor a line of books next to her stereo, and in the middle were the Books of Blood. I didn't think anything of it until I noticed there was a duplicate of one book.

So I picked it up and opened it and sure enough, it was signed to me by Clive. I mentioned that when she returned to the room and she got angry. She said something like "Why don't you just look through all my stuff to see if I took anything else?" I said, "well, hey, it has, like, my NAME in it." I was about to blow her off on her offer to look though her things but then I realized that she knew damn well she had my book. So I looked through her other books and I found another. She was pissed. I was humble. But once outside, I felt so good about it. It annoyed me that she wouldn't even have those books if I hadn't paid for them, got them signed and gave them to her; and then she tries to keep one of my set of his books. Low.

Some time later, I heard Clive was coming back. I was still married and my wife (the one I mentioned above) was off somewhere, possibly at work and I had our son. So, I took him at the last minute, down to Lower Queen Anne Tower Books in his stroller. He was maybe 18 months old or so. I strolled him in and we saw Clive. I reminded Clive we'd met (how's he supposed to remember with all he meets?) and had corresponded and he fell into an amiable attitude. I asked him to shake hands with my son, as even though he doesn't understand, I could one day tell him he shook Clive's hand.

So Clive shook his hand. My son had the strangest look on his face and Clive and I remarked to one another about it, laughing.

And now, its years later and I'm looking for Clive to give me a blurb for my book like King did for his. Will it happen? Probably not. Should it happen? I don't know, but hey, who wouldn't want it to happen? Clive will always be my favorite. His prose is better than King, he's more direct, he's more my style. King, you are the original, after Poe, perhaps. Clive, in my book you'll always be "The Man" of Horror Fiction.

So, I got a response from Clive's people. They will forward my email to him and gave me his address to send him my manuscript once its ready to be reviewed. I forwarded this to my publisher which will make her very happy. They had said he's very busy with deadlines but hey, I could wait. For a while. Considering I didn't think I'd even get this far all I can say is, only time will tell, and it never hurts to ask.

Filmmaking in Seattle and Washington State

I would like to see more films shot in Seattle. We have a very artistic community (nothing to do when the weather is bad but play music and make art, right?). We have a reputable film festival and community and a lot of great art, film and music has come out of the Pacific NorthWest.

Pictured, DXC-D55L 2/3" EFP-Ready Camera Head

There have been some great films and TV made entirely, or in part made, in Seattle or Washington in general. Well, some films I really liked anyway, I don't want to get into any arguments about what makes a great film. You might be surprised at what films were filed in Washington, or at least parts of, or special F/X were, I'll offer some examples.

If you are thinking of shooting a film in Washington, I can say, we have just about every type of land form you could need, from Mountains, to lakes, to salt water, Ocean, caves, desert, even petrified forests.

Nearly everyone has some brush with a movie being made. I can't count how many times I've happened upon a film being shot, typically never even knowing what it was for. Some interesting bits where films shot in Washington and my family crossed paths:

Elvis in "It Happened at the World's Fair"

• I just missed Elvis at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962s "It Happened at the World's Fair", by time my family got to go the filming was done. 

 

• I missed the filming of John Wayne's 1974 film, McQ at Ocean Shores; my family had been staying there and I had to leave Sunday night for Monday work. The rest of my family got to see much: My mother danced with the Duke, walked along and talked with Diana Muldaur, and watch Clu Gulager clowning around just having being riddled with bullets on the beach gun fight scene.

 

Robert Hays as Starman

• I was on the set of the 1986 TV pilot for "Starman" for one full night, standing directly next to I believe Director Robert Chenault, seated next to the camera while they shot a night scene at the Seattle Center's Monorail terminal. Sadly, there were only stand in shots being done and I never got to meet Robert Hays. As they filmed, the rides in the "Fun Forest" had to be coordinated to be going, although there were no passengers. I started the night with them at top of Queen Anne Hill on the South West side.

Gleamed from the Washington State web site for film, here is a partial list of movies filmed in part or completely (as much as any film is filmed completely outside of Hollywood or another location outside of principle shooting) in Washington:

• "Trouble in Mind" (AKA, "Rain City"), with Keith Carradine and Kris Kristopherson, a quirky, cool little film was shot in Seattle.
• "Tugboat Annie" from the 1930s was shot in Seattle based on the life of Thea Foss of Tacoma, Washington. I used to watch the TV show (Canada 1957-61) when I was a little kid. Later years, no one believed me, they just said there was a movie made in 32, but now I know, there was indeed a TV show.
• "Star Trek III" - (computerized generated backgrounds produced by Seattle company - Stray Frames)
• "Barefoot in the Park" a TV version in 1981 of the famous Robert Redford film.
• 1982s "Frances" - The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted. My mother got a job at Western State Mental Hospital when she was 17, lying about her age. One of her patients was Francis Farmer.
•  1980s "The Changling" with George C. Scott.
• "An Officer and a Gentleman"
• "War Games" with Matthew Broderick.
• "Cinderella Liberty" with James Caan.
• "Bustin' Loose" with Richard Pryor.
• "House of Games" by David Mamet, one of my favorite screen/playwriters.
• "Harry and the Hendersons" with a cute movie with John Lithgow.
• "Say Anything" a favorite of my ex wife, and John Cusak always a favorite of mine, by Cameron Crowe.
• "The Fabulous Baker Boys" with the Bridges brothers, Beau and Jeff, and Michelle Pfeiffer.
• "Fire Walk With Me" by David Lynch of his "Twin Peaks" TV show fame (see below).
• "Sleepless in Seattle" with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, by Nora Ephram.
• "The Vanishing" with Jeff Bridges.
• "Little Buddha" with Keanu Reeves.
• "Disclosure" with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
• Assassins with Sylvestor Stallone and Antonio Banderas.
• "Slaves to the Underground".
• "Countdown".
• "Get Carter".
• "Inheritance".
• "I love you to death" with River Phoenix and Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman and William Hurt.
• "The Ring 2".
• "The Last Mimzy".
• "Into the Wild".
• "88 Minutes".
• "Battle in Seattle".
• "Burn After Reading".

And many other as well as the TV shows:

• "Twin Peaks" Exteriors were primarily filmed in Snoqualmie and North Bend, with additional exteriors shot in southern California. Most of the interior scenes were shot on standing sets in a San Fernando Valley warehouse.
• "Northern Exposure" Although the town of Cicely is widely thought to be patterned after the real town of Talkeetna, Alaska, the main street of Cicely and the filming location was actually that of Roslyn, Washington. Northern Exposure II (The main production facility) was located in Redmond, Washington in what is now the headquarters of Genie Industries, behind a business park. The barbed wire fence around it still exists.
• "Dark Angel" Okay, maybe not, but I liked this one. The program is set in Seattle, Washington, and was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, at Lions Gate Studios.
• "Millennium" Okay, yet another one. The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, though most episodes were ostensibly set in or around Seattle, Washington. Theme music for the show was composed by Mark Snow, who also created the distinctive theme music for The X-Files.
• "Frasier"
• "Gray's Anatomy"
• "MTVs Real World" down on the piers in a reconverted warehouse condo on the dock.
• "Starman"
• "Almost Live!" a show that went national and was shown before Saturday Night Life for a while and whom the current TV show "Community" and "The Soup" star Joel McHale hailed from.
• "Here Come the Brides"
• "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" with Scott Bakula and Maria Bello.
• "Night Stalker" a remake of the previous 1974 series,"Kolchak: The Night Stalker" with Darrin McGavin.

Here are some informational and links in case you want to make a film in Washington State.

Washington Filmworks funding assistance application

Seattle Film Festivals

Washington State Film Liaison links

Fims made in Seattle

Washington State Film incentives

Seattle Film incentives

A few more reasons why filming in Washington makes sense (and dollars)

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Murdockinations Changes

First, let me mention you can now get to this blog more easily.

Murdockinations.com will now get you here. It's just a redirect, but still, it's easier now.

Art by Marvin Hayes (hanging in my home office)

Now the real news about this blog.

Art by Marvin Hayes

Doing two blogs per day (or more) each week, and one on the weekends, takes time to research and write. Sometimes I have felt lost in the vast Twilight Zone caverns of unbearable in-distinction. People asked me what I was thinking when I started doing it. But originally it was for my own benefit, to get more writing done, be more accountable to my statements, to get used to a stringent schedule, stuff like that.

But I was also working hard on other projects. Some of those other things have paid off and now I'm more busy than before. I simply do not have the time any longer for so many articles per week. So I am at least going to cut down by half, one blog a day, and maybe further back than that. The quality will get better and I will have more time for things I really need to be doing.

I have a couple of screenplays to finish, one for someone else and one for myself. We're still working on the screenplay that is now at a studio being edited. After that, I have other scripts to do. I have a book being edited in house at the publisher. It's an anthology of horror stories waiting for an editor to be free'd up to take it on.

So, I really need to spend more time with those pursuits.

Therefore, I am going to have to cut back to a workable solution, though I'm not quite sure yet what that is, but I'm sure it will evolve over time into whatever is most workable. The down side is that I will have less blogs, the upside is that they will individually be better and its good to note that my other efforts are finally paying off. It's nice to see that when someone works hard on something, it pays off in the end, don't you think? I find that reassuring. Well, it's better than thinking that working hard gets you absolutely nothing.

I'm also looking for a blurb for my book by Clive Barker (no, really, I'm not kidding). If I can only get in contact with him again as I haven't spoken to him in years, though that's not too easy now a days. It used to be far easier when he still lived in London, but those days are past; and hey, good for him.

However, now it's hopefully time for, "good for me", too. I've certainly put in a lot of work. In a few months it will be two years since I decided to make these changes. I started writing all the time back then. It was like (and still is sometimes) working two full time jobs. My day job alone is sometimes like two full time jobs. So I've been pretty busy and its easy to get burned out or feel all is hopeless sometimes.

But I kept pushing through it.

See, that's the key to making it. You simply don't stop. You have to have acceptable quality of course, but as you keep pushing, that too should increase in value. So now its beginning to pay off. I've made many new friends and associates. I've gotten scripts done, and much fiction written. I also started this blog and that has been its own reward and hopefully, has brought some knowledge and humor from time to time, to a few people around the world. It was certainly exciting keeping up with the happenings in Egypt while that was going full bore.

Well, that's all I have for now. I just wanted to state what's going on, why I'm making these changes and what they are to me.

All the best to you.
And yours.
And to those people in those countries of unrest where they are making for themselves a hopefully far better future...soon to come.
Cheers!

Weekend Wise Words - Useful Idiots

‎"Elements within the British establishment were notoriously sympathetic to Hitler. Today the Islamists enjoy similar support. In the 1930s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats and the Daily Mail; this time it is left-wing activists, The Guardian and sections of the BBC. They may not want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s apologists for the socialism/communism — useful idiots". - Anthony Browne August 1, 2005.From "Fundamentally we're useful idiots". The London Times. Retrieved May 27, 2010

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. " - Sir Winston Churchill:

Iran hangs Dutch/Iranian woman allegedly for drug smuggling

This is actually old news now (January 30, 2011), but still relevant. It sounds a lot like the old story of someone has hurt the government's feelings, so they trump up charges on someone and remove them through that already in place process (Officials claim "national security issues" so they frame someone on drug or murder charges and voila! no more problem). Murder has no time limit, so I'm bringing this up again, now that time has passed. Has anyone done a THING about this yet? Was an innocent woman hanged?

I personally find this disgusting and I'm sick of some quarters of the world and their disregard for the sanctity of Human life, or life in general for that matter. What happened to an eye for an eye? Drugs = murder? I don't think so.

And if the was framed well, that's an entirely different matter. Perhaps those in the Government responsible for this, should be hanged too? Just a thought.

Zahra Bahrami secretly buried

Torture rumors (from Radio Netherlands Worldwide, link above)
 
The Iranian human rights organisation says this strongly suggests that Zahra Bahrami was convicted for political reasons and not for possession of drugs, as the official verdict states. "The bodies of prisoners executed in Iran for drug offences are always returned to the families. That never happens with political prisoners because the regime is afraid their funeral will turn into a demonstration."

45-year-old Zahra Bahrami was hanged in Evin prison in Tehran on 29 January, after being sentenced to death for possession of cocaine and opium in early January. Following her execution, stories began to circulate that she had been tortured and her body showed signs of this. HRADI says this is another reason for the authorities not to release the body and to arrange a secret burial. 

An Iranian-Dutch woman, arrested after taking part in anti-government protests in Iran in 2009, has been hanged for drug smuggling, the semi-official Mehr news agency said.

Iran hangs security issues woman by hanging drug charges on her

"Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- The Netherlands froze all ties with Iran Sunday after Tehran hanged a Dutch-Iranian woman a day earlier, calling the execution a "shocking act by a barbaric regime."

"And Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal will "discuss possible measures" against Iran by the European Union on Monday, the foreign ministry said.

"Iran hanged Zahra Bahrami Saturday, saying she was a drug smuggler, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, although the Dutch government expressed "great concern" about her case three weeks ago.
Fars said Bahrami smuggled cocaine into Iran with the help of a Dutch partner.

"But the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran suggested the drug charges were only a pretext to execute her.

"The campaign said Bahrami was originally charged with security offenses in the wake of widespread protests against the government over a controversial presidential election in June 2009.

"Her lawyer was "shocked" to find she had been hanged, the group said.

"I was absolutely not informed about this. They should have informed her lawyer of the execution, but I had no idea. I don't know what to say. Just that I am shocked," Jinoos Sharif Razi told the group.

"The campaign said it learned of the hanging from Bahrami's daughter."

Boilerplate, JJ Abrams' new SteamPunk movie

See end of article for 2024 update...

"Bad Robot" studios finally make an actual robot movie..
From Clevver:

"It has always seemed a little odd that a production company called Bad Robot never made any movies that actually involved robots. We've overlooked that flaw until now, but it looks like we no longer have to. J.J. Abrams and company are fixing that strange oversight with Boilerplate.

"Boilerplate is about an early "steampunk" robot. Steampunk is the sub-genre of science fiction set in an era where steam power is still widely used, featuring futuristic technology as people of the era would have envisioned it to be. The robot in Boilerplate just so happens to be set in the Victorian Age. The robot fights with both Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, starts a career in the movies, and even disappears during World War One. The story is based on the graphic novel "Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel." The tale first surfaced on the Web eleven years ago, but the novel was only published last year.

J.J. Abrams

"We're glad J.J. Abrams and crew decided to take the Bad Robot name seriously, but we're not quite sure what to expect from this one. Science fiction filmmaking is unusual by its sheer nature, and steampunk work even more so. With that in mind, we want to hear from you in the comments section below. Stay with us on Clevver movies for all the latest movie trailers and movie news. We'll see you next time."

J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Making Actual Robot Movie: Boilerplate, In Developmen.

Honestly, I don't have high hopes for this film, but I look forward to checking out the effort they put into it and have high hopes they will pull it off. If you see what I mean. JJ has cranked out some pretty good stuff, some of the favorites. I went into, for instance, Star Trek, really expecting the worst, but came away pleased with what he did.

Abrams has after all, created some of the most favored of shows on TV in recent times: Lost (Never watched it, couldn't stand it), Fringe (still watching it, love it, for the most part), Cloverfield (nice effort), Alias (one of those guilty pleasures), Undercovers (didn't work for me), and the soon to come, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Coming this year, MI-GP is directed by Brad Bird (Simpson, The Critic, Toy Story 3 and Up), writers include Abrams and Cruise; but then Simon Pegg is in it too, so maybe it has a chance; here's hoping on that one.

Well, regarding Boilerplate, we have a bit of a wait, look for it in 2013.

2024 update:

JJ Abrams' planned film about Boilerplate, a historical fiction robot created by artist Paul Guinan and writer Anina Bennett, seems to have stalled in development. In 2010, Abrams' Bad Robot Productions acquired the film rights to adapt the illustrated book Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel (2009), which tells the story of a fictional robot that interacts with real historical figures and events from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The project generated some early buzz, but there has been no significant news or updates about the film in the years since.

The absence of updates suggests the film may have been shelved or is languishing in development limbo, a common fate for many Hollywood projects, especially those involving complex historical settings and special effects. While Bad Robot Productions continues to work on numerous other films and series, there hasn't been any recent indication that Boilerplate is still in active production.