snowman

Frosty the Chemical Snowman from andy orin on Vimeo.

Mini Review: Doubt

'Doubt' is a movie rife with stunningly skilled actors demonstrating their prowess (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Meryl Streep), and is a strong film, but is ultimately unable to distinguish itself from its theater source; it is merely a play on film, rather than on stage. You almost expect a curtain to draw over the last scene, only to open to the main trio taking a bow, accepting bouquets.

It is worth seeing, but the film will never be remembered as a separate entity from the play.

Amy Adams makes for an adorable nun. Does not everyone have a little crush on her?

peanut butter and jelly

When I was a child, I used to accompany my mother to the grocery store on her weekly trips. It was just something to do, I suppose, and the store never failed to be a fascinating place. But I was not the sort of child to beg for superfluous goodies and sweets; I knew my mother would say no to any whines and protestations, as she always bought the cheapest and healthiest food that was reasonable, not counting the weekly carton of ice cream (bless her soul).

But, of course, I pined for junk food.

I remember seeing the Lunchables--- those mesmerizing, manufactured, bite-sized miniatures of food, circles of ham, crackers delight, perfect postage stamp sized cheese squares--- and always wanting them. They taste like a foreign observer’s idea of what Earth food might be, recreated in a far-off Martian lab, but man, those little snacks looked appealing.

I remembering seeing tubs of Cool Whip, cans of whipped cream, and thinking, blessed he is the man who can spoon Whip straight from the tub that giveth the Whip. Spray cheese had a similar appeal.

I remember, especially, the special jars of peanut butter that contained both peanut butter AND jelly, in a single jar.

I never asked for any of these things because I knew my mother to be too practical. But now, dear reader, at two point three decades of age, I can buy whichever peanut butter I like. I only realized this quite recently.

The call it Smuckers Goober, and it contains peanut butter striped with jelly in a zebra-like pattern. The visual splendor of striped condiments makes up for any lackluster taste. In fact, it would probably taste better to buy the individual condiments, but the gimmick itself, TWO things in ONE jar, is worth the expenditure.

I think it’s a modern marvel.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button feels like sipping a warm cup of tea in the cold, early morning, warming your hands while you review the night’s dreams--- one of those dreams so oft had and never remembered, stored in that part of your memory where you can’t reach what had just played out in your mind’s eye.

David Fincher and writer Eric Roth, with source material by F. Scott Fitzgerald, took it upon themselves to convey one of those dreams. Fitzgerald wrote over a hundred twenty short stories and only a handful of them, maybe two or three, had any sort of magical element. Benjamin Button is of course one of those. In short, the protagonist ages in reverse: Benjamin is born old and becomes younger as the years go by.

I think the studio wanted it to be perceived as a straight sentimental romance movie, and viewers expecting that, expecting some kind of nice comfortable love story, will be disappointed. It isn’t one of those. It is instead a biography about death and aging, loss and longing, and living life. There’s something commendable in this: the story just happens, life just happens to Benjamin, without a by-the-book Hollywood plot. Not one of those hard three-act hook, line, and sinker plots.

Some will criticize the film for this. It just is. It just happens. The love story between Benjamin and Daisy threads the movie together but is not always the conflict at hand. It is more a meandering bildungsroman novel, following a character though life as he develops, than it is a short story about a central conflict. The 2 hour 48 minute running time seems necessary; to tell the truth, I don’t recall a single scene that could easily be cut. Some people will disagree. In fact a few people left the theater before the film finished. It boggles the mind.

Well, the framing could have been cut--- the story is told by Daisy on her deathbed, with her daughter reading through Benjamin’s diary. That in itself works fine, but they are sitting in a hospital while Hurricane Katrina approaches. Why? Placing the story in New Orleans added a compelling, tone-appropriate layer of history and fantasy, but the impending shadow of Katrina is nebulous in its purpose. The name distracts from the story at hand--- Benjamin’s story.

Nonetheless, the magical realism of the film uniquely treads upon the universality of human experience: we are all young and learning, we are all old and dying, and in between you better appreciate your minutes, regardless of which direction you might be going.

Gotta wonder what Scott Fitzgerald would think about new Benjamin Button film (which is based on a Fitzgerald story). Fitzgerald famously fizzled out trying to write for Hollywood—he thought the medium of film would surpass novels. He was right, at least in terms of numbers. But he was wrong in thinking he could just transfer his talents in stories and novels to screenplays, as if words are words and that is all. Obviously screenwriting then is different than it is now, but the thought that writing is writing regardless of the end medium, and that a novelist could write for the pictures just fine, was flawed. Writing for film is---it seems to me--- a scene to scene, sentence to sentence, word to word outline, a skeleton on which all other parts hang, but only a skeleton. The skeleton, the storyline, comes from the writers and the guts come from everyone else. Writing novels is different because you have to play god entirely and you have to know what the reader would think about every word and sentence, but the storyline is actually less important because novels don’t have to hold you for 120 sequential minutes. Fitzgerald didn’t seem to perceive that films don’t hang on the words themselves.

Anyway, I’ll write up a quick review in a few days. I should watch it before reviewing it.

scene from 'full frontal'

scene from 'full frontal' from andy orin on Vimeo.

another final project for a class. a brief scene from the script of steven soderbergh's 'full frontal' (written by coleman hough)

thanks veronique, adriane, and tracy ward!

things about zoos

thing about zoos from andy orin on Vimeo.

sf zoo

san francisco zoo from andy orin on Vimeo.

garden gnome movie

Gnomadic Hearts from andy orin on Vimeo.

first 8mm footage

fun with 8mm from andy orin on Vimeo.

just some test footage edited together. music from bram stoker's dracula.