Yes, that is quite the sentence is it not? Humour is a funny thing. For me, I like humour delivered intelligent and/or edgy. The brits are great at dark and black humour. It is the kind I like. I do not know too many national humours, yet every nations has its own likings. So when I saw the BBC giving me ‘Jimmy Carr sparks fury with Holocaust routine in Netflix special’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60261876) I had to stop and read it. You see, Jimmy Carr is not for everyone and he is upfront about this. And let’s be clear, he is not for everyone, several comedians bare (or is it bear) that template.
Now the joke is funny, and it is a truth, he is actually giving a spin to a truth and that is a given setting we did not anticipate. He even makes fun of the Jehovah’s witnesses and their watchtower. Yes, we can get angry, or, here’s a thought, we switch OFF the TV if it upsets us. Have people contemplated this? This is not Bernie reincarnated, this is not a concert of Babe the piglet or even a Tele-tubby, it is humour by the formerly youthful, now not so young Jimmy Carr. We know what he is like, there is nothing out of bounds for him and he gets us by going one way and taking a sharp right whilst we were looking to the left. So I say ‘Well Done Jimmy!’ And in the light of the joke, how many people knew the death camp fate of gypsies, homosexuals and other non Arian likings?
I know (for a few reasons) the scope of some events during WW2. And also let’s be clear, he was not making fun of the jews (in this instance), he was using a specific method to give us a truth with a twist. And yes, some people find it upsetting, but guess what, they had the option of watching something else. There will always be the setting where we watch something that offends us. It is an absolute given. You see, there are some that give us that at present at total 500,000 movies have been made. The idea that you like them all is absolute zero. So the idiocy (as I see it) to create fury is dumb on a few levels. On the one hand those who didn’t know his show will now check it out. On the other hand, those creating fury are merely enabling voices for censorship. Democracy is a great thing, yet that means that we are confronted with things we do not like. That is the consequence. So one side opens the other and that is good. It is important to see where our borders are, it is good to know what is too much for us and when we face it we look away, we change channels or we switch off what is there. It is our right to do so. On one side we should congratulate Netflix for giving edgy stuff, it shows that Netflix is taking a larger circumference towards what an audience wants and they also give us what some might not want. It offers us the chance to find out.
Yes, it is a different story this time around. It is IP, and it is free for John Cena. He actually inspired the IP. You see, I first saw him in the Wall, a most excellent movie. I did not know the man, other than that he served, which I read somewhere. Then I saw him in the movie Blockers. A bit over the top, it is so American those Prom movies, but I saw it, mostly because Leslie Mann was in it. It was a few weeks later when I was working as a volunteer in a Salvo’s shop when I saw a 3 DVD pack with the John Cena experience. That was the moment I saw he was originally a wrestler. And whilst watching the first DVD I also had an idea. There is an option for John Cena to get an Oscar, but not the one he might have ever banked on. He could stand a chance to get the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
How so? You see, what I never knew (as I never served in the US army) is that the WWF has done things for the USO, and there is the story. The USO, or United Service Organisations is a setting that provides entertainment for the armed forces. The USO has been around since WW2. So there is material from WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm and many other places. It has over 30,000 volunteers and it has remained (outside of the US) highly invisible. I had heard of the USO, but when you consider just how much they have done, I am surprised that no one else has taken the time to create a movie on what they have achieved. A show about a show, optionally with the special effects on the people who were there, with the morph to what they are now. Interviews with the people behind the entertainment going all the way back to WW2 (if any of them are still around). I think that it is important that this movie is made, because these people should not be forgotten.
Why John Cena? That is a fair question. He is a lighthouse of attention, this time the attention should fall on the people who make the USO run. He could optionally even finance the move (and reap the rewards). A movie that could lead to global visibility and global recognition of a people who worked from the shadows for far too long. And he is but one entertainer that would most likely be willing to shine a torch on the achievements and activities of the USO, there are plenty of others, yet I believe that he gave light to the USO and would willingly do it again.
It could be anyones show, but the greats were Gary Sinise, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye and a few more. And until the JC experience I did not even know that the WWF does its part to entertain the troops via the USO, so there are plenty of people, but who can make the movie? Not me, I am neither a producer or a director, so I am handing it over in the blog. If my writing sets (in part) ownership of the IP, I will happily hand it over to John Cena. Perhaps he can make it work and end up with an Oscar in the process. It seems simple. But is it?
An Idea I have never seen anywhere else, so why not? Why are people not looking around anymore? Why are they all settled on the quick run to cash? As far as I can tell, most of these runs merely shorten their lives and leaves them with nothing, but that is my take on the matter.
That is the setting isn’t it? We do things, we create things and we create concepts and we all think that we are in control of the right one, we all do that. I am no different, yet when I saw the BBC news, I decided to reconsider my point of view. For me it all started in 2020, I set the setting to an article called ‘The stage moves on’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/23/the-stage-moves-on/) I wrote it on February 23rd 2021. And when the BBC gave us ‘Netflix: First Arabic movie sparks morality row’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60091590) I saw the article somewhere this afternoon, and my mind went on a trip. The concept was initially for Amazon (as I have other elements they might want) yet the article gave me “well-known TV journalist Mustafa Bakry said he had complained to the speaker of the Egyptian parliament about the filmmakers. Mr Bakry urged the country’s authorities to halt co-operation with Netflix “since this is not its first movie that targets the values and traditions of the Egyptian and Arab societies”” I see the offence it might give and I do not think that my concept does that, and other than the alleged assassination of Dutch PVV politician Geert Wilders no one got killed, and as far as I can tell, that man is not really accepted in the Netherlands either. With the housing shortage in the Netherlands, one person less, who will notice?
Anyway, the idea that my (aka western) values would collide with Middle Eastern morality and optional Middle Eastern laws did concern me. The idea was a movie that fought and opposed islamophobia was the setup and it had a nice twist at the end (as any decent movie does), I needed the setting so that people might realise that the stage in the middle east was a lot bigger than we think it is, it is not merely about morality and the dangers, it is also about some people want certain other people to hold the bag, if anything Yemen made that clear, and this idea to create something that made it clear to all was my goal in this. The idea that I create something that could be in part filmed and created in Saudi Arabia was also appealing. The rest would be filmed in the Netherlands. There was the small consideration that creating anything that appeals to a large group of 100 million Egyptians, 35 million Saudi’s and 85 millions Turks could be a success story. The idea that a decent chunk of 220,000,000 people might like my concept is off course a really nice idea, I would take any group up to 50%, only the delusional person aims for 100% covering. There would be no chance of that and that is me not considering the 275 million Indonesians, with over 85% Muslim, the numbers would become interesting to say the least.
So there I was with an idea, but it is merely one of several that could appeal to Amazon, and any chunk of half a billion people could optionally translate to a nice pay day and that is merely one of the IP’s I had up for negotiating. Yet still doubt is still a part of me. Like anyone, I relish the chance to go into early retirement and take up skiing 4 months a year, just to keep busy, yet not at the cost of inciting protest that I would be attacking another persons morality, my goal was completely the opposite. So for me the BBC article was a wake up call and a loud one. Still the ideas go through my head designing more and more IP. Should I stop? I personally do not think so, but like any other person I have flaws, I have weaknesses and I do relish the chance for success, wouldn’t you?
Something bothered me, it bothered me from the beginning, but I let it go. There are several important things going on in the world and this was not one of them, or was it? It was the Guardian that pushed me into action. The article ‘Hollywood stars back Emma Watson after Palestinian solidarity post’ gave me the view that is was essential to act, and believe it or not act is the central part of the whole story.
The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jan/13/hollywood-stars-back-emma-watson-after-palestinian-solidarity-post) gives us a few things. Now to be honest, for the most I tend to take the side of Israel, for several reasons. The setting was that Emma Watson showed an image, an image that gives us “a photograph of a pro-Palestinian protest with the banner “solidarity is a verb” written across it. It was accompanied with a quote about the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed.” I reckon that Emma Watson agreed and she posted the image. In the initial hours I saw responses and also the accusation of antisemitism and I thought nothing of it, I believed it to be an overreaction. In this, I also saw the tweets by Danny Danon and I believed he was wrong, he too overreacted, but I let it slide. Now that we see all these responses, I feel that it is important to respond.
As I stated, in most cases I tend to side with Israel. Here there is a truth. The truth is simple “solidarity is a verb”, that is truth, it is a verb until it is followed by acts, commitment and actions. If you want to see that look in your history books on Poland in the 1985-1999 era, solidarity came from actions, until that is done, it is merely a verb. Yet all sources ignore the third side in all this. There is one side, there is the opposition and there is the photograph. You see the photograph is brilliant. It starts conversations,. It starts views and it does create opposition, yet nearly all ignored or overlooked the third party, didn’t you? We see the acts against a young lay, and let’s face it, she is only 382 months old. It is not an excuse, it is not negative, it merely is a fact, just like the fact that “solidarity is a verb”. And she identified with the verb, she identified with the thought. In this she is right and a lot of people are wrong. So it is good to see names like Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo, Peter Capaldi, Charles Dance, Gael García Bernal, Jim Jarmusch, Maxine Peake, Viggo Mortensen and Steve Coogan standing with her. In this Danny Danon and Israeli officials did the wrong thing, perhaps Palestine was hoping for an overreaction, perhaps it was something else and in all this Miss Watson never uttered an anti-semite word and that needs to be seen and seen as soon as possible. And in all this we see a second failing. Did you pick up on it? The media merely gives us “the meaning of solidarity from the intersectional feminist scholar Sara Ahmed”. So what was the meaning? Why is it (as I personally see it) overlooked? And more important, who is Sara Ahmed? The Quote was “Solidarity does not assume that our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain, or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarity involves commitment, and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common ground.” Do you know where I got that from? Vogue Magazine! They gave a more complete story than the newspapers, how weird is that?
So as we wonder who is right and who is wrong. I gave my view, yet I will not deny that Palestine has a hard situation, in part Palestine created it, but the truth behind the setting is that “Solidarity involves commitment, and work” it is an absolute truth and I wonder all those voices screaming and parroting that Emma Watson is an anti-semite, who did their vetting, who did their investigation? I fear that this group is far too small and that should sadden us all.
But there is also good news Emma Watson turned 382 months today, so she can celebrate her day in life, her month in life and she can do it holding her head up high, she never did anything wrong here.
So solidarity is a verb, so is judgemental. Who thought it through and who considered that the photograph did what it needed to do, to get people talking. As I see it +15 points for Gryffindor.
Have always heralded and championed the need for innovation, it is harder but ultimately more rewarding than iteration. I am not against iteration, it has its place and it has its benefit. It was that setting that I entertained this evening when I watched Remains of the Day again. I had the DVD for the longest time, but I had not watched it for well over a decade. And as I was watching an idea came over me and it was specific to this situation. You see, the movie is based on the classic masterpiece by Kazuo Ishiguro. This matters because some film fanatics, some film lovers want more than a DVD, Blu-Ray, or 4K movie. It is of course nice to get a higher resolution, but it is limiting. Why is there not an option to link with it the second screen, or a screen within a screen that allows us to see the script and/or the book that this movie is based on. It is of course not applicable to every movie, and there are stages where people merely want the script, but both have equal desire with their fans. Whether it be the Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Twilight (Stephenie Meyer), and so on. The list is almost without end. Yet there are movies like for example Remains of the Day where both the book and the script would be desired to be seen side by side, and now that screens tend to be over 50”, there is enough space to keep on on the side of the movie. I doubt that this will not happen quickly and it will be overnight, but as the movies go beyond 4K, the storage will increase and someone will ask why there isn’t more about the movie on the disc. It is a fair question and it remains to be seen if it is the stage we will turn to. Perhaps the movie will keep track with the script on a Kindle, or similar device. It is an iterative step, but I reckon it will be an almost unavoidable one. As movies attract fans to the cinema, the makers will see the need to add more to the media disc, to give the people a larger desire to satisfy questions, to satisfy curiosities and not to forget to increase the desire for the media article.
If you want numbers, statistics and data proving this, I will not be able to satisfy that request. Yet as a movie lover I have a fine (and large) collection of movies and I see that there is a growing need. You see as the movie is shown with a script it will remind people that there is a book (at times). The Twilight and Hunger Games fans do not need reminding, but how many have seen the book Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs? This is not an accusation, I got the book after I saw the film, I never heard of Ransom Riggs and the books he wrote. The entire matter comes at a stage where the people need more than the 134 minutes that the movie offers and plenty of movies add making off, specials, bloopers (always fun), ad several other attachments. Yet it is rare that a script is added, it has been done, but merely as an extra, not a an added layer to the movie. Yet perhaps some will push for this and we will see this in a new version or new release of the movie.
We see some moments as epic, but what makes them epic? You see Epic is subjective, it is constrained and defined by what we have experienced. This is not a negative thing, this is an almost liquid setting, what is epic for one is mundane for the other, this is merely how it is. And for me the setting starts with a daydream. This happened this morning as I was enjoying a cup of coffee. I was sitting on a couch in a shopping mall, enjoying a lovely cuppa. My mind wandered away. So enjoy the story for what it is, a mere story to keep thy bones warm this Christmas winter.
I was in some tech corporate place north of Oslo, no idea why. It was the midsommar weekend and some woman in the firm invited me to experience midsommar in her town of Floro, a town 500 km WNW of Oslo. I accepted the invitation, only learning a few hours later that it was an 8 hour drive, actually it was more like 6, she embraced formula one standards of driving and I gained three years of grey hairs in 6 hours, nature does seem to find a balance. Of course being invited I went shopping that afternoon, as we were off next morning. I got a kilo of smart food (lollies), some ice coffees a few bottles of red wine and white wine for the party and I loaded up the car. Apart for her amazing looks and her amazing thrill of speed limits the trip was pretty uneventful. It was Floro that grabbed me more. It as alike a huge village. Every building pristine, every building outspoken traditional and every street clean, lovely and inviting. It one of the loveliest villages I have ever seen in my life. We got to the house and of course she had relatives. They all surrounded her, hugging her and speaking fast in Norwegian, My Swedish allowed for some parts to pick up and they came to me shaking my hand and then they realised that my Norwegian is almost non-existent, many switched to English, a nice surprise too. It had a thick nordic accent, but it was a lot better then some English you hear in London, so I was good. I introduced myself and I introduced myself to the host and hostess (parents of Lotte). I handed over the two boxes of wine, one white and one red. I saw the loud cheers going on, I reckon that French wine is not something they usually had there and I was greeted like an old fashioned hero.
We all had some coffee with something called krumkakes and something called school bread. We sat and I listened for most of the times. Some of the men asked me questions and I answered as best as I could. Yet the corner of my mind was screaming and I did not understand why. Everyone was so nice, but it seems that Lotte had the goods on me. She shushed everyone and told me to take a nice walk, she haded me a thin raincoat to wear over my clothes and she gave me a small direction finder. She pushed a button and it pointed to the house. She pointed to the roof, the direction finder would always point to the house, it seems she had seen this before. I took a nice walk, I saw part of Floro, I walked past shops, I noticed people looking at me, but I was at a loss why, perhaps all foreigners and tourists stand out in this place. I walked on, watching the water and seeing the tranquil waters seemed to quiet the screaming in my head.
As I walked I seem to wonder about the openness of this place and the natural beauty it has. It was about a hour later when I realised I had been walking in one direction, I wanted to turn around when the screaming intensified, I looked up the road, a dirt-road I noticed but it seemed almost invisible. I walked up it only to see a cave. I really did not want to walk into that cave, it screamed bear. And bears are not too uncommon in Norway. I just walked in and with my flashlight I went down the cave. A cave that felt colder with every step I took, it was less then two dozen steps later when the shivering was slightly too uncomfortable for me. I saw the show and the ice and I stopped, but the brakes were suddenly slammed from underfoot, I stepped in ice and slid down a lot further than I was happy with. I slid down a ramp that would make any bobsledder jealous and it was almost two whole minutes until I came to a halt. I saw two men frown in ice. Men, statues, it could be either. The ice was pointing behind them like it was blown over them. Then I noticed two objects. Objects that were covered in ice, I kicked one and it did not break, the ice was tough as steel. I looked around and I saw a stone, a sharp stone, I covered my hands and started hitting the one object, first the ice broke and that took some doing, I continued hitting the object only to see it as some kind of axe, it did not look like a woodcutters axe, it was slightly smaller, more outspoken and a little longer where the cutting part of the axe was. It took almost 5 minutes to get the ice from the axe. Then I looked to the two men, they were still in ice, but I could not tell whether they were men or statues. I used the axe on the other object and ice went flying everywhere with every hit, this axe was nice. That also gave me ideas on how to get out of here. With an axe like that I could chisel steps in the ice in no time, yet that was when I realised that the axe was warming me to some degree. It could have been the exercise, but the cold was gone and a few hits later I saw that the object was a hammer, but not some hammer I had ever seen before. Almost like an oversized blacksmith hammer, actually it was nothing like the hammer of the movie Thor (that maroon man from Queensland) but it resembled those upside down hammers that people wear as jewellery. Like the axe, the hammer felt warm and I decided to hit the ice closest to the man that was next to the hammer. The ice broke like it was nothing. I hit again and ice started to chip from everywhere. Then I saw the ice break off from his arm and the hand looked massively human, very meaty and not a statue at all, was it my imagination? Did the hand move? It seemed to grab towards the hammer and I pushed the hammer into his hand.
The ice broke everywhere. And within a minute he was free. He had a cold demeanour, he looked at me and I looked back, I did not know what to do and then he looked at the axe. I pointed at the other figure, he looked and spoke to me in some nordic language I could not make out. I merely stared. He made a drinking gesture and I pointed at my body and shook my head. It seems he understood me, he was still unable to move too much, but he pointed towards deeper into the cave, he made some reference with his hand that could have been a flask or a bottle. I grabbed the axe and went that way, the ice was all snow covered and not that slippery anymore. I saw a pedestal with a flask, I reckon that this was what he wanted. I looked around and there was nothing else. I cautiously grabbed the flask with my hands covered in jacket. I picked up the flask that as surprisingly heavy and moved back. I handed the flask to the man, he drank a whole heap of it and gestured me to take a sip, I was a little apprehensive but he gestured again, it was seemingly important. I took one small sip and it was like my body was on fire, one sip was like a whole bottle of aquavit (Nordic Gin), I started to sweat. He took a piece of cloth from his top and drenched it, then he put the cloth into the mouth of the other figure. He poured more liquid on the cloth and moved away. H took some leather string, tied the knots around the neck of the bottle and hung the bottle around the neck of the other person. He then gestured me up the hill, I started to cut out the steps. I laughed grabbed my back jumper and coat and before I knew what hit me we went up and a whole lot faster then I originally went down. We were up and at the entrance in less than 30 seconds. He looked at me and I remembered my direction finder. We walked back to the house, even as it seems darker, but with white nights you can never tell, we got back almost 30 minutes later and everyone was staring at me and Lotte looked surprised. The others then noticed the hammer in the man and they all looked star struck, the man stated something in what I can only assumed was some deep Norwegian, he slapped my back and took off, the man walked away. Everyone was cheering and slapping me and I was at a loss what had happened. Lotte merely looked at me like I was an actual alien. It was then that I saw in the distance a chariot with goats? Man, that was some alcohol, let me tell you. So when you get to Floro, be careful what you drink, that stuff they call aquavit is massively hard on the senses.
It was not dark, but the sun was setting. The man looked through the scope of a MTs-116M suppressed sniper rifle. The scope was not standard, the silenced MTs-116M was. The gun was important, it would lead people down the wrong path and that was the intent. He was 273 meters from the gate on a plateau. He saw the 4 men to the left of the house and the 2 on the right of the house. He saw that the men on the right were walking behind one another on a small path. He took aim and the steel round went quietly through both men. The men fell down, nicely in the dark spot of the house. In the mean time the 4 are walking behind each other, but not completely. He saw the path they walked. They were clearly untrained. The man waited another second and then fired one, quickly reloaded and took out the 4th man with the second bullet. They were all down, He saw one man moving his arm, he did not wait and used the third bullet straight through the skull. The outside of the house was now quiet. He switched to thermal, he saw that the window gave a decent view, but not completely. Two guards in the upstairs section seemed to be chatting. He took aim and as the first one got the bullet through the chest, the second one got it in the throat, they both went down. He checked the house again with thermals. No one upstairs, three downstairs, one behind a desk, most likely the target and two man in opposite sides of the room. He set down the sniper rifle, and kept the AS Val ready. He quickly ran to the house. He had made preparations on the right, he quickly moved up, took one more look to see if there were no surprises. He then got down in moved to a door on the right, he had seen the guards come in and out from there. He looked at the door. No surprises, he quietly tried the door, it wasn’t even locked. He entered the house. It has weird smells, which was surprising. Not just tobacco, there was the smell of something he could not place. He checked the rooms with a dental mirror. No camera’s, what an amateurs. The men were still in their corners and as he got closer to the room there was no real movement. He hear the quiet voices of what was the boss, he was barking orders to the other two, there were submissive answers. He was ready, he quickly opened the door, shot the person in front of him, then turned to the left. The second man was quick, but not quick enough. He then looked at the boss. “I was clear, leave me alone or else…” He sized the boss up, a cowardly little shit. “I get it, I get it now”, clearly hoping to talk himself out of this. “Now it’s too late” and he shot the boss three times in the head.
He methodically searched the room and the noticed that the safe door was open. He was wearing a mask, it would have taken too long to find the camera’s. He took the papers and the money. He then took one more look and he walked into the kitchen. He grabbed the newspapers and the vodka. He dropped the newspapers in small stacks in the house and covered the stacks with Vodka. He set the flames and as the papers started to burn, they would ignite more and more of the house. 6 stacks all over the lower floor of the house, the flames that would go upwards would finish the job.
He quickly left the house the same way he came in leaving the door open and the draft would do the rest. He ran back to his sniper rifle, picked it up and left the scene. He has a 15 minute walk to the south and it would take him to his car that would take him back to Edmonton.
It is the one scene that starts it. But what is it I want to start? The Russian hardware implies either spy story or organised crime. And in this there aren’t too many shown to play in Canada. So how will we continue? Is it Taken (Liam Neeson), Foreigner (Jackie Chan), 4th Protocol (governments) there are many options, but for the most they have been done and I like the new the novel and that is where two directions open up. The first is Industrial espionage (the 39 steps) by Alfred Hitchcock and espionage and deception (Eye of the Needle) written by Ken Follet and directed by Richard Marquand. The idea could be to unite the two into a larger story, a story that is not about protagonists and antagonists, but the man would be the antagonist, a new version of Professor Logan (Barry Jones). Whilst the professor has a larger field of view on the great operating stage, we would see that in this day and age it is no longer about governments and what they can do, but how the revenue could be spend. So what happens when the new Logan could walk in with the plans for a new jet, new missiles and the bill that could have been the ‘$768 Billion Defense Policy Bill’, now becomes the setting of ‘$259 Billion Defense Policy and IP Bill’, do you think that ANY government would walk away from such a saving?
Yet to set that story you need a start, you need an incentive (money tends to work) and you need focal points. In Fedora it was the doctor, in I Claudius it was the narration, in too many movies it is the action offered, but the action loses focus as we go from target to target. There is a second issue. Who watched Slum dog Millionaire more than once? You see, like Ellery Queen, when the clue is up the story is merely a steeple chase on numbers. This is why story based suspense is better (like Anna). Yet to get that part we tend to refer to Life of Pi. All movies where the story carries the cast and the movies are better because of it. This gets me to another story. It is Ask me Anything. The movie is weird and prefect, the twist at the end is brilliant. Now I never read the book (still on my list), but the twist at the end made me watch the movie again.
That is the stuff we need and even as this movie does not fit the bill for this script, the setting might work. So I need to check out Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett. I wonder what else might be there. A stage setting needs to be complete. Especially when the antagonist is supposedly the good guy it reminds me (Firefox), but there is wisdom in leaving that revelation until the very end. And in all this, there is a setting that the antagonist could be a woman. I see the person as a man, because I am a guy writing a story. But the choice of antagonist is at present not set in stone
So as I go brooding off into a corner, I just realised I set the foundation of a 4th script. Lockdowns might not be nice, but it clearly keeps me creative.
Yes, that is a setting at times. Art that is truly timeless. We see it in paintings and sculptures, yet we forget that the boob tube and the big screen have these settings too. Take I, Claudius (1978) is one of these pieces. It fulfils the 4 elements. A script, the cast, the directors and the chemistry. With Robert Graves they had the book, it was altered and tweaked for TV by Jack Pulman. Then there was the cast. Derek Jacobi, Siân Phillips, Brian Blessed, John Hurt, George Baker, Margaret Tyzack, Patrick Stewart, John Castle, James Faulkner, John Rhys-Davies, and many more. Some will argue that the cast director got lucky and that might be true, several of these people were largely unknown, but not after I Claudius, That much is very certain, and the chemistry between all these actors, all set to the task of making real one of the most illusive books became a reality. When you realise this, it is now time to get you to the real story. You see, this has happened again in 1978, Billy Wilder would give us Fedora (not the hat), an equal amazing piece of work. With Marthe Keller, William Holden, Hildegard Knef, and Jose Ferrer. These people would do something that is close to the perfection we saw in I Claudius. They created a piece of art that is still remembered 44 years later. I would suggest that it is time for a remaster with a new cast, and a female director. The idea that we set the elements of the movie in a new stage (me trying to avoid spoilers) with the view of Kathryn Bigelow, Sofia Coppola or Olivia Wilde might make it an interesting journey for the people watching it. Let’s be clear there is nothing wrong with Billy Wilder, but at present he is busy with other projects. And these is something mesmerising on a female view in this setting. Still it will become a tall order. Billy Wilder was a legendary director, the script was really good and so was the cast. Yet I believe that after 44 years and the alterations in real life that we see and those events thrust upon us, some of the elements in the movie might do well with an upgrade and I believe the new movie could be better for it. I am not stating that Billy Wilder dropped the ball, the movie was full on and way beyond interesting in 1978, we merely have more to go on in this day and age. To be honest, it seems that most have forgotten this gem and that is sad. There is no recrimination, there is no blame, it is as it is and perhaps me tossing the ball in the air will give a scriptwriter the inspiration to take this to the next level.
Enjoy the day!
P.S. Enjoy the day as much as you can, there are 744,297 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, so if only 1% is terminal, there will be 7,000 jobs and optionally up to 7,000 houses and apartments available early next year. And with the US and UK racing for first position, all whilst the UK has 20% of the US population and 50% of the cases that are inflicted on the US the race is wide open towards more affordable living. So you can write a script or start screaming like the other anti-lockdown people. It is up to you. I tend to be as productive as possible and as I do not interact directly with other people I will for the longest time avoid getting this irritating flu, and let’s consider that we can call it the super-flu, just like Stephen King did in the Stand. How did that end again?
Yes, nice and cryptic. Not intentionally, but that is how I roll. But before I get into that, I promised to give something tomorrow, but as it is about 0:01, tomorrow is now. So here goes. As I was (trying to) being clever, I considered that any off looking equipment will get caught soon. It shouldn’t but that is no guarantee. So I needed the valve to disappear. Now, one thing I learned that security staff tends to be lazy. Perhaps technically unobserving is a better term, they are not stupid, so something that looks off will get noticed quickly, unless it looks the same. So I can be as clever as I can, but the valve might get noticed. So as I was considering options I remembered the colour picker app. An Android app that uses the camera to scan a colour and translate it to an RGB tint. So there was a solution, but there is no way we can have all these colours in stock, so I created an adjusted primer spray paint. Primer is white, so I added the design of a dial at the bottom (see below).
Now we can pick the colour, adjust the 10 scale Red-Yellow-Blue-Black dials and insert the pigment, a few good shakes (5-15 seconds) and the colour is ready. Now we apply the paint and the device and its band will look as painted as the pipes are and now, the chance of overlooking is massively larger. So that part was solved and I created a new piece of IP in the process. So spray-paint makers might find this approach an interesting twist. Instead of 187.4 colours, you have one article and let the user fix what they need. No hassle, no ‘not in stock’ issues. All in a days work.
Anyway, what set all this off is that I was day dreaming (at 22:00). And suddenly I had an idea towards the Exhaurire Vitam concept, how it all started. How Anubis and Hades meet each other. All because of a young girl (9) who gets abducted by molesters and her Dachshund (which I affectionately name Kransky) ends up in nowhere land, right in front of the one person that the molesters would never have wanted involved and the carnage is one they will remember for all days. These is a lot more, but let’s not quench your thirst too much at present.
So as Anubis owes Hades and he repays by offering a gift that is useless to him, but he knows that it will benefit Hades, so he repays in this way and opens a door that will shiver and shake New Orleans in ways you might have read earlier. A setting I never thought of, I never contemplated it. It merely came to me, that and the rest of the settings are weird, close to a dozen pieces of new IP, no idea where it is coming from and when it does not impact my IP (5G, TV, selected IP) I will make it Public domain, perhaps I can actually restart some economies making me more electable then whatever is in political office at present. Yet, feel free to ask Meng Po for an opinion and a cup of soup, it’s free.
I have been thinking of a movie, it wasn’t a great movie, it was not something Spielberg made, but for some reason it comes back every now and then. It had an impact and the fact that Jon Cryer was in it makes it an almost instant classic. The movie is called Hiding Out and was made in 1987 by Bob Giraldi. Nowadays with the digital era, new acts that allow organised crime to do almost anything, the cryptocurrency that is all over (and the dozens of alternatives), including OneCoin by Ruja Ignatova. These settings allows for a remake and the main character could still be a banker, the setting is almost timeless. I do hope that if this comes out that the makers will consider hiring Jon Cryer as the federal team leader trying to keep everyone safe.
It is not often that a script that is not the greatest, turns out to be the timeless setting that can traverse technologies and generations, yet I believe that Bob Giraldi did just that with Hiding Out. There are more pieces like this and there is no need to look at them now, but the age of Netflix, DisneyPlus, AmazonPrime, HBO and Google Movies makes these options a lot more important. Apart from the fact that the script is already there, it could save these channels a lot by looking at hat could be great and there are plenty of movies that have a timeless character. There is also a weird situation here. These timeless works will never make the top 100. It is not distinct enough, yet in that These movies will be one time originals and that is fine. Yet movies like Miracle on 34th Street, the Mummy, A star is born and now optionally Hiding out are not the greatest movies, but they were fun to watch and they can be fun again. In the list given there are still two distinct elements. The Mummy was a great remake because technology and special effects allowed for so much more. A star is born is because the stage can be altered to fit a whole number of people and I reckon that (if we are till around) we will see a new version of A star is born in 2050. And I personally believe that 2023 might be the year to give us a remade version of Bob Giraldi’s Hiding out with all the financial bells, whistles and organised crime’s hardware to make it a success.
I believe that movies can be good, great or timeless and it is that third group that the streamers need. Those IP rights are either not there, they are no longer valid or can be gotten a lot cheaper than a complete new work of IP and that is what they will seek, as costs bite, as the competition becomes more fierce, they will all fight over the golden script, but one movie is not enough, they optionally need up to 50 each year and that is where a movie like Hiding out could find itself a second wind. Optionally with an altered Jon Cryer. And this is not limited to Hollywood, pretty much every movie making nation had a group of movies made between 1975-1990 that could easily fit the bill. I look at new IP and create new IP because I am a storyteller, but the stage is larger than me and I recognise that there is more and as such my mind went back to a movie I saw decades ago. I believe there is a setting now that this movie could surpass the previous version in greatness, in suspense and in appeal all elements the streamers desperately want.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 