Is this the year I finally put the pieces together? I have the time, the resume, and the ability. But that is pretty much where I was last year at this time. Like last year, I’m also staying involved; This time as the Assistant Production Manager for The Open Fist Theatre Company’s remounting of James Joyce’s The Dead.

We open in a couple weeks. It’s upon us. And when that happens, I should immediately be in the market for new representation. That is the single most important thing I can possibly do if I plan to keep on acting for a living.

The truth is staring me down and it’s become a situation where I need to ignore all the truth-tellers out there and have some irrational confidence in myself. I’m officially not a kid anymore. I was able to put that realization off for a good long while but the time has come for me to get real. How long can I expect to be on the fringe of this thing? I’ve been a “professional” actor for such a long time that I don’t feel I have an identity without it. At the same time, though I do try to work for free less than I have in the past, the prospect of “starting over”…again… makes me weary.

Friends are having success, starting families, buying houses and seeing their businesses gain a real foothold. Another close friend just told me he’s going out on his own instead of continuing to work for a company. I’m so proud of him. And more than a little envious.

Envious of what though? The struggle to make ends meet? Creating awareness of a small business in a saturated market? What? Envy suggests I don’t wish my friends well in their ventures and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I simply want my business to succeed.

So let’s do this thing. Get up in the morning. Exercise. Treat people well. Eat right. Focus. And maybe I’ll have some great things to report. Happy New Year.

This is the 2nd time I’ve had to do this, so I guess the lesson is to take my instant reaction to a movie with a grain of salt.

I saw The Wolverine in theatres and was excited to do so. He is, after all, one of my favorite comic book characters. He’s a guy who’s fun to draw, has crazy attitude and some of the best mutant powers around.

The problem was the movie was only 70% good. A lot of the good stuff was skipped over in favor of wrapping it up in 2 hours and focusing on the fight with the main baddie. For those who haven’t seen the movie and don’t want SPOILERS, stop reading now.

It was bold to take away Logan’s adamantium claws. It’s happened in teh comics from time to time but since I haven’t followed the stories since the early 90s, I can’t really say how or when; just that it’s happened. So I’m glad they shot for the moon – taking risks is the only way to keep us in the audience surprised and it makes for some great character development. This was a good move. It’s just that the bad-guy-in-a-giant-metal-suit routine is something I’ve seen a lot of in recent years. And on the big screen, I wasn’t impressed with the CGI. I went straight to my computer and said The Wolverine was a Huge Disappointment. And that was a little harsh.

I recently gave it another shot, this time with the Director’s Cut of the movie. And wow was I wrong. This version fixed most of the things I had a problem with in the theatrical release. More fighting, more character developpment. More action, but more story.

Give it a shot and see for yourself! Good job movie-people!!

Renaissance.

According to Wikepedia, it’s from the French Renaissance “re-birth” and Italian Rinascimento, from rinascere “to be reborn”.
And Escape Plan is another in a recent Re-Birthed string of 80’s Action Movie throwbacks. I keep talking about this in my posts, but to recap, it started a few years ago with The Expendables, continued with The Last Stand, Expendables 2, and to a lesser extent, It’s A Good Day to Die Hard. Most Jason Statham movies fall into this category too. And I LOVE IT.

:There’s something about the muscle-bound, man-against-an-army, no-CGI movies from 20 or so years ago – Steven Segal, Van Damme, Norris, Bruce Willis, Schwartzenegger & Stallone movies – that has been lost in more recent attempts to keep the young people going to the movies. If I had to boil it down to one thing, it has to be the cartoon CGI that always ALWAYS reaches past the story and the action and becomes a spectacle all it’s own… to the detriment of the rest of the movie. Some have slipped through the cracks: The Matrix, Batman Begins, Avatar, and more recently Pacific Rim (Which was my favorite movie over the summer by a LONG stretch).

Man of Steel and The Wolverine are PRIME examples. Those should have been GREAT movies. For good long bits of them, they actually were. Then, the cartoon portion begins, lasts way too long, and no amount of banter, no strong character development, no cliff-hanger of an ending can change the fact that 20-30% of the movie is pointless and un-watchable. THE ACTION HAS TO SERVE THE STORY!! I’m not a film maker and I know this. How can it be that with the talent involved from start to finish, these trainwrecks keep being released?!?

Enter Escape Plan. I was certain, a week into its release, that my buddy and I would be two of the only people in the theatre. It wasn’t even playing at my main theatre – an 18-theatre metroplex – up until a couple days ago, and I have heard next to nothing about it in the media. I was pleasantly surprised to see a mostly full house. And for good reason… This movie was AWESOME. It’s about a professional prison escape artist that gets double crossed and has to enlist the help of ol’ Arnold to try and escape from the most secure prison ever. The cast… unexpectedly incredible. Jesus Christ himself – Jim Cavizel – was the bad guy. The 2nd season love interest from The Wire (Sorry everyone. I’m the one who hasn’t watched past season 2) and 50-Cent make appearances, Vincent D’Onofrio, Sam Neill and Faran Tahir – the bad guy from Iron Man 1 – all help out in some way. Amazing cast.

It takes 3 things: Knowing the Layout, Routine, and Help from Outside or In.

I felt like a kid again, watching heros get shot, punched, thrown and all other sorts of abused. Then walking away with a little blood to wipe off but no permanent damage. You know, other than a burning need to take down the bad guys at all cost.

The fact that its the 2nd movie with Schwarzenegger since his (sort-of) comeback, add in that Stallone is the main character, only makes this all the more of a storybook renaissance. Since the film-makers of today insist on giving us 70% of a good movie, I can take solace in the knowledge that these guys are still going strong. And thank God, because I don’t have time enough in this life to wait for the rest of the entertainment world to figure out that the future can sometimes lie in the tried & true formulas of the past.

UPDATE OF THIS POST…

Out of ALL the X-men movies so far, only X2 has been any good. And it hasn’t aged well. I’m mildly excited to see Capt. Picard & Magneto (Both of them) back in action next summer. And a blue, naked Jennifer What’s-Her-Name isn’t a bad selling point either. But isn’t X-Men vs Avengers the movie I’m REALLY waiting for? Is that EVER going to happen?

All I keep thinking since seeing The Wolverine is “PLEASE Fox, GIVE THE X-MEN BACK TO MARVEL!!!” Give someone else a shot – someone who has managed to string together a series of really good (not great, but REALLY GOOD) comic book movies together – to make a GREAT
X-Men movie.

Casting Sir Patrick Stewart as Professor X was a stroke of Genius. And Hugh Jackman is awesome as Wolverine every time. It’s just… the freaking movies are all crappy! I can’t think of a better word. They’re all just… kind of crappy. Plot holes, bad special effects, undeveloped characters plague every single one of the Fox hero movies. I wont even get into Daredevil, The Punisher, or Fantastic Four. It’s not worth my keystrokes. But at some point, on SOME LEVEL, can’t these PROFESSIONAL MOVIE MAKERS with hundreds of millions of $$dollars$$ available to them… Can’t they put just ONE SINGLE GOOD MOVIE TOGETHER?!!??

Limited Series #1

I have some of the early Wolverine comic books, including the 1st issue of the limited 5-issue series the recent movie was based on. And for the love of GOD, they’e GOOD STORIES!! What the hell? The thing about The Wolverine isn’t so much that it’s bad. It was about as good as last summer’s Spiderman reboot. I’d say Man of Steel was even a notch above the level of those 2 movies, though it was very similar to The Wolverine in that it was a nice little movie until the last act where cartoonish CGI took over. And we all want a good movie. For God’s sake, we’ll all go shell out $15 to see the damn thing every time. I think we at least can start asking ourselves, “At what point do we wash out hands of Fox’s X-Men product?” I’m sick of getting excited and then being disappointed. It was a fine movie. The 1st 2/3 of it was decent (just like Man of Steel). But where was the “Berserker Rage”? Why didn’t he take down all those ninja? Why do they NEED to include peripheral, out-of-context mutants like Viper? And C’MON with the Iron Man rip-off of an ending. This is my point: These are the top-of-class in professional film making, with unlimited money to spend. And its the same playbook over and over and over ad nauseum.

Go see Pacific Rim again for some (not even really) original storytelling, great F/X, and INCREDIBLE action and wait for The Wolverine dvd.

We are 1 show into our  3-show, Best-of-Fringe extension of The Interview.Its a different theatre, but the same crew & cast. We are now at the Elephant Space in the Asylum Theatre. This is exciting, not just because its a fun show and a great part for me, but because it’s always nice to be recognized for the work we put in. Here’s an info link:

http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1281
Come see what it’s all about!!

The next 2 shows are:
Tonight, Sunday 7/21/13 at 7:00pm
Thursday, 7/25/13 at 8:00pm

We were chosen “Best of Fringe” and given a 3-show extension in July.
@ Theatre Asylum (6320 Santa Monica Blvd)
July 18 – 8pm
July 21 – 7pm
July 25 – 8pm

Tickets:
http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1281?tab=dates

This show of ours has received great reviews (Audience Reviews) – Some felt it went too far. Others, not far enough. I think that means we struck a decent balance. Obviously, with a short rehearsal period and being that it was a fringe show, i’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished. So with that said, come out to one of our added dates and let me know what you think!

The LA Weekly still reviews theatre. This almost wasn’t the case a couple of years ago when budgets were being slashed for publications and they didn’t quite know what they were going to do; Rather, how they would continue to pay staff for a theatre section. Who knows what the future holds? For now, I’ll enjoy the following review, which completely validates the work we’ve put in the past few weeks making this show happen.

GO: THE INTERVIEW Playwright-director Michael Franco’s disturbing drama opens with a prisoner (Michael Dunn) being tortured during a ruthless interrogation by a pair of suit-wearing men who appear to be government agents. At first the interrogation unfolds to a traditional good cop/bad cop formula, with one agent (Dylan Maddalena, interestingly sinister) authorizing the prisoner’s being thumped with phone books and dunked in a water bucket and the other (Joe Hulser) desiring to take a more reasonable approach to ferreting out the information the prisoner supposedly knows. Before long, though, the story takes an unexpected turn into areas of complex moral ambiguity and metaphysics. Franco’s taut staging is eerily suspenseful, as we start to question the reality of the setting and scenario, and the production is abetted by Tim Labor’s buzzy, thump- and zap-filled electronic sound design, which effectively gets under our skin. Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; June 16 & 22, 6:30 p.m.; June 20 & 28, 8 p.m.; June 22 & 30, 3:30 p.m. hollywoodfringe.org/projects/1281. (Paul Birchall)

For the full-page where this review appears:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2013/06/hollywood_fringe_preview_2013.php

I was at a fundraising event last weekend and met this girl at the food table. Really, I was just going in for a snack, but got stuck sizing up this attractive girl I didn’t know. I actually never got her name, and had to do some stuff. Figuring I’d find her a little later (which never happened), I totally left. But… Before I left, a camera was shoved in our faces and we made the best of it, providing proof she does, in fact, exist. Which is good, because I didn’t get any food either. Whiffed on both counts. This is what my memory looks like:

Dreamed I Met Her

Forget what I said. That movie sucked.

I don’t speak Russian, and I just watched it again with no subtitles. That means I couldn’t really understand the specifics of half the movie, since its in Russian. But the gist was clear, and the point  is the same. Bad movie.

I also rewatched Schwarzenegger’s Last Stand last week. Better than the 1st watch. And the bad guy looks just like Pau Gasol. So that’s good.

The point? This action renaissance I have been so excited about is hit and miss. I’m still glad its happening, and I still want to see In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Die Hard (please make that movie!!), but i’m not going to hold my breath.

The NBA season ended yesterday when the Lakers got swept (READ: whooped) by the Spurs. I used to have the same feeling after the Sonics bit the dust as a kid. And it’s not even news this morning because of Jason Collins announcement that he’s gay. But OH MY GOD IT WAS SO FUCKING DEPRESSING watching the Lakers, who were supposed to be this great Superteam for the ages, and wound up being old, slow, and totally disinterested in TRYING to be good. They seemed to believe their own hype… Or something. Looking back, it was injury after injury after injury that I remember. Never seen so many to one team. Still, at the end they had Pau Gasol and Dwight Howard. Shouldn’t any team with those 2 guys on it be able to compete? I mean, ON SOME LEVEL? Watching them yesterday was just pathetic. I kept trying to get up for them. To try to cheer them on with some excitement and belief they could win. But it was apparent early on they didn’t have nearly that much confidence in themselves. I’ll watch the rest of the playoffs with some interest. But once the team you care about and follow is gone, what now?

Well, for me, THE INTERVIEW starts this evening. It’s a play that I’ll be doing, one that I knew could be coming up. I’ll be a soldier and I’ll be in the middle of some serious interrogating, Zero Dark style, which means I hope to be in much better shape in the next month or so. If THIS doesn’t get my fat, lazy ass in gear, what will?

Since nobody reads this, I hope to post some kind of timeline so there’s a record of what I’m doing with myself going forward. Look for THE INTERVIEW later this summer in the Hollywood Fringe Festival.