Breaking Bad

He's baaaaack...


Fans of “Breaking Bad” -- and if you're not, you should be -- will want to click here to listen to a fascinating (if all-too-brief) interview with showrunner Vince Gilligan on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Despite its brevity, the interview reveals some very interesting things about how the show was cast, its evolution over the first two seasons, and the surprisingly productive relationship Gilligan enjoys with the network. As he reveals, "network notes" -- generally reviled by showrunners and writers alike -- can sometimes be a very good thing indeed.

"Breaking Bad" returns for Season 3 next week, and from the sounds of things, it’s gonna be good...

The Oscars Commeth

The Oscarettes prepare to strut their golden stuff on the red carpet...


All is quiet on this crisp bright Sunday morning, but it's the calm before the storm. Soon enough, a flock of news helicopters will take to the skies and hover over the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, recording every meaningless detail in today's annual orgy of self-congratulation known as the Oscars. The resulting mechanical din -- a nervous airborne clatter that will occasionally change pitch as the wind shifts, but never really cease -- will put an end to this otherwise nice quiet Sunday.

Every year, the temptation to pull out a deer rifle and draw a bead on these metallic dragonflies is almost overwhelming -- but That Would Be Wrong, not to mention felonious. I will not spend the rest of my life in jail for shooting down one of these choppers, even though the gawking, grinning fools inside certainly deserve a fiery death for their sins against our culture.

I haven't been shy about expressing my feelings towards award shows in the past, but if anyone remains unclear, here goes: The Grammys remain the worst -- typically lame in concept and execution -- with the Emmys finishing only slightly higher on the scale of marginal cultural relevance. The Oscars are best described (IMHO) as “a bloated exercise in narcissistic onanism.”

Yes, I’m quoting myself – and for that, I hang my head in shame...

As for the Golden Globes, I really don’t give a shit. It doesn't matter to me what the vast majority of American journalists think about movies, much less the foreign press. Why should I care what Jean Pierre Maginot, ex-intern at Cahiers du Cinema and current film critic for the Escargot Gazette (and Golden Globe Voter) thinks about "The Hurt Locker," "Crazy Heart," or “Avatar?”

There are a few critics I keep an eye on – Anthony Lane and David Denby of the New Yorker are always fun to read, some of the Salon Magazine critics are worth checking out, and Manohla Dargis – once of the LA Times, now the NY Times – can be very good when she deigns to use words I don't have to look up in the dictionary.

Dear Manohla, here's a tip from below-the-line: a giant brain and encyclopedic vocabulary aren't always a film critic's best friends...

I thoroughly enjoyed the reviews of Michael Wilmington back when he wrote for the LA Times, but he moved to the Second City Tribune well before the Internet took hold, and I lost track. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times is predictable if not particularly inspiring, but a lot more readable since he gave up using phrases like “a backroads bildungsroman” in favor of sticking to English.*

My admittedly parochial favorite remains hometown critic Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle. I don’t always agree with him, but he’s a very smart guy who usually offers a structural analysis explaining exactly why a given movie does or doesn't work. His analytical approach to and feel for the medium of film come through loud and clear in his reviews, which are always written with intelligence, wit, and style. And when Mr. LaSalle encounters a truly unworthy cinematic effort, his dissection and subsequent evisceration of the offending movie is something to behold -- and wonderfully entertaining for anyone not involved in the production.

In last Sunday's Chron, he explained how and why the Academy picks the annual Oscar winners and losers. I have no idea if he's right about this, but he makes a compelling case – and as usual, it’s a pleasure to read.

Check it out before the show starts tonight, and what unfolds over the following four hours just might make a lot more sense.


* A sin Turan committed in his review of the move Tex back in 1982. Sorry Ken, I can forgive, but will never forget...

Wrong Number

Uh, I don't think so...

So I wandered downstairs to the mail box the other day -- unemployment offering endless opportunity to wait for the afternoon mail -- and found the above full-color glossy 5-by-10 postcard amidst the usual junk mail.

There he was, an alabaster Jesus hanging from the cross in a lush sylvan glade.

The pitch was on the flip side, in the form of a penetrating question: "Do you have a plan for what's to come?"

That had a rather ominous ring.

"We plan ahead for retirement," it went on. "We plan ahead for our children’s college education. But a surprising number of us fail to plan ahead for our funeral arrangements. At Catholic Mortuaries, we are here to guide you through the traditions, values and principles of your faith so that you are buried with reverence and respect."

I get the point; as a no-longer-young-person, I've now moved into the Death Futures demographic. Rather than dangling visions of flashy cars, fancy clothes, or diamond rings (items I wasn't particularly interested in thirty years ago, much less now), I've become the target market for the end-of-life industry -- long-term care insurance, funerals, and cemeteries.

Yes, I'm talking to you, Forrest Lawn...

Then came the hard-sell kicker in big red type:

"LIMITED-TIME OFFER"

"Save up to $800 on services with our special limited-time offer. Call 888-416-6440 today to find out more about the pre-planning process."

Such a deal. And you know, if I was Catholic (or had any faith whatsoever in the religious-industrial complex), I just might save up my unemployment checks to make that call. Religion is a business like any other, with a right to sell their proprietary smoke and mirrors on the open market. But -- unless there's something I don't know -- I'm not even on the verge of retirement, much less going six feet under for the Big Sleep, so what's the rush?

The answer, as usual, came in the very small print at the bottom of the card:

"Catholic Mortuaries, as subsidiary of Stewart Enterprises, Inc, offers Forethought ™ funeral planning funded through the purchase of whole life insurance from Forethought Life Insurance Company, Indianapolis, Indiana. A representative of Catholic Mortuaries, who is an agent of Forethought Life Insurance Company, can answer any questions you may have."

So what had all the appearances of being a message from a local branch of the Catholic church turns out to be from a grubby insurance company in far off Indiana -- an offer not from kindly old Father O'Blarney, but rather a hard sell from some insurance agent.

Why am I not surprised?

Just as I was working up a full head of angry steam about all this -- unemployment offering endless opportunity for that, too -- I happened to notice the name on the address, both of which were for the old lady in the apartment below.

Oops...

I took the card downstairs and slipped it under her door, feeling younger with every step, the sun shining just a little bit brighter outside.

Ain't No Cure for the Wintertime Blues *

2010: Garbage in, garbage out...


March was supposed to be the good month, giving Winter the boot and welcoming the beginning of Spring. Everything bad was supposed to turn around in March, as this wretched garbage scow of a year finally shook off the flies, stopped taking on water, and began to ride a little higher in these oh-so-troubled waters. March would bring the warm sun and a brisk breeze to blow away the fetid stench of 2010, and with it, these winter blues.

A pilot with my name on it was scheduled to start on the first of March, offering three weeks of hard work – just the thing to burn off the toxic fat of the cold season, replenish a bank account coughing on fumes, and put me back in the game. I won’t go so far as to say working on set is what defines me, but after doing it for three decades (and then some), it remains above all else what I know how to do. I’m comfortable on set, where I know the roles and the rules. Without a call time demanding my daily presence, it’s easy to drift and sometimes get a little bit lost.

Eventually I adapt, of course -- like every other Industry work-bot in this boom-and-bust business, I’ve had plenty of experience not-working. Down-time is inevitable, and devising strategies for dealing with it comes with the turf in Hollywood. Exhibit A, in my case, would be this blog, Still, a steady and sustained diet of nothing can eventually bend the steel of even the most seasoned veteran. At a certain point I start wondering just who and what I really am anymore -- and that's when the desire to get back in harness transcends mere employment. By then, I feel an almost primal need to lift and carry and sweat, to grapple with the three-dimensional realities of Newtonian Physics, fully engaged in the on-set teamwork that makes this business hum.

In some ways, doing the actual work itself is more important than the money it will earn.

March was looking good for a while, but like many a best-laid plan, this one blew a tire, skidded off the road, and careened end-over-end down the steep rocky canyon, then -- like all self-respecting cinematic crashes -- exploded in a big ball of orange flame. Which is to say the phone rang last week with news that the pilot had been canceled due to “casting issues.” Just like that, three weeks of work gone in a flash, vanished into the murky February sky.

This is getting old.

Casting issues... I’m not even sure what that phrase really means anymore, but it doesn’t much matter. For whatever reason the job is dead, March a bleak windswept wasteland, Hollywood a killing floor soaked with the blood of countless promises that wound up on the wrong end of a quiet phone call in the dying light of a winter afternoon.

Sometimes I really hate this fucking business...

An extended drought of work is tough at any stage of a career. When you’re young and pushing hard to gain some momentum, a dearth of work can suck the wind right out of your sails (and your checkbook), causing you to cast a decidedly jaundiced eye on the whole concept of Hollywood. You begin to wonder if there might not be a better path to take in life, and ponder the potential alternatives. But eventually you pass the point of no return, suddenly too old for anything else -- and then it’s too late to launch a new career as a stockbroker, lawyer, appliance repairman, or large animal veterinarian. There's not much call for Tupperware or Amway salesmen these days, and the last time I looked, the local Home Depot didn’t have a Set Lighting aisle in need of a washed-up, broken-down, burned-out, ready-for-the-glue-factory juicer.

Given the current dismal state of our economy, WalMart probably has a two-foot high stack of applications on file waiting for that toothless old geezer out front to die and open up the greeter job.

They do shoot horses, don't they?

The thing is, this is what I know, what I do, and yes -- to a certain extent -- who I am. Whether that's good, bad, or ugly (or maybe a mixed-up ball of all three) is not for me to say, but it is what it is.

At this point of the ugly New Year, I’m 3-for-59, as in three days work over the first two months. The March pilot wasn’t going to fix all that, but it would have been the first major step towards salvaging what's shaping up as an ominously dark year in my little corner of Hollywood. But despite the gloomy title of this post, there really is a cure for those wintertime blues – and that would be a job. I’m hearing rumors of another pilot in April. Trouble is, those rumors come from the same source as the grand and glorious March pilot that just sank without a trace. This is not encouraging, but you don’t survive three decades in this town without learning how to hang on (by the fingernails, when necessary) to the one truly indispensable item on the free-lance tool belt: hope. Without hope, you really are lost in that bottomless abyss. So whatever else does or doesn't happen, you keep the faith that something good will eventually arise from the mist to keep this leaky boat afloat.

In that, the Hollywood life is a lot like every other form of existence in our troubled, fractious world -- you hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and take it one day at a time.


* With apologies to Eddie Cochran...

Heavy Sledding

Just because I like it -- a photo by Adam Lau (San Francisco Chronicle) of the recent big wave contest at Mavericks in Half Moon Bay, California.


I’ve had some tough days rigging, wrapping, and loading cable in my long Hollywooden career – every juicer has -- but I’m not sure anything I ever did can stack up (literally) to the brutally hard day these guys put in, and in the snow, no less.

Yep, men were men back in the day. We’re all just a bunch of pussies now -- except for those mad-dog surfers, anyway.

And speaking of heavy sledding, anyone who has spent a day on set working with infant humanoids (insert actor joke here...) will resonate with Rob Long's meditation on working with a Robot Baby.

Take a listen -- it may just be the best four minutes you have all day...

The Silliest Job Ever

Nope, not this one...


I know what you're thinking -- the Hollywood Juicer has finally lost it, slipped down the rocky slope and tumbled head-first into the abyss of Internet cliche. There, having hit rock bottom staring at the creative brick wall of bloggers-block, he was forced out of sheer desperation to dredge up a "cute cats" photo in a pathetic attempt to post something -- anything -- that might salvage his street-cred as an active Industry blogger.

That day may come, but not just yet -- and I swear, there will be no more of this third-person crap...

Although I had nothing to do with the photo above, it did jog my memory to recall the silliest job -- and silliest shot -- I've ever been paid to light. Given that I put in twenty years working on television commercials (which are nothing but concentrated silliness), that covers a rather wide spectrum of absurdity. We once did a shot where an actor/stunt man took a 150 foot bungee plunge right next to the Queen Mary while holding a Taco Bell burrito, another with a half dozen tiny human babies nestled inside Michelin tires, sleeping like... well, babies, and a spot where the ad agency's vision called for seducing a full-grown ostrich into committing a highly unnatural act for the camera. But when it comes to full bore, triple distilled, two hundred proof visual absurdity, a cat food commercial I worked on back in the mid-80's takes the proverbial cake.

Have a good look at those eight cats above, stacked like so much furry feline cordwood, then try to imagine just how long it took the photographer get that shot -- keeping eight highly individualistic cats exactly where they need to be, paying full attention and all looking in the right direction long enough to click the shutter.

Assuming the image wasn't created via the digital magic of photoshop, that took a while. The phrase "herding cats" didn't materialize unbidden out of the ether, but emerged as a perfect metaphor to describe something that's all but impossible to do. You can herd cattle, goats, sheep, pigs -- even people -- but cats? No. Trying to get one cat to jump through any pre-determined set of hoops is enough of a challenge, but eight?

Insanity.

Given that, just how difficult might it be to get twenty-one adult cats lined up in a perfect triangle for the camera, one at the head, the rest fanning out on either side, each sitting primly at a small bowl of cat food while wearing a tiny white chef's hat?

Cats wearing chef's hats... You can bet that concept brought high-fives all around at the agency/client presentation, but they weren't the people who would actually have to put the image on film -- and in those pre-CGI, days, that meant orchestrating the real thing: Twenty-one living, breathing cats doing something no self-respecting cat would ever do.

The gaffer and I had the easy end of this job, lighting the small scale burning-of-Atlanta crane shot reveal of the feline triangle. Once the lamps were set, all we had to do was sit back and quietly watch the circus as a crew of six cat wranglers worked their asses off. The twenty-one cats, needless to say, did not cooperate. They absolutely hated those little chef's hats (what a surprise...), and when not trying to tear them off, were busy eating the food from every other cat's bowl but their own. Even in Cat Land, apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side of the proverbial fence. Succumbing to their natural curiosity, the cats would not sit still, fascinated by lights, the flags, the camera, the crane, the crew, and their very strange new surroundings.

The hapless wranglers earned every last penny of their paychecks. Caught between a rock and a hard place, six wranglers were at once too few and too many -- not enough to fully placate and control every single cat, but too numerous to get off the stage without disturbing this highly volatile lineup before the camera rolled. By the time they finally got all the cats properly arranged, then tiptoed off the stage, a dozen of the animals would already be wandering. It was just impossible -- and at a certain point, I figured we'd eventually get into triple time, which back then kicked in after 18 hours.*

But miracles do occasionally happen, and right around the 12 hour point, everything clicked and we got the shot. Since we were shooting film with only a crude black and white video monitor for the clients, nobody could be sure we really had it until seeing the dailies -- which meant we all had to come in the next morning just in case.

One more fat commercial payday was fine by me, especially when the word came down the following morning that the shot was good. All we had to do was wrap the lights and cable, then head home well before noon: a full day's pay for a couple of hour's work.

Those really were the good old days. I don't know about you, but I could use some of that silliness right about now.


* We were working under NABET rules, not IA...

Another One Bites the Dust

I don't know exactly why, but this photo somehow seems appropriate...


Last year I wrote a post about Dan Neil, a writer for the LA Times who (to the best of my knowledge) remains the only automotive scribe ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. He deserved it, too, writing with a passionate flair rarely found in any form of journalism. Although I’m not really a car guy, I’ve long been a total sucker for good writing on just about any subject -- and Dan Neil is an extremely gifted writer.

Some of you were already hip to Neil’s work, and I hope others have discovered the pleasure of reading his columns since then. If not, you can find one of his most recent efforts right here. As usual, it’s a treat to read.

That’s the good news. Unfortunately, last year's post year was all-too-prescient, closing with this warning:

“And given what's going on with newspapers these days, you'd better check him out while you still can...”

According to one of our local NPR stations last week, Neil will soon leave the LA Times to write for the Wall Street Journal. That’s bad news for those of us hooked on reading his columns in the Times. The Wall Street Journal is subscription-only, meaning Neil’s wit, wisdom, and stylishly seductive prose won't be available to those who do not – or will not – support a newspaper with an editorial page committed to mainlining toxic doses of corporate propaganda into the veins of our already overly-fractious country. I'm glad to subscribe to the LA Times, but refuse to feed the sulfurous fire from within represented by the WSJ -- a corrosive blaze designed to eat away the core of our government until nothing remains but a hollow shell run by and for the benefit of our corporate overlords. And really, why would anyone expect a paper named The Wall Street Journal to slice open the white reptilian underbelly of Big Business and spill out the ugly truth therein?

That's just not gonna happen.

Why would such a talented writer leave the launching pad of his greatest professional success – the newspaper of record for Southern California, home of Car Culture -- to write for a button-down, starched-shirt, politically constipated rag like the Wall Street Journal?

He’s got reasons. Neil once headlined of an entire section of the LA Times edicated to cars and the auto industry, but that evaporated in the hot desert sun along with so much of the paper over the past few years. Due to shortsighted, borderline incompetent management (thanks for nothing, Chicago Tribune) and the ongoing decline of the newspaper biz in general, the LA Times has been shrinking like a wet wool sweater in a scalding hot drier, and there’s no reason to think this process is over. Aboard a sinking ship, those who want to survive sooner or later must swim for their professional lives, and I suspect that’s exactly what Dan Neil is doing. That he’s been engaged in a lawsuit with the new owner of the Times, Sam Zell, for several month may have played a role in his decision -- instituting legal action against one’s boss has never been a recipe for job security. As it is, the steadily diminishing LA Times relegated Neil to a small space at the bottom of the Business page, and although his addition considerably improved that dry-as-dust section of the paper, it didn’t do much to showcase his talents.

Beyond the obvious rationales, I’m sure he’s got other reasons for moving to the WSJ. It’s entirely possible they made him an offer he simply couldn’t refuse, and in that case, I really hope he put the screws to those miserable corporate bastards and is making them pay through the nose. But this a rather forlorn hope at best in a situation that will end with his loyal LA Times readers losing out no matter what.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: nothing good lasts very long here in LA. Why this is, I don't know -- the brutally hot sun, the dry desert winds, or maybe just the transitory, up-today/down-tomorrow bi-polar insanity of Hollywood. I don't suppose the "why" really matters -- it is what it is, and ain't gonna change. So take a tip from last year's post and check him out while you still can.

Meanwhile, I'll start trying to find a way to steal copies of the goddamned Wall Street Journal...