Mind of Migg

An Education deals with an older man having a relationship with a 16 year old teen.  Yet, it’s not very dark and not creepy.  It’s handled in a way that doesn’t forgive it, but doesn’t draw direct attention to it either.  Instead, we are left to watch young Jenny (Carey Mulligan) learn for herself why a relationship such as the one she has with much older David (Peter Sarsgaard) never ends as romantically as one would hope.

Nick Hornby wrote the script, based on memoirs of Lynn Barber.  Hornby is a great author who has had many of his novels adapted into movies already (High Fidelity, About A Boy, Fever Pitch).  The characters are real and there is a great touch of humor throughout an otherwise dramatic movie.  Alfred Molina, as always, is so brilliant in his role as Jenny’s father, Jack.  Jack drives his daughter relentlessly to go to Oxford, but is willing to let it all be for naught if she can find a wealthy husband.  He cares for her, and tries his best to show it in the only ways he knows how.  He doesn’t apologize for his chauvinistic behavior.

Jenny’s love interest David (Peter Sarsgaard) is just creepy enough that we are suspicious of him, but charming enough that we’re curious to see where it’s leading, as Jenny is, rather than wanting her to run straight to the police.  Jenny is often brighter than the adults letting everything play out and leaves them wondering who exactly the more mature one was.  Meanwhile, others like Jenny’s teacher Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) know that sometimes all you can do with teenagers is warn them as they make their mistakes, let them learn for themselves, and hope they come back to say, “you were right.”

An Education was so well done and was such an entertaining story.  It didn’t bang the audience over the head with a message, or try to take a moralistic stand.  Instead, it showed a lesson taught, a lesson learned, and everyone came out the better for it.

One final note – Carey Mulligan did an amazing job in this film and glancing through her current lineup of films this year (Public Enemies, An Education, Brothers) and her numerous films set to release next year, she has all the makings of the new “IT-girl” (no, not “I”, “T” – “it”). Based on her previous work, she absolutely deserves it. However, I will always remember her for the first role I saw her in – Sally Sparrow on one of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time, “Blink”. Sally Sparrow was the best.

Precious is an amazing movie.  It’s also a heavy movie, very heavy.  I was shaken even as I walked out of the theater to my car, and the movie lingered with me the rest of the night.  I love movies like that.

Precious (full name – Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) is the story of 16-year-old Precious.  She’s pregnant, failing school, and all alone.  To say her mother abuses her would be an understatement.  Her mother hates her.  Precious escapes by imagining herself in fantasy situations, as a movie star, or a celebrity far away from the ghetto where she lives.  Precious gets an opportunity to change things when her current principal refers her to an alternative school.  She enrolls, and slowly starts to break out of her shell and realize there can be more to life.

If only it were that easy.  Precious already has a child and is pressured by her mom to help her stay on welfare.  That’s just the beginning of the uphill battle she faces.  I don’t want to give too many of the plot points away, but she endures a whole lot.  Fortunately, she has support from her new teacher, Ms. Rain, and her new classmates.

Gabby Sidibe does an amazing job in her first role.  At times, you forget you’re watching a movie, her character feels so real.  Your heart breaks for her over and over.  Mariah Carey was so convincing not dolled up in makeup that I didn’t even recognize her.  Mo’Nique blew me away.  I read in an interview with Lee Daniels that he told her she had to be a monster, but one that we felt sorry for her, and she was.  It was interesting, because I felt bad for her, but I felt no sympathy for her the way I did for Precious.

The entire movie builds for a final scene that is unforgettable.  The performances were so raw and so real and that is exactly why the movie stayed with me as I left the theater.  This movie will touch you.  It’ll leave you exhausted, but it will be worth it.

INK is a movie about forces of dark and light fighting for an 8-year-old girl.  The story moves between the real world and a metaphysical one as these forces battle unseen to us, but in ways that impact the real world.

I started following Double Edge Films on twitter a while back and followed bits and pieces of their journey over the last few months.  I saw a trailer of INK and was instantly intrigued.  When I heard about the fact that it had been illegally downloaded over 100,000 times in 48 hours, despite the fact that it had no distribution deal, I knew I had to see it.

I had moved it to the top of my Netflix queue when it was released, but since I didn’t return a movie on the day of its release, I was stuck with “very long wait” and a skip to the next movie in my queue.  Fortunately, it was also available in streaming form, so I watched it via my instant queue.

I’m not sure if it was because of my current emotional state, or if it just caught me off guard, but I was really moved by this movie.  Like, holding back tears, letting out a deep breath and thinking about it the whole day type moved.  Part of it was the outstanding execution of the film and a great story.  But there I was, at ten in the morning, sitting on the couch getting choked up while leaning forward and rooting for the main characters in the final battle.  I had only intended to watch the first 30 minutes or so while I ate breakfast, and catch the rest in the evening when I was free, but work had to wait that morning.

The reason I loved this movie first and foremost was because it was a great story.  I’ve been to a couple different panels at AFM and LALIFF the last few weeks and in every forum with struggling, aspiring filmmakers, it always comes back to the same thing – have a compelling story and great script.  Add to that the execution of great actors and crew, a kick-ass trailer, a great marketing campaign, and an amazing soundtrack, and this film had all the recipes for success.  This isn’t a movie with a lot of potential that is forgiven because of its budget.  It’s one that succeeds despite its budget.

I use the word success relatively.  INK is a great movie and has a loyal following from the fans it has gathered at all of its screenings and now through Netflix, iTunes, and Blockbuster.  However, it deserves a larger audience.  It’s a shame that original, exciting movies have such an uphill battle to find a distributor.  At the same time, we’re seeing a changing market that allows filmmakers to control the fate of their films a little more.  I think it’s great what they’ve done as far as their release strategy and finding their audience.

The best way to learn more about the film and their journey is to read their blog.  They’ve done a great job of capturing their experience and been very open to sharing what they’ve learned along the way.  There’s also a great interview with them on Film Courage that’s very revealing.

And of course, the most important thing – see this movie!  Support it, show that everything doesn’t need to run through a Hollywood studio to be a success and find an audience.  Rent it.  Stream it.  Buy it.  Buy the soundtrack.  Buy a shirt.  Become a fan.  The only way original movies like this one can continue to thrive is with the support and voice of its fans.  Let others know about it.  But see it first.  You’ll know what I mean when you do.

Normally, I don’t write reviews for movies I watched on DVD.  For certain movies, I’ll make an exception – movies that blow me away because of their content and execution.  Movies like “Food, Inc.”

“Food, Inc.” is a documentary about the state of food consumption in the U.S.  It tracks the common foods many of us eat in the grocery store all the way to their source and pulls the curtain back on them.  It showed many of the problems with our current system and how misleading much of the food we eat is.  Not a lot of what I saw came as a surprise to me after reading “Fast Food Nation” and “In Defense of Food”.  Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan play a primary role in this documentary, and for good reason.  They have done a great job in educating people about changing eating habits.

Seeing the things in “Food, Inc.” is a big difference from reading about them in a book.  It’s not only heartbreaking to see the environment that cows and chickens suffer through, it’s also disturbing to think that those sickly animals wind up on our dining room table.

“Food, Inc.” succeeds where “Capitalism” falls short because not only does it present a problem, it presents it from multiple points of view, with depth, AND offers solutions.  This isn’t a film that is politically polarizing.  Nobody will confuse Joel Salatin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Salatin of Polyface Farms http://www.polyfacefarms.com/ as being a bleeding heart liberal.  Gary Hirshberg didn’t please many of his hippy farmer friends when Stonyfield Farm began selling its organic yogurt at Wal-Mart.  There is an understandable call for some type of regulation to help prevent many of the problems with tainted food and abused workers.  However, there is also recognition that one of the most effective ways to fix these problems is to educate people and change what people demand.  It’s basically a plan to exploit the large companies by beating them out their own game.  Their bottom line is profit, so they don’t care if that profit comes from free range organic eggs, or chicken crammed into a dark space walking around in their own feces – whatever the consumer demands.  So why not change people’s perception and create a successful and profitable system in healthy eating?  I love that idea.

This movie is both disturbing and inspiring at the same time.  It’s a wake up call to think about what you eat and how you eat.  It’s a movie that can motivate you to adjust your long term eating habits.  It does enough to justify thinking twice before opting for the cheaper, processed food.  I’d rather eat smaller portions of real, whole food, than giant portions of the alternative.  I hope that others follow.

I have to be very self-disciplined with my schedule since I have nobody to answer to but myself.  It means outlining clear weekly goals and trying to stick to them as best as possible.  The toughest thing about this is that because I’m following so many different leads for work/pay/creative outlets that my weekly schedule is tossed out the window by Monday morning.

While I might plan on say, working at Borders Tuesday morning, and then working out of the home office on Wednesday, I might end up on an unplanned conference call that keeps me from leaving, or end up with a meeting on the other side of town that I hadn’t known would happen.  All very productive, but maddening when trying to have clear, set writing time – especially when you throw in late night dealings with India, since our night is their afternoon.  It means that many times, I go to bed hours later than planned and then don’t wake up for the early morning writing that I would love to do.  With my schedule out of wack, I obsessively try to track my timesheet and hit weekly goals, knowing full well that it’s just not going to happen.  There are too many unknowns from week to week to be able to balance the business side of film with writing, reading, and watching movies.  Something gives each week, but I still wear myself out trying to prevent that.

I’ve decided on a few new strategies going forward in order to give me some peace of mind.

Writing time is set in stone

This is non-negotiable now.  Too often my writing is what loses out to other things going on.  I am going to drag myself out of bed in the mornings, and stick to set writing hours in the morning.  The problem I have is that I usually chase whatever new issues arise as quickly as possible.  That means that if I sit down to start writing, but get an email of an issue that needs addressing, I’ll handle the email first.  Before I know it, a few hours of business work have replaced my writing time.  Not cool for the writing.  If I want to keep building momentum with all of my writing I have to always treat it as a priority.  I can always get to my emails later.

Schedule free time

I always forget to do this.  My mind is mush by the end of the day, but I’ll tell myself I can squeeze in some late night reading.  One, it’s not enjoyable to read as a task when I’m exhausted, and two, I don’t get as much out of it as I should.  It defeats the purpose of trying to do more reading if I’m always dozing while I do it.  Taking time outs, especially to break the day up between business and creative, makes a huge difference.  Knowing that I have some scheduled time to just relax goes a long way in being refreshed for work.

My work day should end.

This is another tough one.  I try to squeeze things in (unsuccessfully) from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed.  What ends up happening is that I slack off or get distracted in the middle of the day, feel guilty and work late, oversleep, repeat.  It’s a vicious cycle.  I think the combination of scheduled free time, and knowing that I have a stopping time will make the hours in between much more productive.

In all, I think these new strategies allow me to be more productive instead of constantly trying to stay “busy”.  Staying busy just wears me out without accomplishing as much.  Hopefully I can apply these ideas and they help make a difference.

November is NaNoWriMo month.  This is the first year I’ll be participating.  What is NaNoWriMo you ask?  Well I’m glad you asked.  NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.  It takes place every November.  The goal is to write an entire novel (50,000 words) in one month.  You can outline, plan, do whatever you want in the month’s prior, but you can’t start writing the actual thing until November 1^st.  You have to put your pens (or laptops) down at the end of the day on November 30^th.  Everyone who reaches the 50,000-word goal is a “winner” of NaNoWriMo.

This might sound cheesy to non-writers, but this amount of writing is no simple task.  Add to that the fact that many people, like me, are doing this in addition to their normal daily work and writing, and it’s a huge feat to accomplish.  I’ve struggled to consistently reach 1,000 words a day for at least five days a week for the last couple of months.  Doing this will be a huge leap in the amount I write each day.

The great thing about NaNoWriMo is that the goal is to write, write, write.  You have to go as fast as possible with no looking back if you want to get everything on paper in such a short amount of time.  You can go back, edit, and make things look pretty after the fact, which is actually the way I prefer to work anyway.  This is why I’m so excited to participate and give it a try.  I really want to get in the habit of getting more on paper and spitting out everything that’s in my head.  Let me tell you, it’s a lot more satisfying to see a bunch of crap written out then to see all kind of potential float around in my head while I beat myself up for not sitting down and writing.  That’s my goal – write more and the rest will come naturally.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to write about.  Keeping with the habits I’m trying to break, I failed to put down on paper a proper outline until Halloween candy was being passed out.  I had decided about a month ago that I was going to write a story about a suburban Phoenix neighborhood (easy enough for me to relate to, right?) and the different lives on a street.  I’ve tentatively titled it, “Epic Adventures of Suburban Lives”.  I didn’t want it to bash suburbia as other stories so often do.  That’s too easy.  That’s not to say that what comes out of the stories will all be positive, but I’m trying to approach it without a jaded viewpoint.

I had nothing more than that idea and title to go off of until I had a breakthrough about a week and a half ago.  Now I know exactly where the story is going – I’m using the neighborhood of John and Sarah, my main characters from the “Monsoon” screenplay.  This novel is going to take place a year before the events in the script and their two families will be characters in the story.  Excited by this new approach, I sketched out on paper their half of the block.  I narrowed it down to 10 houses, 5 on each side.  My plan is to tell the story from the viewpoint of all the people on this street in these houses.  Each chapter will be from someone else’s perspective.  There will be overlap, but I’m not sure if it’s going to come out as a straightforward narrative or a collection of short stories.  The writing will lead the way.

I really recommend that anyone who enjoys writing give NaNoWriMo a try.  It’s a ton of fun and it looks like they have a very supportive community.  At the very least, pitch in a few bucks to support the cause.  I plan to.  I will update my progress this month as I go, tracking the ups and downs of trying to create something from scratch.  Wish me luck!