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March 26, 2006

Chambers, FourFour, Dialogue, Carolyn, Brick, etc.

Below: two photographs I really love, from the brilliant eye & camera of Tom Chambers... go to his personal site to see more more more.

For the past couple of weeks, a lot of people have been alerting me to this great, detailed post about the MSKIN film on a really terrific site called FourFour, expertly and exhaustively handled (soundbites! tons of photos! unbridled hilarity and intelligence!) by Rich Juzwiak. Why haven't I been reading this blog before? I'm permanently tabbing it. Thanks to Sal and Alice and Chris and others for alerting me to this, and thanks Rich for writing it.

Sometimes, when I read reviews and comments about the film, the writers quote specific lines of dialogue, and I'm really stymied over whether something was initially mine, ie from the original book, or whether it was Gregg's. For instance, the "I'd fuck him for free" line, spoken by Neil--that wasn't mine, right? I went leafing through the paperback again and discovered it, but the line was originally "I'd HAVE him for free." So I guess that one's both mine and Gregg's. Neil screaming "I'm so fuckin' sick of this stinkin' little buttcrack of a town" in the film--now that is signature Gregg, so that didn't confuse me. Other things are funny, in their transition from novel to screenplay: for example, I noticed that the reference to "baby Jesus's birthday," in the novel, appears in a postcard Eric sends to Neil; in the film, Eric actually speaks it to Brian in a wholly different scene. And the "peanut butter peach pie," which from all the various screenings I attended was right up there with Lisa Long's teddy-bear sweatshirt as top laugh-getter, is spoken by Neil's mom in the book, but Brian's in the film.

When I was getting my B.A. at Kansas University, I had a great friend and professor and mentor, the wonderful writer and teacher and all-around stupendous human being Carolyn Doty, who sadly passed away in 2003. Carolyn--author of four terrific novels including Whisper and A Day Late, and director of the Squaw Valley writer's conference--once told me that after a book is published, the writer should never go back and read it again, because he or she will always note the things that should have been done differently. I guess I subscribe to that philosophy. So, since the book is more than a decade old, I've forgotten what I wrote. (To be totally honest, I usually find it numbingly pretentious for a writer to talk about his or her own work like this, but these are the things fluttering around my mind as I read the FourFour review.)

While on the subject of movies... I urge you to see the fantastic, fantastically exciting Brick when it opens (March 31st--soon!). Rian Johnson is the director, and an amazingly snazzy and smart one. I saw it at last year's Sundance with superstar Joe himself. His role as Brendan Frye is just as sparkling and complex as Neil McCormick, and I hope the world takes notice. Below: the amazing poster, and a photo of Joe from the film.

Joe's also recently updated his own site with a new short film. And our Sugartown Traders movie is still on there as well.

I'm obviously long-winded tonight. Next time: a Brazil wrap-up!! I promise! I'm still numb, and also a little post-cross-hemisphere bluesy, from our return, but I'll update very soon (with photos).