Love the Beast

I watched “love the beast” a documentary about Eric Bana and the love of his first car.

Now,I’ve been having trouble sleeping, I twisted my foot tonight and I’ve been downloading too many new apps for my iPad (one of them being WordPress) so I though I’d have a go at an impromptu post. So many of my posts are obsessed over and thought out to the point of they ever see the light of day because I’m too picky. Maybe this should be one of those posts, maybe not.

My parents were gear heads. Bring them to a car show and they will show you a glimpse of their 20-something self. My dad built cars and fixed cars. My mom owned some of the coolest muscle cars. Then they had me and we had more reliable forms of transportation.

My brother was taught how to fix cars. I wanted to learn but it wasn’t for girls. I regret that I only know how to change a tire, even that I fail at. I always wanted to get under a car and change the oil, reak of motor oil and transmission fluid. I wanted a real reason to come inside and use that Lava soap.

Even though I don’t know all the lingo of a real gear head I did learn how to truly love cars. Many of our cars had names. We’d try to cheer them on to start in the dead of winter. We’d yell as them when they oveheated and left us stranded. We cried when we sold them or crashed them.

I said goodbye to my first car. It died in the desert between Los Angeles and Vacaville. Overheated, blew the engine cost twice as much to fix then it was worth. That first car I bought for my dad for $1. It got me from Michigan to California. That car was my ticket to an adventure. There were nights I slept in that car. I would escape the mall where I worked and have lunch in that car to get away from people. It was a little white Plymouth Neon. Cute, spunky and sporty. I dinged it up a few times, living in LA will do that to a car. It was a reminder of home and a gateway to the future. I wasn’t just a machine it was a part of my past and future. It failed at times just as I did. It was scared of the hills of Venture highway, just as I was.

So I’m not surprised that tonight I found myself crying and really connecting to “Love the Beast” a documentary following Eric Bana as he talks about his 25 year ownership of his first car the Falcon XB. If you are not familiar it’s the same car in Mad Max. It’s a muscle car.

In the doc we see Bana and his mates work on the car through the years. Their link unbroken by getting together and fixing up this one car. They race the car a few times to great success. Bana because more of a success in films, he still gets together with his mates to work on the car and race. They went through many restorations in the 25 years. The final restoration is to get the car ready for a race on closed streets with mixed turain. He ends up crashing the car. The rest of the doc is Bana wondering if he should fix the car again.

This is where I cry. That car means so much to him. To the point he’d rather have broken bones than see his car destroyed. A car isn’t always just a car, it is a part of you. It’s a love.

It makes me think of broken dreams and paths not taken. Abandoning yourself because times get too hard. Something, anything you spend 25 years with is hard to let go. It showed me that everything is fixable. Mechanical, spiritual, physical or otherwise. Don’t walk away, don’t give up on something that means so much. If something is broken in your life fix it. I only wish everything was as easy to fix as a car.

Iraq and Finding Nemo

This is an excerpt from “I Blame Lucas” an upcoming movie memior of how the movies I saw shaped my thinking.

Finding Nemo was the first movie my daughter saw in the theater. Josh had arrived home from a five month deployment toIraq not long before we ventured out to see our first movie as a new family.

I was truly worried Kami would talk through the whole movie. Something I don’t mind in kid’s movies but this time I’d be, not the random movie-goer, but the parent of a talkative nine-month old. We let Kami choose where we’d sit; she went for the very top row. To our relief only a handful of people filled the rest of the theater for our mid-day showing. I was nervous if she would like the movie, if anything would scare her, if it would be too dark, if it would be too loud, if she would sit still – I was a wreak. I wanted so badly for her to enjoy going to the theater, after all movies is what brought her mommy and daddy together. If it wasn’t for movies, Kami would have never been born.

I kept all my nervousness inside until the lights went down in the movie house and a wave of calm came over me.

I think the first words I heard were from Kami. “Wow” she said. The colors were breathtaking. So vibrant and rich. You’re immediately drawn into another magical world, a world that you can’t help but want to live in.

Then reality set in, the ocean, just as on land, is a dangerous place. A barracuda hunts down hundreds of clown fish eggs tucked away in the reef. A mother, willing do anything to protect her children, sacrifices herself.

After surviving five months of my husband being in a war zone, fearful if he’d ever come back home, I knew only too well about protecting children from the dangers of the world and at times feeling powerless to stop it but I knew as a mother I had to try.

One egg, although damaged by the barracuda attack is all new daddy Marlin has to hold onto. He names his offspring Nemo, a name his mate liked. Cradling the eggs and covering over its wound he says, “I won’t let anything happen to you.” How many times did I utter those same words to Kami? How tight did I hold onto Kami while Josh was away? Was I being as over protective as Marlin? Would I ever be able to let go? I remember thinking this movie is going to be hard to watch but I need to see it.

Periodically I’d look over to Kami seeing if she was enjoying the movie. She was soaking it all in. She seemed more mesmerized by Finding Nemo than Sesame Street and Teletubbies. Then I noticed how closely she was snuggling close to her daddy and I realized I wasn’t the only one who needed to see this movie.

Two weeks after Josh left forIraq, Kami said her first word. She was five-months old. I had just gotten off the phone with Josh. The war hadn’t started yet and time on the phone was short, but he was able to say that he was okay and I was able to tell him I loved and missed him. Kami played in her bouncer and I took a moment to lie down on the floor in front of her. I closed my eyes for a brief second to take in the fact he was safe when…

“Da-da?”

“What did you say?”

Kami’s eyes grew wide. “Da-da!”

I must have looked like a crazy person running around flipping over couch cushions and looking under magazines to try to find the tape recorder. “Your first word! You said your first word!” At last I found the tape recorder Josh found for me. I rushed over to Kami thinking there was no way she’d say it again. “Kami can you say ‘da-da?’ Say ‘da-da’ sweetie.”

Just as I pressed the record button, “Da-da.”

After an amazing amount of praise and pride, the reality set in – Josh wasn’t there to hear it.

I feared that Kami would use her new word to identify anything she saw, a ball, “da-da” a bottle, “da-da” but I was very much wrong. Kami knew exactly what her new word meant. It started at the commissary on base. A solider would walk past and oh so softly I’d hear “da-da?” We’d visit the hospital for her checkups, her eyes searching, catching sight of camouflage and then “da-da?” For five long months my daughter was looking for her daddy and now her first movie is about a father trying to find his son.

Finding Nemo quickly became my daughter’s favorite movie. I’ve watched it countless times and I swear each time I learn something new. I love how Sandy Plankton knew everything about everything (we all have that person in our life). I loved how Nemo a “damaged” fish learns strength from Gil who suffered the same disability but doesn’t let it diminish his hope of freedom.

Crush was my favorite. He’s the type of parent I want to be. When his son Squirt slips out of the current and for a brief second and is separated from the family, Marlin freaks out and Crush calmly says “Let’s see what Squirt does flying solo.” He’s there as a parent but knows he can’t fight every fight. Marlin (very much like me) struggles with how to know when you’re child is ready to be on their own. Crush in almost a surfer-koan form says, “Well, you never really know, but when they know, you know, you know?”

Marlin continues to struggle with letting go when it comes to his traveling companion Dory too. When both of them are trapped in the mouth of a whale, Dory tells Marlin that it’s time to physically let go of the whale’s tongue. “How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?”

Josh made it home. He was one of the lucky ones. I had my family back. I didn’t have to cry asleep at night anymore that had scent has left his pillow. But was it time for me to let go? How did I know that something bad wasn’t still going to happen to my family? Then a fish with no short term memory summed it all up for me…

“How do you know something bad isn’t going to happen?” Marlin asks.

“I don’t” says Dory.

You simply can’t know if something bad is going to happen. You raise your children to the best of your ability. You balance protecting them and letting them find our just how dicey the water are. Then one day you come to realize that you don’t know how your future will be laid out and you surrender to the power of not knowing but always having hope that things will turn out they way they should be.

After finally being reunited with his son, Marlin steps out of his comfort zone and lets Nemo try to save a school of silver fish caught in a fisherman’s net. After swimming an entire ocean to find his son, Marlin now has to risk loosing him so that Nemo can save others. Risky thing for a parent, but really isn’t that what it’s all about, raising your children so that they in turn can make a difference in the lives of others?

After spending months trying to find her daddy, looking closely at every face in uniform, the day finally arrived that Kami’s daddy came home. Kami and I sat in the empty Army airport hanger for what felt like a life time. As the bus pulled up and the soldiers exited, I got to see my husband’s warn, weary but smiling face. When I went to lift Kami out of her stroller for a better view – she was asleep. Thinking back on it, I really wouldn’t have had it any other way because the first words she heard when she woke up were, “Daddy’s here.” The same exact words Marlin said to Nemo after being knocked unconscious trying to save the silver fish.

Kami and Josh have a special bond I deeply admire. Five months apart with a big ocean between them. Luckily they both instinctively knew to “just keep swimming” and “never give up.”

My Thoughts on Sucker Punch

Flashback: Oscar night. The trailer comes on for Sucker Punch. I turn to my girls, Veronica and Katie, and say “Hey, our men had a movie night, let’s have a girls night and see Sucker Punch.” We agree Sucker Punch has to be a million times better than Robocop.

Flash forward: My Birthday. Girls night has turned into 5:10 showing of Sucker Punch with Veronica, Katie and Dan, Jason, Josh and my dad.

I’ve read the reviews. I’ve even seen my friends on facebook not dig it. Good, bad, or ugly I still wanted to see it because it’s girls kicking butt fueled by their imagination to escape the horrible mental hospital they are trapped in.

We left the theater and it appeared that all 6 of my friends didn’t like the movie. My dad, in comical fashion, tried fake puke outside the car window over his disgust with the movie. My dad, I should mention, LOVES 300 and Watchman, so he really wanted to see Sucker Punch. He even watched Watchman the night before to get into the spirit of Zack Snyder.

I didn’t like Watchman. I thought it was boring and the acting was horrible. I didn’t read the comic so I wasn’t into it. 300 I thought, was just a guy flick. I saw it in the theater with my husband and my dad who both loved the movie. I thought it was too over the top, gory for the sake of gore, sexy for the sake of male fantasizes, and just rubbish. I did however like Sucker Punch for two specific reasons. Reasons, I will explain…now…

REASON 1. Men have Rambo, Commando, Predator, Robocop, Total Recall and many more mindless action movies that they love. Women now have Sucker Punch. Before Sucker Punch we had Aeon Flux (didn’t see it), Tank Girl, G.I. Jane, and Charlie’s Angels. I’m sorry, but I consider Tomb Raider, Alien, Resident Evil, Underworld, and Kill Bill as men movies; if you can replace the female character with a man and it’s the same movie, therefore a man movie.

Take G.I. Jane. You can’t replace Demi Moore’s character with a man. The whole story is based around female strength and defying stereotypes of what females can do in a male dominated field (Navy Seals). Where if you replaced Ripley in Alien from a female to male actor you’d basically have the same movie. I’m not saying the movie would be as awesome without Sigourney Weaver, I like that it’s a strong female in that role, however, from a story standpoint, it would be the same story, male or female in the lead role. I look for movies where only a woman could have played that role because it was written with feminine strengths and weakness in mind. Women are different from men – not better or worse – just different.

In Sucker Punch, the women use “The power within their mind” (said by the Doc) to help each other survive. There was more crying then I thought there needed, but whatevs. Some have written that the film is degrading toward women, I didn’t see it and trust me, I’m always looking for it. The women were used as toys for men’s fantasies and power issues but they turned that power against them by the use of the Baby Doll’s dance.

Stop. Hammer Time.

Okay, the dance was dumb. She just sways back and forth and then we go into her mind. Bad transition, we needed to see some of the dance and not just hear about it. Dan did a great interpretation of the dance that had us all cracking up.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming….

The women were subservient when they needed to be, powerful when they could, and protective of each other always. They didn’t fall into “I’m the victim” crap. They stayed strong throughout and did what they thought they needed to do to gain their freedom. One character did crack and that made sense to the story arch.

REASON 2. The story of Sucker Punch does follow the Hero’s Journey. Hero’s Journey developed by Joseph Campbell, is a list of common elements in mythic storytelling. There are variations on the elements and more in depth points but for this, I’ve covering the basics of Hero’s Journey Elements and how it fits Sucker Punch.

ORDINARY WORLD – First off the main character is not Baby Doll (the blonde in the Sailor Moon outfit) our main character is Sweet Pea. We establish Sweet Pea’s ordinary world in the “Theater.” The theater is a lounge inside the mental institution where the Polish doctor plays music to allow the girls reenact their problems. The head of the facility, “Blue,” talks about how their reenactments are so real (hence a set up for the worlds we will enter). Sweet Pea is on stage of the theater, she comes down to have a face-to-face with Baby Doll thus showing us the ordinary world for the girls. The music plays and for the rest of the movie we are in the imagination on Sweet Pea. It’s Sweet Pea that creates a world where the girls are not mental patients but dancing strippers with a pimp boss (“Blue”) and a dance coach(The Polish Doc). This world is safer for Sweet Pea. It’s in the world that Sweet Pea is the top dancer and brings in the High Rollers, but then Baby Doll is asked to dance… Without this imaginary element we have Girl Interpreted where Sweet Pea is Angelina Jolie and Baby Doll is Winona Ryder. Seriously look at the poster, it’s so close.

CALL TO ADVENTURE – Baby Doll is our conduit for this call to adventure. When Baby Doll is asked to dance, she transitions to world in her mind (Sweet Pea is still the puppeteer of all this) where she finds “Wise Man” (played by Scott Glenn). When asked what Baby Doll wants, she half-ass says, “Freedom.” Why? because she doesn’t want freedom, Sweet Pea does. The Wiseman tells her that a “High Roller” is coming for Baby Doll in 5 days. Therefore giving a sense of urgency. The Wiseman gives her tools – a gun and a sword – and tells her she needs to find 5 items (map, fire, knife, a key and a fifth to be discovered later) to gain her freedom. Thus setting up the plot points of the movie.

REFUSAL TO CALL – Baby Doll tells the girls of this encounter. Sweet Pea doesn’t want to go on this journey and makes the girls agree that if she wants to call it off they will. Why? because she’s the main character, and in this format, that is what they do.

MEETING THE MENTOR + CROSSING THE LINE OF THE ORDINARY WORLD INTO THE SPECIAL WORLD – this happens when Baby Doll does her dance and Sweet Pea steals the map to the Mental Institution/Brothel. The entrance to this special world is actually special. When Baby Doll closes her eyes when she begins to dance she is now transported to a WWII/steampunk/Prussian War type place where all the girls must fight these mechanical Germans to get the map. In the special world is where Sweet Pea meets the mentor, “Wiseman.”

TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES – This can be boiled down in to gaining the items needed for the quest, they get the map from the office of the Mental Institution, the fire from the Mayor’s lighter, the knife proves harder…  This is also my guess where people start to dislike the movie and start to relate it to Transformers 2.

In Transformers 2 (which I only liked because there was a Camero in it) there is talk-talk-talk followed by fight-fight-fight. The ratio I remember is about 5 minutes of talking followed by 20 minutes of crap blowing up. You get into this rhythm and you get bored. The same thing happens in Sucker Punch. Baby Doll dances then we are in a fight-fight-fight world for about 15 minutes. It’s the same intro and out-tro so it can become repetitive and expected.

***NOW HERE ARE SPOLIERS***

ORDEAL, DEATH and REBIRTH – We didn’t need Baby Doll to dance to get the knife. Earlier in the story the cook tried to attack Rocket (Sweet Pea’s sister) for stealing chocolate and Baby Doll got the cooks knife and put it to his throat. I don’t understand the complicated dance number when the story already proved that Baby Doll has that skill. -Anyway – the dance goes crappy because water shorts out the electrical cord to the song before Sweet Pea gets the knife. The cook realizes what’s she doing and Rocket  get’s stabbed and killed. Amber does get away with the knife. Before Rocket dies, she tells Sweet Pea to tell their parents that she’s sorry for running away. Sweet Pea is locked away in a closet. Blondie cracks and tells Blue the girl’s plans. Now it’s the day of the “High Roller” and the girls need the 4th and 5th item to gain freedom.

REWARD, SEZING THE SWORD – Blue kills a couple of the girls, and tries to rape Baby Doll. Here’s the problem – It should be Sweet Pea who comes and saves the day getting the last item – the key around Blue’s neck. But it isn’t. Baby Doll overcomes her fear of Blue and stabs Blue with the knife before grabbing the key around his neck. Baby Doll then frees Sweet Pea. This is a confusion of who’s story we are watching.

THE ROAD BACK -reality of the mental institution and the imaginary world of the brothel start to intersect here. Baby Doll and Sweet Pea are the only ones alive of the girls. They use the map to know how to escape, the lighter to start a fire in a closet that will trigger some of the doors to open, the knife was already used against Blue, and then the key opens all the locks. There is a clue that we’re getting closer to reality as we see the front door operator looks like the “Mayor” that Baby Doll danced for. Outside the Mental institution there are men waiting to enter the brothel. Confusing but convenient.

RESURRECTION- At the front gate, Baby Doll realized what the fifth item needed to escape is – her. Baby Doll says to Sweet Pea, “This isn’t my story, it’s yours.” In Sweet Pea’s imagination it’s Baby Doll who is the last item needed for her safety, hence why the story started in the theater and Sweet Pea’s introduction. Baby Doll dances and distracts the guys as Sweet Pea escapes.

RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR – Sweet Pea boards a bus driven by the Wiseman to Fort Wayne, Indiana. She doesn’t have a ticket and the Wiseman says something really cool that I can’t remember. The reason why I can’t remember it is because I live not far from Fort Wayne and I think it’s funny that that is where she’s escaping too.  But the meaning is that Sweet Pea is going to return home to tell her parents that Rocket really did love them and didn’t mean to run away. Therefore, in my mind, giving it the message of forgiveness.

Like it, love it or hate it, Sucker Punch does follow the Hero’s Journey of mythic storytelling with only 1 misstep.

Now so no one gets mad – the wrap up. The rest of the film is tying up loose ends of the reality vs the imagination.

After Sweet Pea escapes we’re back to the ordinary world of the Mental Institution where we need to Fight Club this sucker pretty quick to reveal what really happened. So the High Roller in the brothel that was going to take Baby Doll way is actually the doctor to perform a lobotomy. Either way Baby Doll was going to be taken away and Sweet Pea needed her to escape. The doc mentions, “she was a handful. She set a fire, stabbed someone, and allowed another inmate to escape.” So Baby Doll did all the things we saw including giving herself up to be captured/lobotomized to save Sweet Pea.

The dance instructor is now again the Polish doctor who learns her signature was forged to perform the lobotomy. She goes to search who did this when Blue, the head of the institution (who actually is stabbed) takes Baby Doll to the back room to have his way with her. It’s clear from the conversation with the guards that he’s done this to all the girls. This is where escaping to the idea of living in a brothel makes sense to me, because if you’re constantly being abused, you escape to a place where you have the illusion of power. The Polish doctor stops Blue but Baby Doll is a vegetable having already sacrificed herself.

Let me know if you agree, disagree or are indifferent in the comments. Again, I didn’t write the movie, this is just my take on it. Movies are subjective art we all get something different out of them.

Psychic Movie Critic – Arthur

I’m going to play Psychic Movie Critic and draw assumptions only from watching the trailer of the new movie “Arthur”. I’ve done this a few times with friends but now I’m putting it on the line, let’s see how wrong I am.

I loved the original Arthur with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli, I must have watched it countless times and couldn’t decide who I wanted to be more, Arthur, the rich drunk with an obsession with childhood, or Linda, a poor but happy-to-be-her funky woman. Now there is a remake staring Russell Brand (Arthur), Helen Mirren (Hobson, now female), Greta Gerwig (Linda.) Gerwig is not featured in the trailer but Jennifer Gardner (Susan) is. I wonder worry that might take some of the heart of the original movie out of the remake, but then again, after watching the trailer I think the film has the same heart and quirkiness in the original film. I think Brand (who I have not seen much of his work) will do a great job. I think maybe Steve Coogan could have been a better pick, but I love anything with Coogan in it.

I’m going to guess that it will follow the same basic storyline of riches to rags and finding true love and one’s sense of self. The jokes will be modern but still childish like the original. Brand will be great, Mirren will be as good as Sir John Gielgud, Gardner might be funny and charming.  I don’t think it would won’t be the best film ever but worth seeing on a Saturday night.

Street Art Wisdom

Last night I watched “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and couldn’t sleep.

The film is a documentary about Terry, a Frenchman, who videotapes everything. By happenstance he met some street artists and started filming them for a documentary (that he never really intended to put together). Terry filmed some of the best of the best street artists including Shepard Fairey (the originator of the Obama “Change” poster) and Banksy.

After years of filming with nothing to show for it, Banksy gave Terry a mission to make the film so that here-today-gone-tomorrow street art could be understood and documented. Terry did as he was told and made an un-watchable film. Banksy told Terry to forget filmmaking to put on his own small art show.

Terry went overboard, he put on one of the biggest independent art shows in the closed-down CBS building in Los Angeles. Yes, thousands of people attended. Yes, Terry did $1million in sales. BUT at what cost?

Terry asked Shepard Fairey and Banksy for a some promo help. Shepard added the press release to his website, Banksy gave a quote. Terry used this to build his promo campaign by putting up huge banners of Banky’s quote.

Here is where the movie got me thinking. Yes, Terry helped street artists put up their art in the middle of the night. Yes, Terry helped find the best walls in Los Angeles. Yes, Terry did his own street art.

But the street art that Terry did was of himself. He had a friend sketch out a picture of himself holding a camera. Terry didn’t really create it. The show Terry put on was a near copy of Warhol and Banksy. Most of the work were celebrities with new photoshopped images. Like Elvis with a toy gun instead of a guitar. Obama with Marilyn Monroe hair al-la Warhol’s Monroe, a Campbell’s soup label on a can of spray paint.

Banksy, who is in the film under the shadows, didn’t really know how to feel about Terry’s success – and that leads me to wonder about it too.

The Terry depicted in the film is a good guy, he really seems to mean well. He wants to be creative, he wants to be around creative people but when he steps up to create his own art it’s sub-par. And that should be the end of it, but because of his association with major players, he’s accepted and praised.

The hype machine scares me. Hype can create the illusion that a turd is a diamond and many of us buy into it. Yes, art is subjective; what someone people love, other’s find trash but you can’t separate the hype from the work. Once you relate yourself in the mind of the customer that you are in the same vein as [insert great name here] then they think, I like that work, I’ll check out this new person. Or in Terry’s case I’m sure many people were thinking, I love Banksy but I can’t afford his work so I’ll get one of this guys and maybe he’ll be as popular as Banksy one day.

So Terry found success, I believe, only from the promotional hype machine he created. The foundation of that machine was on the heels of his friends – who were real artists and didn’t know what work Terry would create.

Is that fair?

Banksy talks about how there is the unwritten rule in artistry of schooling, honing your craft, exploring new ideas…

But Terry wasn’t schooled, he didn’t worry about honing his craft he just thought anyone could do it and so why not him.

Here is where my brain goes in two directions. I admire people who just do something creative. I love seeing movies and reading stories that is the first-out-of-the gate. There is a bravery and a hope that they are just genius from the start. I really do want people to just do it, don’t talk about being an artist, just be an artist.

But then I watch or read first-time work and I see the pitfalls of a newbie. There is more to throwing paint on a canvas or words on paper, there are things you learn from schooling, mentorships, and taking the time to hone your craft. But someone people love the short cut – and why not? It’s a short cut to be closer to a paycheck.

I really want to answer the “Is it fair” questions so I’m going to put myself in a pretend scenario. Let’s say Charlie Chaplin sees my work (this won’t happen because he’s dead, hence the example) and he says something to the fact “You are continuing the Chaplin legacy.” That would be a huge personal boost and part of me would really want to put that on every press release to build hype. But is that fair? If I did that I’d be saying I’m as good as Charlie Chaplin and I’m not. I’d be riding on the bootstraps of the person who is an icon in the film industry and I have nothing by hype to ride that out. I don’t have the experience that Charlie Chaplin had, I don’t have the ingenuity that Charlie had. Using a quote like that would almost be an insult to the Charlie Chaplin legacy.

And that’s why I think what Terry did wasn’t fair. He rode the wave of the street art movement on the backs of his friends instead of earning it himself like Banksy and Fairey did.

Psychic Movie Critic – Red Riding Hood

I’m going to play Psychic Movie Critic and draw assumptions only from watching the trailer of the new movie Red Riding Hood. I’ve done this a few times with friends but now I’m putting it on the line, let’s see how wrong I am.

Red Riding Hood stars Gary Oldman. Oldman will be good. He always is, but it’s a 50/50 chance the movie is good. It’s directed by the Twilight director (Catherine Hardwick) – not a boost of confidence for me. I must be one of the 5 people on Earth that doesn’t like the Twilight Series. The trailer looks similar to Twilight; there are two people who are in love with the lead girl (Amanda Seyfried). Most likely one of them will be the werewolf – sound familiar?

I predict the movie will be slow. Maybe even Bram Stokers Dracula slow. Sexy love scenes, lots of tension of “who is the wolf” but I’ll bet we don’t see the wolf all the much.  The wolf will attack at night, the shots will be chaotic and who knows what we’ll really see.

If the movie is really lame the wolf will be the jealous love interest of the girl (the blond kid). If it’s got a bit more of a twist, it will be Lucas Haas.

I’m also going to bet that all the high production value shots are in the trailer. I’ll guess that most of the movie takes place on a sound stage in the “village” they created. There are some great shots but they scream “trailer” shots to get teenagers rushing to theaters.

It reminds me a combination of Twilight, From Hell, Tristan & Isolde. None of these I liked.

I love mythic stories, but Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale and there is a difference. Mythic stories are designed to be a path of how to live a blissful life. A fairy tale is for entertainment or to be a cautionary tale. I’m sure this won’t be in the film, but the message behind the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood is to not stray away from because people might look like people you know but they are really going to eat you.

If the movie has a simple plot like that, then great, it serves the fairy tale.

Overall, I’m going to skip it and watch Hoodwinked instead – that was a much more creative way to tell the 700 year old fairy tale.

Why the Red Star In “First They Came For…”

After a long debate, I wanted to once and for all answer the question of why the soldiers in “First They Came for” have a large red star on their uniform and on their vehicle.

The original poem says, ” first they came for… “as the writer, trying to take a poem into a film, I knew I had to identify the “they.” I didn’t see them as a flannel or camouflage wearing rag-tag group. I wanted them to be intimidating, scary, clean, and organized. Above all they needed to be an unstoppable force.

Because the soldiers in the film are never explained, they needed to be visually strong right off the bat. They needed a simple iconic symbol to show they were an organized unit of some kind.

Something easy to see from afar as some of the shots were designed to see the soldiers from a distance.

My husband showed me Rage Against the Machine album “Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium.” RATM uses the image of a red star in its concerts, music videos, and marketing. I thought the image was simple, interesting, and easy to duplicate (as I’m not a graphic designer).

From there I did research the red star. The five-pointed red star appears on both sides of the political fields as well as iconic marketing campaigns.

• The five-pointed red star is a symbol of Communism
• The five-pointed red star is the Macy’s Department Store Logo
• The five-pointed red star is the symbol of the Socialism
• The five-pointed red star is the Heineken Logo
• A five-pointed star represents the five continents
• A five-pointed star represents a workers hand
• A red star with a yellow outline was on the flag of the Soviet Union
• A white star with a red circle around it was the logo for Texaco
• Yugoslavia (my great- grandparents birth home) adopted a red star on their flag as early as 1945
• China’s flag has five, five-pointed yellow stars on a red background
• According to Wikipedia the red star has been banned in some countries
• Converse uses many colored five-pointed stars (including red) on their shoes
• ELZN uses the red star on a black background to declare war on the Mexican state
• “Red Star” was a superhero of the Teen Titans in the 1990’s and spoke Russian and English
• The U.S Army has been using, and is still using to this day, a five-pointed white star
• Marines in WW1 wore a patch with a red shield and a white star in the center.

The red star used in the film was not to be defined to a particular group or organization, it was meant to be iconic, easy to see, and memorable.  For an image to be iconic, it needs to have been established in the universal consciousness. From my research, a red star fit the bill; plus had a variety of meanings and history behind it, bringing another layer to the film.

Over the years viewers of the film accuse me of being anti-communist. Which startles me as I made the film to promote human rights for all beings. The original poem begins with “first they came for the communists” why would I want to adapt a poem and take in into modern day and disgrace a group that was perused against? Doing that would be an insult to the writer of the original poem, Reverend Martin Neimoller.

I hope this sheds some light on why I chose the soldiers to wear a red star in the film. I hope people continue to watch the film and become inspired.

I Blame Lucas – excerpt from Chapter 1

I’ve been working on a movie memoir called “I Blame Lucas.” It’s my life told through the movies I’ve seen starting with Star Wars IV (1977) and ending with Star Wars III (2005). Though that 28 years are so many films that influenced my life and shaped me into the person I am today. In the book I’m covering 50 films, many blockbusters, some indie’s all showed me a speck of wisdom that I still carry with me to this day.

What follows is a excerpt of Chapter 1 – Star Wars IV (1977). Hope you like it.

Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in a theater. I was three months old.

Too young to remember the exact details, I believe on that day, in the darkness of the movie house, something magical happened. My psyche was imprinted, showing me movies were like dreams – they could teach me how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances.

It’s hard to pin-point exactly how I was imprinted at such a young age. Maybe it was the operatic music that filled the theater. Maybe it was the gentle sounds of beeps and whistles from a friendly droid. It could have been the sparkling colors that were most likely blurred to my young eyes. But I think it was the movie projector; the white light scattered over the crowd, illuminating faces deep in thought, dust and smoke dancing in its path, twisting and fluttering bringing unexpected beauty into the darkness. That magical glow lit up the theater and cast its light on my mother’s face as she held me safely in her lap.

I can only imagine how nervous she was. Would I cry? Would she have to take me out of the theater? What she didn’t know is that I was home. The movies would forever be a safe place for me to go and learn about the world around me. Perhaps of all the movies no other movies spoke to me as strongly as the Star Wars series.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… I see those blue letters and it’s like seeing an old friend. Seems silly I know, a movie about a group of Rebels who steal the secret plans to fight an evil Galactic Empire, what is so special about that? If you’ve seen Star Wars, you get it. There is a mythic quality to this story – a universal story – one we can all find hope and wisdom in.

To me the story starts when we meet Luke Skywalker, a farm boy raised by his Aunt and Uncle. Luke wants to get away from everything he knows. His dream is to be a pilot and go on adventures, but life and family responsibilities get in the way.

When griping about his home planet, Luke says, “If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from.” The same could be said for where I grew up. I couldn’t wait until I turned 18 so I could escape the hell of the microscopic town of Rockford, Michigan. I felt there was a whole world happening outside its boundaries, and I was forced to watch from the sidelines. I dreamed of being a part of the action, and for me that action wasn’t happening in Rockford.

The biggest thing Rockford had going for it was the Hush Puppy factory; the epicenter of quality craftsmanship in the world of shoes. But because of the factory’s tanning process, the town reeked like rotting eggs on a hot summer day. To me Rockford stunk literally and figuratively. I didn’t mesh well with the laid back lifestyle. I didn’t understand the people; they might as well have been droids or aliens.

Luke’s future is forever changed when he comes across two droids carrying a message from a princess asking for help from Old Ben Kenobi. Eventually Luke finds the old hermit and learns about his father and this mysterious thing called The Force. Luke desperately wants to go on this journey, a journey to find out who his father was, but his responsibilities to his family keep him from taking Ben up on his offer.

Brilliant mind and expert on all things mythic, Joseph Campbell writes about the hero’s journey and how the hero is given a task when the hero is ready and able. When the Empire destroys Luke’s home, killing his aunt and uncle, Luke loses his attachments. Luke is now ready to meet his destiny, I would have to wait. But though the power of the movies I could travel along with Luke, learn from him and then maybe I’d be more ready when it came time for my own adventure.

In The Power of Myth, Campbell said, Furthermore, we have not even risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

We found out Old Ben Kenobi is really a Jedi Knight known as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic before the evil Empire took over. Obi-Wan, reminiscent of a shaman or sensei, would not tell Luke what to do, but rather leave it to Luke to find his own path. Most of my life I have searched for my Obi-Wan. Someone who wouldn’t pretend they knew more than me, but rather someone who understood that his/her fate lied on a different path than mine. We could walk together in safety and comfort until the time was right. I think I’ve had many Obi-Wan’s in my life. Some of them fictional characters flickering before me on a movie screen and others were flesh and blood – flawed and wise. I am deeply grateful for all my Obi-Wan’s.

Luke and Obi-Wan find and rescue the Princess. (I’m not giving all that much away, there are six movies worth of story-lines.) The Princess’ name is an interesting one. In the credits it’s listed as Leia but a few times she is called Leah. I only mention this, not to point any sort of continuity error to the filmmakers, but only to illustrate how this simple way of pronouncing the same name tremendously effected a little girl named Leah.

I was born Leah Lyn Lastovich. For what reasons you are reading a book written by Kate Chaplin will be reveled later. For now, you know the truth. My parents named me Leah, not after the Princess in a movie, but after a nice woman who came into my mother’s work one day and my mother remembered the name.

Now, growing up in the late seventies and eighties and having a name similar to an iconic figure such as Princess Leia was…difficult. Constant references to the movie taunted me at recess regularly and even followed me into my dating life.

“Hey, Princess, you wanna see my lightsaber?”

From the cute to the absurd, I’ve heard them all. I’ve been the butt of so many jokes that at one point I insisted George Lucas ruined my life. (After Episode 1: The Phantom Menace I repented, got to love take-sees-back-sees.) Thank the maker that Princess Leia is such a strong character. Even when she’s the one that needs rescuing, she’s never a shrinking violet, never subservient to anyone. She’s strong, she’s sarcastic, she’s rough around the edges, and we don’t know that much about her. She carries a gun just like the boys, and she wears two ridiculous hair braids on the sides of her head. Besides the fashion sense, I learned a lot from rebelliousness of Princess Leia, even if I wanted to separate myself from her as far as possible.