As kid, when my friends and I would throw on our toy proton packs to play Ghostbusters, I was always Egon. Maybe he was my favorite. Maybe he was just the one I resembled the most. After all these years, I don't totally remember why. I just remember thinking that Venkman was too much of a smart ass and Ray was kind of a man child.
But Egon - Egon was cool.
With the passing of his portrayer Harold Ramis on Monday, I've seen many, many reflections on Egon and on Ramis's other work in general. A number of people have remarked on how "Egon was a nerd who acted like how nerds really are." I don't know if I'd have put it that way, but at least he's not Sheldon Cooper or Steve Urkel, and for that we are grateful.
The particular types of nerds those two characters represent are usually socially awkward and frequently the butt of the joke. Urkel is also excessively clumsy while Sheldon is an insufferable whiner defined largely by a superiority complex the size of a Dyson Sphere and an inability to adapt to any circumstance with an axis that doesn't revolve around his desires.
And then there's Egon. A lesser movie would have made him the nerdy geek who Venkman picks on. Instead, Ramis makes him a guy capable of holding his own against the scientist with the personality of a game show host. There's a quiet confidence that Ramis brings to the character, avoiding both the awkwardness and arrogance present in most film nerds. When his secretary starts flirting with him, his reaction isn't to trip all over himself, but instead he remains aloofly oblivious. Or maybe he knows and he's playing his own game of hard to get.
I'm sure at some point in everyone's life, they're friends with someone whom others don't "get." You know, the friend who makes a scene at a party, or who always causes trouble when you go into a restaurant. I'm sure we've all had the feeling of, "Ugh, I have to put up with this guy. I'm friends with him, but would it kill him to be more mature?"
The next time you watch GHOSTBUSTERS, pretend that is Egon's inner monologue in every scene with Venkman. Any time Egon offers an odd-on-its-face reply to Venkman's wise-assery, pretend that he's messing with Venkman. Case in point:
Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head, remember that?
Egon: That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
There are a couple ways to read this dialogue. First, there's the possibility that it's meant to be taken at face value. Egon really tried to drill a hole in his head. But that seems so crazy for a guy that smart that I suggest a second possibility - that Egon was doing some other kind of experiment in para-psychology and the chronically-terrible-student Venkman only half-remembers what it was about. In this version, Egon's probably a bit bemused that Venkman reduces a complex procedure to something so mundane. (This IS the guy who says, "pretend for a minute I don't know anything about I don't know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics" later in the film.)
And then there's the third possibility - that Venkman is just riffing and Egon volleys it back to him with perfect dry delivery. The beauty of Ramis's performance is that it's layered enough that all three of those interpretations could be true.
Watch the film with the mindset that Egon is the smartest guy in the room and that his quiet confidence comes from the fact he doesn't need to prove it. Venkman is a ball of "me, me, me" insecurity in constant need of attention, but Egon is completely at peace with his role in the group. I like to think that every time Venkman goes off on one of his jokey tangents, Egon's there silently certain he could match and top every silly quip of Venkman's.
Think I'm reading too much into things? Notice how he projects authority when Louis Tully is dropped off at the station. And later when Venkman makes the silly quip about getting the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper together, it's Egon who lets Peter know this is no laughing matter without insulting Peter for his ignorant suggestion. Ray may be the heart of the Ghostbusters and Peter may be the ID, but Egon is the brains. He's the true leader.
There's something odd about spending so much of a tribute to a writer-director on his acting work. Part of this is that I don't know where to begin with his writing and directing credits. I do recall it blew my mind as a kid when I found out the guy who played Egon was also the man who directed National Lampoon's Vacation and who co-wrote Back to School and Animal House, among many others. Take a look at the films he contributed to as a writer and/or director:
Animal House
Meatballs
Caddyshack
Stripes
Ghostbusters
Back to School
Armed and Dangerous
Ghostbusters II
Groundhog Day
Multiplicity
Analyze This
Bedazzled
Analyze That
The Ice Harvest
Year One
A lot of classics and solid hits among those. I wouldn't even know where to begin to talk about Groundhog Day without saying something that hasn't been said before. In fact, as I look at those movies, my most prominent thoughts are how much his work made me laugh and how surreal it feels to realize he's gone.
It's weird to mourn the passing of someone you never met. But then it's also unusual to note the loss of someone who seemed to still have so much living left to do. When I was younger, the famous people who died all seemed so old. They were ancient relics of a different time, commemorated in massively deteriorated video clips and aged celluloid moments. Sometimes it was shocking to realize that they hadn't already been dead for years. But still, death was something that came for people my parents grew up watching - the Little Rascals, the Three Stooges, and so on.
It's too soon for my generation to start losing the Ghostbusters. I'm not ready to watch those movies and regret that a reunion of my childhood's Fab Four is impossible. Over the last couple of days, we've been mourning Harold Ramis on blogs and on Twitter, but it's not just him we're grieving for. His passing marks the death of a little bit of our childhoods. 69 is far too young an age to leave this world.
By all accounts, Mr. Ramis was a genuinely nice guy and always pleasant to be around. My condolences to his family and those who knew him. We can only hope that the door swings both ways.
Also check out Scott Myers' excellent tribute post over on Go Into The Story.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Lone Ranger's real problem is that it's embarrassed by its hero
I'm some eight months late to the party on this, but I finally watched THE LONE RANGER last weekend and came away with some thoughts. This was one I skipped last summer because - to put it bluntly - the trailers failed to sell me on the movie and there were plenty of other films I was more interested in seeing in my free time. The fact that a lot of critics went after this one didn't help, nor did the fact that the only insanely positive reviews I saw seemed to be coming from a place of wanting to be contrarian.
Still, I was curious enough to see the movie on DVD, if only to see if it really was as bad as people claimed. And here I agree that the rhetoric surrounding the film probably got a little bit out of hand. There were definitely worse movies last year. You could argue this is a major disappointment coming from the team behind Pirates of the Caribbean, but it's nowhere near the disaster that Dead Man's Chest was. It's got a lot of well-staged action and a cut of this film that just the set-pieces would probably be damn entertaining. When he's asked to do broad, over-the-top and well-choreographed cheeky action, director Gore Verbinski delivers.
But unfortunately that only accounts for about half of the film - and the other stuff that's left... is not good. If the rest of the film was merely neutral, I probably could have let the action carry me away and assess that in a big picture sense, the movie was great fun.
The problem is that the stuff that doesn't work is often offensive in how bad it is. Too often it's the kind of misfire that's hard to ignore. It's made worse by the fact the final moments of the film shoves those flaws in our faces anew, leaving us unable to wrap up the viewing experience without being reminded "Oh yeah! That was awful!"
As I watched the film I kept seeing the sequences I recalled being targeted in some negative reviews last year. I'll deal with a few of those below, but one moment in particular completely surprised me and it's the moment where I decided the filmmakers were embarrassed by their own hero. But I'll get to that momentarily.
John Reid, the man who becomes The Lone Ranger, isn't introduced as the sort of macho-heroic figure you might expect. His first scene is actually kind of charming in how it uses that. While riding on a train, he picks up a child's stuffed animal and attempts to toss it back to them. In a well-executed bit of comic timing, the toy is sucked out an open window, prompting the child to cry as Reid is chagrined. The mother invites Reid to pray with them, and he says, "No thank you ma'am. This is my Bible," and indicates his law book.
Yes, this incarnation of the Lone Ranger begins as a bookish sort who would look completely out of place in a gunfight. Moments later, it's played for a laugh when he takes on a bad guy and says "I must warn you - I boxed in law school." It's not quite as extreme as watching Niles Crane awkwardly resort to fisticuffs, but that's definitely the sort of laugh that the movie is going for.
On it's own, this isn't a problem. I kind of liked how this gave Reid a lot of room to grow. If we accept the Lone Ranger as a superhero of sorts, then it's fair game to play up the nerdy alter ego. THe problem is that the script can't resist undercutting the Ranger at every turn throughout the film. Scenes seemingly designed to show off how formidable the Ranger has become are instantly undone by a cheap joke. Some of these come in the form of physical comedy and others arrive as sarcastic quips from Tonto.
As I kid, I know I rented The Legend of the Lone Ranger more than once. I now recall very little about it, beyond the fact that it got a number of the touchstones right. Those who remember The Lone Ranger at all probably recall bits like the use of the William Tell Overture, the line "Who was that masked man?," the fact he uses silver bullets and that he's prone to rearing up on his horse and saying "Hi-yo Silver away!" In fact, that last one is probably the iconic hero shot the character is remembered for.
We get that moment in the film. After a really good third act and a massive set piece involving a train, things mostly seem to be on track. The William Tell Overture kicks in at the start of the sequence and for the rest of the sequence everything seems to play almost perfectly. The action is audacious and fun, the heroes are making all the right moves, and for the most part, the humor seems to enhance the scenes rather than take the piss out of them.
The adventure over, the Lone Ranger rears up on Silver and gives his familiar battle cry as he prepares to ride off into the sunset. And if the film ended there, it at least would go out on a high point and a rush of endorphines.
But it doesn't end. Instead we cut to Tonto, whose practically rolling his eyes. He says, "Don't ever do that again." Get it? Because the Lone Ranger's are so cheesy and embarasssingly square that you HAVE to have someone call them out. Seriously, Verbinski and his team are so embarrassed by their square-jawed hero that they can't even let that ONE moment play out without any irony. And it's emblematic of how the film treats the character throughout.
Tonto's main purpose in the film is to provide a vehicle for Verbinski and his team to keep reminding us that they're above the material. He's their mouthpiece for puncturing the straight-arrow nature of the Ranger. There's nothing wrong with a good-natured quip now and then, but the more they do it, the more it feels like we're encouraged to see the Lone Ranger as a fop. In The Lone Ranger, Tonto's quips are all about undercutting any competence and presence on the part of our hero. He's Tonto's punching bag. It's sort of like watching a Sherlock Holmes movie where Watson is played by Jonah Hill and he's constantly calling the famed detective "a nerd who can't get laid."
Picture this: in the next James Bond film, Daniel Craig orders a dry martini, shaken not stirred. He nods down the bar to the impossibly beautiful woman whom we know would be putty in the hands of Sean Connery. The woman smiles, eyes aglow, and says...
"Come see me when you're ready for a MAN's drink, Sally!"
ISN'T THAT FUNNY?
Or what if The Dark Knight Rises had a sequence where Batman confronts Catwoman and she goes, "What's with that stupid growly voice? Is that supposed to scare me?"
SEE? IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THE GRUFF VOICE IS SILLY!
Just by way of comparison, I think most people are of the opinion that 1997's Batman & Robin is a silly, campy film, right? Most Batman fans are embarrassed at how cartoony the tone and the dialogue are and it was so poorly received that it necessitated a total reboot of the franchise in a completely different tone.
As bad as Batman & Robin is, there's really no point where director Joel Schumacher tries to convince you he's above the material. We're talking about a movie where Batman pulls out a Bat-Credit Card and NO ONE blinks at how silly it is. If Verbinski had directed that moment, Robin would have had some quips along the lines of "Who the hell issues a Bat-credit card? What's your credit limit? Do they do debit as well? Or is it de-BAT?"
Schumacher's Batman might be a square-jawed boy scout along the lines of the Adam West interpretation, but Schumacher still directs the film like Batman is our hero. As much as he's overshadowed by the villains, at no point are we directed to believe the guy in the batsuit is a silly klutz.
Batman & Robin commits to its reality more firmly than The Lone Ranger. Digest that one for a few.
THE LONE RANGER has a host of other tonal issues too, including a really misguided framing device that has a young boy encountering Tonto at a fair in 1933. The elderly Tonto is there as part of a display called "The Noble Savage" and the whole story is then told as sort of a tall-tale from Tonto. It's a misfire in terms of tone and also in how it sets up the world. If you were to show me this two-hour-and-thirty-minute cut of the film and give me free reign to edit it, all of this material would be the first to go.
The one thing it does accomplish is that it opens the whole story up to the possibility that we're seeing it through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Given how bananas Tonto is in places, that would at least give the film's strange tonal shifts some context. I don't really think this was intended, though. And if it was deliberate, the film doesn't commit hard enough to being a tale told by an Indian with a few marbles missing.
Of course, the other problem with this framing device is that it means that after the aforementioned "Don't ever do that again" scene, we have to again return to this 1933 travesty to tie up everything, which means Tonto gets the last word AND the ending credits are spent on watching him take a solumn walk off into the desert alone.
THE LONE RANGER concludes not with a heroic gallop into the sunset, but a downer ending that makes you pity Tonto's sad fate and loneliness. The film's biggest failings are what Verbinski uses as punctuation. You almost feel like a fool for enjoying the final act as much as you did.
Someone give this film the Phantom Edit treatment. It won't fix everything, but it WILL mitigate the damage.
To return to my main point, the most important lesson one can get from it is to remember that the audience usually needs to believe in your hero in order for the film to work. If you don't think your guy is capable of saving the day, why should we?
Still, I was curious enough to see the movie on DVD, if only to see if it really was as bad as people claimed. And here I agree that the rhetoric surrounding the film probably got a little bit out of hand. There were definitely worse movies last year. You could argue this is a major disappointment coming from the team behind Pirates of the Caribbean, but it's nowhere near the disaster that Dead Man's Chest was. It's got a lot of well-staged action and a cut of this film that just the set-pieces would probably be damn entertaining. When he's asked to do broad, over-the-top and well-choreographed cheeky action, director Gore Verbinski delivers.
But unfortunately that only accounts for about half of the film - and the other stuff that's left... is not good. If the rest of the film was merely neutral, I probably could have let the action carry me away and assess that in a big picture sense, the movie was great fun.
The problem is that the stuff that doesn't work is often offensive in how bad it is. Too often it's the kind of misfire that's hard to ignore. It's made worse by the fact the final moments of the film shoves those flaws in our faces anew, leaving us unable to wrap up the viewing experience without being reminded "Oh yeah! That was awful!"
As I watched the film I kept seeing the sequences I recalled being targeted in some negative reviews last year. I'll deal with a few of those below, but one moment in particular completely surprised me and it's the moment where I decided the filmmakers were embarrassed by their own hero. But I'll get to that momentarily.
John Reid, the man who becomes The Lone Ranger, isn't introduced as the sort of macho-heroic figure you might expect. His first scene is actually kind of charming in how it uses that. While riding on a train, he picks up a child's stuffed animal and attempts to toss it back to them. In a well-executed bit of comic timing, the toy is sucked out an open window, prompting the child to cry as Reid is chagrined. The mother invites Reid to pray with them, and he says, "No thank you ma'am. This is my Bible," and indicates his law book.
Yes, this incarnation of the Lone Ranger begins as a bookish sort who would look completely out of place in a gunfight. Moments later, it's played for a laugh when he takes on a bad guy and says "I must warn you - I boxed in law school." It's not quite as extreme as watching Niles Crane awkwardly resort to fisticuffs, but that's definitely the sort of laugh that the movie is going for.
On it's own, this isn't a problem. I kind of liked how this gave Reid a lot of room to grow. If we accept the Lone Ranger as a superhero of sorts, then it's fair game to play up the nerdy alter ego. THe problem is that the script can't resist undercutting the Ranger at every turn throughout the film. Scenes seemingly designed to show off how formidable the Ranger has become are instantly undone by a cheap joke. Some of these come in the form of physical comedy and others arrive as sarcastic quips from Tonto.
As I kid, I know I rented The Legend of the Lone Ranger more than once. I now recall very little about it, beyond the fact that it got a number of the touchstones right. Those who remember The Lone Ranger at all probably recall bits like the use of the William Tell Overture, the line "Who was that masked man?," the fact he uses silver bullets and that he's prone to rearing up on his horse and saying "Hi-yo Silver away!" In fact, that last one is probably the iconic hero shot the character is remembered for.
We get that moment in the film. After a really good third act and a massive set piece involving a train, things mostly seem to be on track. The William Tell Overture kicks in at the start of the sequence and for the rest of the sequence everything seems to play almost perfectly. The action is audacious and fun, the heroes are making all the right moves, and for the most part, the humor seems to enhance the scenes rather than take the piss out of them.
The adventure over, the Lone Ranger rears up on Silver and gives his familiar battle cry as he prepares to ride off into the sunset. And if the film ended there, it at least would go out on a high point and a rush of endorphines.
But it doesn't end. Instead we cut to Tonto, whose practically rolling his eyes. He says, "Don't ever do that again." Get it? Because the Lone Ranger's are so cheesy and embarasssingly square that you HAVE to have someone call them out. Seriously, Verbinski and his team are so embarrassed by their square-jawed hero that they can't even let that ONE moment play out without any irony. And it's emblematic of how the film treats the character throughout.
Tonto's main purpose in the film is to provide a vehicle for Verbinski and his team to keep reminding us that they're above the material. He's their mouthpiece for puncturing the straight-arrow nature of the Ranger. There's nothing wrong with a good-natured quip now and then, but the more they do it, the more it feels like we're encouraged to see the Lone Ranger as a fop. In The Lone Ranger, Tonto's quips are all about undercutting any competence and presence on the part of our hero. He's Tonto's punching bag. It's sort of like watching a Sherlock Holmes movie where Watson is played by Jonah Hill and he's constantly calling the famed detective "a nerd who can't get laid."
Picture this: in the next James Bond film, Daniel Craig orders a dry martini, shaken not stirred. He nods down the bar to the impossibly beautiful woman whom we know would be putty in the hands of Sean Connery. The woman smiles, eyes aglow, and says...
"Come see me when you're ready for a MAN's drink, Sally!"
ISN'T THAT FUNNY?
Or what if The Dark Knight Rises had a sequence where Batman confronts Catwoman and she goes, "What's with that stupid growly voice? Is that supposed to scare me?"
SEE? IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THE GRUFF VOICE IS SILLY!
Just by way of comparison, I think most people are of the opinion that 1997's Batman & Robin is a silly, campy film, right? Most Batman fans are embarrassed at how cartoony the tone and the dialogue are and it was so poorly received that it necessitated a total reboot of the franchise in a completely different tone.
As bad as Batman & Robin is, there's really no point where director Joel Schumacher tries to convince you he's above the material. We're talking about a movie where Batman pulls out a Bat-Credit Card and NO ONE blinks at how silly it is. If Verbinski had directed that moment, Robin would have had some quips along the lines of "Who the hell issues a Bat-credit card? What's your credit limit? Do they do debit as well? Or is it de-BAT?"
Schumacher's Batman might be a square-jawed boy scout along the lines of the Adam West interpretation, but Schumacher still directs the film like Batman is our hero. As much as he's overshadowed by the villains, at no point are we directed to believe the guy in the batsuit is a silly klutz.
Batman & Robin commits to its reality more firmly than The Lone Ranger. Digest that one for a few.
THE LONE RANGER has a host of other tonal issues too, including a really misguided framing device that has a young boy encountering Tonto at a fair in 1933. The elderly Tonto is there as part of a display called "The Noble Savage" and the whole story is then told as sort of a tall-tale from Tonto. It's a misfire in terms of tone and also in how it sets up the world. If you were to show me this two-hour-and-thirty-minute cut of the film and give me free reign to edit it, all of this material would be the first to go.
The one thing it does accomplish is that it opens the whole story up to the possibility that we're seeing it through the eyes of an unreliable narrator. Given how bananas Tonto is in places, that would at least give the film's strange tonal shifts some context. I don't really think this was intended, though. And if it was deliberate, the film doesn't commit hard enough to being a tale told by an Indian with a few marbles missing.
Of course, the other problem with this framing device is that it means that after the aforementioned "Don't ever do that again" scene, we have to again return to this 1933 travesty to tie up everything, which means Tonto gets the last word AND the ending credits are spent on watching him take a solumn walk off into the desert alone.
THE LONE RANGER concludes not with a heroic gallop into the sunset, but a downer ending that makes you pity Tonto's sad fate and loneliness. The film's biggest failings are what Verbinski uses as punctuation. You almost feel like a fool for enjoying the final act as much as you did.
Someone give this film the Phantom Edit treatment. It won't fix everything, but it WILL mitigate the damage.
To return to my main point, the most important lesson one can get from it is to remember that the audience usually needs to believe in your hero in order for the film to work. If you don't think your guy is capable of saving the day, why should we?
Monday, February 24, 2014
How to vet a potential agent or manager
I often get asked for advice about pursuing agents and managers. A lot of the questions I get revolve around how to get an agent to read your work. It's not often I get asked questions that deal with the scenario of "I've caught him, now what do I do with him?"
So let's say a potential rep likes your work and calls you in for a meeting. What now? The most important thing to remember is that it might not always be best to go with the first agent or manager to show interest. Not all agents and managers are created equal, and if you're selecting someone with that much power over your career, it's pretty damn important to determine if they're right for you.
The best rep isn't necessarily the guy at the fancy agency with three letters. There are pros and cons to everyone. It certainly sends a message about your place in the food chain when your rep is that bigshot WME agent with half of the hottest writers in town on his client list. On the other hand - with that many whales demanding this guy's attention how much of a priority do you think you'll be?
In that light, the advantage of going with a smaller rep could be that you're more of a focus for them. Also, they might have a little more hustle and the virtues of that can't be over-estimated. But then again, smaller reps might not have as many doors open to them.
So how can you break the tie? After polling a number of professional, working writers I know, I've distilled their advice into several questions you can ask in that initial meeting to figure out if this rep is the right rep for you:
What are your overall plans for me?
What are your goals for first year?
What is your strategy for [the spec that got you this meeting]?
(If dealing with a manager) What agents do you want to pair me with?
What are your expectations for development of new material?
(If dealing with a boutique agency or management company,) how involved is the senior or named agent or manager?
How many notes do you give before sending out?
How important are attachments?
Do you send out "naked" specs? (specs that don't have actors, directors, or producers attached.)
How much do you work with other agents/managers at the company?
It's very important for you to go in there with a strong sense of who you want to be, and to communicate that vision to them at the meeting. Regarding your next two or three projects, have an idea about what your brand is. This is the time for you sell them on who you are and show that you're doing the things you need to do to get where you want to go.
As an example, if you want to direct, how are you going to make a case for it? What's the next short you're gonna make? If you want to write studio films, what's the spec that's going to get you on that list? Whatever your long-term goals are, bring them up in the meeting. This should be about getting as much information as possible as well as getting a sense of how this person would be to deal with.
Yes, the agent or manager is there to interview you to see if you mesh with them, but they also have to mesh with you. Don't go home with the first guy you dance with just because he asks. A bad rep can be worse than no rep.
Please feel free to leave any other advice in the comments. I'd like to make this post an easy resource for those seeking representation.
So let's say a potential rep likes your work and calls you in for a meeting. What now? The most important thing to remember is that it might not always be best to go with the first agent or manager to show interest. Not all agents and managers are created equal, and if you're selecting someone with that much power over your career, it's pretty damn important to determine if they're right for you.
The best rep isn't necessarily the guy at the fancy agency with three letters. There are pros and cons to everyone. It certainly sends a message about your place in the food chain when your rep is that bigshot WME agent with half of the hottest writers in town on his client list. On the other hand - with that many whales demanding this guy's attention how much of a priority do you think you'll be?
In that light, the advantage of going with a smaller rep could be that you're more of a focus for them. Also, they might have a little more hustle and the virtues of that can't be over-estimated. But then again, smaller reps might not have as many doors open to them.
So how can you break the tie? After polling a number of professional, working writers I know, I've distilled their advice into several questions you can ask in that initial meeting to figure out if this rep is the right rep for you:
What are your overall plans for me?
What are your goals for first year?
What is your strategy for [the spec that got you this meeting]?
(If dealing with a manager) What agents do you want to pair me with?
What are your expectations for development of new material?
(If dealing with a boutique agency or management company,) how involved is the senior or named agent or manager?
How many notes do you give before sending out?
How important are attachments?
Do you send out "naked" specs? (specs that don't have actors, directors, or producers attached.)
How much do you work with other agents/managers at the company?
It's very important for you to go in there with a strong sense of who you want to be, and to communicate that vision to them at the meeting. Regarding your next two or three projects, have an idea about what your brand is. This is the time for you sell them on who you are and show that you're doing the things you need to do to get where you want to go.
As an example, if you want to direct, how are you going to make a case for it? What's the next short you're gonna make? If you want to write studio films, what's the spec that's going to get you on that list? Whatever your long-term goals are, bring them up in the meeting. This should be about getting as much information as possible as well as getting a sense of how this person would be to deal with.
Yes, the agent or manager is there to interview you to see if you mesh with them, but they also have to mesh with you. Don't go home with the first guy you dance with just because he asks. A bad rep can be worse than no rep.
Please feel free to leave any other advice in the comments. I'd like to make this post an easy resource for those seeking representation.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Support Marisa Stotter's documentary on the history of women in comics
My friend Marisa Stotter is running a Kickstarter campaign for "She Makes Comics," a documentary she's doing about the contribution of women to the comic book industry. Already, she and her team have interviewed a number of comic legends including writer Chris Claremont, Vertigo Comics founding editor Karen Berger, and comic artist Joyce Farmer.
It sounds like the documentary will focus on the largely unknown roles women have played in comics in the industry's seven-decade history. The project's page explains:
"From the early days of the medium to the present, women have had an important and sometimes overlooked hand in the creation of comics. Alternative and underground comics, graphic novels, and webcomics have been particularly fruitful areas for female creators. And more women than ever are involved in iconic mainstream comics franchises.
"While women have made significant strides in the medium over the past several decades, it's still not easy to be a woman in comics. Female readers fight to be recognized as legitimate fans in an insular and sometimes sexist community. In mainstream comics, there remains an unequal balance of women in creative and business roles, and some publishers have been criticized for misogynistic portrayals of women in their titles. The pessimistic question is often asked: is there a place for women in comics?
"In spite of these issues, our project intends to emphasize the valuable contributions women have made since the Golden Age of comics. They may not be as recognizable as Will Eisner or Stan Lee, but we hope to make some of comics' most prolific women into household names by showcasing their talents and contributions."
If some of this sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the write-up on the project last week in The Hollywood Reporter. With less than two weeks left, they've raised just over $30,000 of the $41,500 that they're asking for.
I don't often promote Kickstarters on this page because I fear it will provoke a floodgate of "Please promote my project!" emails. I've pretty much decided on a policy of only promoting a crowdfunding effort if I've been moved enough to contribute to it myself. Suffice to say, I have donated and I wish Marisa and her crew the best of luck.
It sounds like the documentary will focus on the largely unknown roles women have played in comics in the industry's seven-decade history. The project's page explains:
"From the early days of the medium to the present, women have had an important and sometimes overlooked hand in the creation of comics. Alternative and underground comics, graphic novels, and webcomics have been particularly fruitful areas for female creators. And more women than ever are involved in iconic mainstream comics franchises.
"While women have made significant strides in the medium over the past several decades, it's still not easy to be a woman in comics. Female readers fight to be recognized as legitimate fans in an insular and sometimes sexist community. In mainstream comics, there remains an unequal balance of women in creative and business roles, and some publishers have been criticized for misogynistic portrayals of women in their titles. The pessimistic question is often asked: is there a place for women in comics?
"In spite of these issues, our project intends to emphasize the valuable contributions women have made since the Golden Age of comics. They may not be as recognizable as Will Eisner or Stan Lee, but we hope to make some of comics' most prolific women into household names by showcasing their talents and contributions."
If some of this sounds familiar, perhaps you saw the write-up on the project last week in The Hollywood Reporter. With less than two weeks left, they've raised just over $30,000 of the $41,500 that they're asking for.
I don't often promote Kickstarters on this page because I fear it will provoke a floodgate of "Please promote my project!" emails. I've pretty much decided on a policy of only promoting a crowdfunding effort if I've been moved enough to contribute to it myself. Suffice to say, I have donated and I wish Marisa and her crew the best of luck.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Tuesday Talkback: Calling all Star Wars fans who love the prequels
It occurred to me this week that in May, we will reach the 15th anniversary of the release of The Phantom Menace. Yes, fans, the prequel trilogy is a decade and a half old. If you'll recall, when that movie first came out, a lot of fans who grew up with the first trilogy derided the more juvenille film as a film that played like it was made for eight year-olds.
Well that means that those eight year-olds are now 23. College graduates. Maybe some of them are even readers of this blog. In fact, I hope they are.
I've heard George Lucas often quoted speaking anecdotally about young fans who came to the series via the prequels and as a result, they find the original trilogy outdated and boring. It also seems there's a decent subset of fans whose entry into Star Wars was The Clone Wars series. Lucas claims that some of those fans don't even seem to be aware of the films.
When I was growing up, Star Wars was pretty much three films. That was it, unless you want to count the "extended universe" of novels and games that sprung up in the 90s. But generally speaking, until 1999, most everyone experienced Star Wars the same way. And because of that, a lot of people of my generation have similar reactions to the elements that came after.
But now that the youngest of the prequel viewers are now older than I was when the prequels came out, I'm sort of curious to hear the perspectives of the audience the films were aimed at at the time.
So if your introduction to Star Wars came by any means other than the three classic films, please sound off in the comments, particularly if you're among those subsets that prefers the prequels or the Clone Wars animated series. How did joining the series via those on ramps affect your perception of the story as it played out in the original trilogy?
It would be nice if we could keep the prequel bashing to a minimum, at least from the members of my generation.
Well that means that those eight year-olds are now 23. College graduates. Maybe some of them are even readers of this blog. In fact, I hope they are.
I've heard George Lucas often quoted speaking anecdotally about young fans who came to the series via the prequels and as a result, they find the original trilogy outdated and boring. It also seems there's a decent subset of fans whose entry into Star Wars was The Clone Wars series. Lucas claims that some of those fans don't even seem to be aware of the films.
When I was growing up, Star Wars was pretty much three films. That was it, unless you want to count the "extended universe" of novels and games that sprung up in the 90s. But generally speaking, until 1999, most everyone experienced Star Wars the same way. And because of that, a lot of people of my generation have similar reactions to the elements that came after.
But now that the youngest of the prequel viewers are now older than I was when the prequels came out, I'm sort of curious to hear the perspectives of the audience the films were aimed at at the time.
So if your introduction to Star Wars came by any means other than the three classic films, please sound off in the comments, particularly if you're among those subsets that prefers the prequels or the Clone Wars animated series. How did joining the series via those on ramps affect your perception of the story as it played out in the original trilogy?
It would be nice if we could keep the prequel bashing to a minimum, at least from the members of my generation.
Monday, February 17, 2014
A review of the ROBOCOP reboot from someone who's never seen the original
Confession time, folks. I've never seen the original ROBOCOP. I was seven when it first came out, making me way too young to see it in theaters and as I got older, it was never something I felt compelled to seek out. Now, to hear fans of the original speak about it lately, you'd think this was akin to never seeing Citizen Kane or Psycho, but the truth is that among my circles, ROBOCOP was just another 80s sci-fi action movie.
However, it's clear that if you want to stir up an audience of a film, all you have to do is threaten to remake it. The mere threat of such a desecration tends to provoke an uprising that would have you thinking there was a mission to put arms on the Venus de Milo. Over the past year I've heard more about the original ROBOCOP in fanboy circles than I had in the 25 years that preceded it. As it became clear that the pending ROBOCOP remake was trying to take a different path than the original, I decided to do something that I wish I'd had the chance to do on Total Recall - I was going to go in totally fresh. I wanted to see if this movie could stand up without any affection or nostalgia for the original getting in the way.
The verdict? It definitely stands on its own. There's really no point where I was lost and had a feeling, "I bet this all makes a lot more sense of you've seen the original." If there are jokey, inside references to the original, they're integrated well enough that I didn't feel them sticking out like sore thumbs. (This is more of a sequel thing than a remake, but a good example of this might be something like the extended "zip it/sush" callbacks in the final Austin Powers.)
It's an unspecified point in the near future and OMNICorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is faced with a problem. His military drones have proven to be effective peacekeeping forces abroad, but thus far, Congress has passed legislation banning their usage on American soil. It seems most Americans are squeamish about the idea that a drone decides independently if a target is a threat and warrants the use of deadly force. (Which, to be fair, is a pretty a solid point.)
Enter Detective Alex Murphy, who's all but killed in an explosion arranged by a drug lord. With two limbs blown off and most of his body covered in fourth-degree burns. Sellars sees an opportunity here. In order to get the congressional act against his drones overturned, he needs to sway public opinion. What better way than to find a paralyzed law enforcement officer, restore him with the cybernetic limbs that OMNICorp research has developed and turn him into a drone, essentially putting a man inside of a machine. If he can use drones on American soil, Sellars' company stands to make billions.
This leads into what is probably the most effective part of the movie, where the reconstituted Murphy discovers he's little more than a head, heart & lungs and one organic forearm held together with robotic parts. Even his brain has cybernetic impants, which among other things, allows him quickly assess targets as threats or neutral, and accomplish things like calculating his escape from a building and over a high wall.
Gary Oldman features in these scenes as a scientist named Norton, who's working out the kinks of Murphy's new state and it's interesting how his character arc slightly parallels Murphy's. When we first meet Murphy, he's working with amputees, helping them achieve normal lives with their new robotic limbs. Initially, he rebuffs Sellars' efforts to exploit his work with a military application, but the promise of additional funds has probably won over many a scientist, and Norton is no exception.
Murphy is pitted against a drone in a side-by-side simulation and while Murphy performs well, compared to the drone's efficiency, he's a failure. The drone dispassionately neutralizes targets while Murphy's concern for simulated hostages makes him hesitate and act less decisively. Basically, the moral contemplation that the American public wants is a liability to Sellars' drones' effectiveness. The man in the machine might be an asset in terms of PR, but it's a detriment to performance in the field.
Ordered to find a way to fix this problem, Norton rewires Murphy's brain so that when he goes into "Combat Mode," the drone program takes over entirely. Murphy thinks he's still in the driver's seat, but that control is an illusion. It's a little chilling to realize this "fix" has taken away a piece of not just Murphy's soul, but Norton's as well.
Throughout the film, we don't chart just Murphy's path to becoming less human, we see Norton is on a parallel track. Norton is faced with a problem that his professional ethics get in the way of, so he discards them and merely follows his objects. This is precisely the same "problem" that Murphy's ethics cause until he is made to merely follow orders.
But the most disturbing moment of the film comes later. Just before he is to be introduced at a ceremony with the Mayor, Murphy undergoes a procedure that will upload the entire Detroit police database into his brain. This includes the Closed Circuit TV footage from the cameras in seemingly every corner of the city. Oddly no one involved anticipates that it might agitate their cybernetic patient when he processes the footage of the bombing that nearly killed him. Murphy has a total freakout and it comes at the worst time. Norton needs to make him ready to step on stage with the mayor in mere minutes, so he orders his team to drop Murphy's dopamine levels to below 5%.
The effect of reducing that particular neurotransmitter basically turns Murphy into a zombie that follows his programming without question. Norton has almost literally robbed the man of his soul, which is an incredibly disturbing thing to see coming from the guy who appeared to be our moral center when the film began. Norton does what he has to do in that moment, and the moral implications of his actions are probably more unsettling to the audience than they are to him at that point.
ROBOCOP is largely a story about two men losing their souls to technology in different ways. The man vs. machine element of the script is generally the meatiest stuff and the storyline that carries the most weight. The drone aspect adds some interesting elements to the plot as well, and between the two, there are enough moments that leave a viewer thinking this is a movie that could have been really, really good.
And then there's stuff that the film just leaves on the table. It's utterly baffling to me that the script is so blase' about the massive invasion of privacy that the CCTV cameras seem to represent. Once he surrenders to his programming, Murphy is able to access seemingly every CCTV camera at will and there seems to be no corner of the city he can't instantly watch. Later it's even demonstrated that he's capable of retrieving audio from those cameras and even enhancing reflections on shiny surfaces to he can see things not directly in the camera's line of sight.
It's Big Brother taken to an extreme. I suppose it's possible that in the future, the CCTV cameras have been so pervasive that no one gives them a second thought. There's also probably the fact that until RoboCop, there hasn't existed a method to collate and compile all that data quickly. Murphy is able to instantly process data and find connections that would seem to justify a warrant and also give him the means to find people and place them under arrest. That's both as impressive and as scary as it sounds.
If artificial intelligence is supposed to have advanced to this degree, I can't help but wonder why computers were never deployed in this manner. If Murphy can solve crimes so quickly just by matching archive footage with other evidence, you'd think that the police would have attempted some application of this tech before Murphy's rebirth. It also occurred to me to wonder how this process would affect the act of getting a warrant. Most of the time we see Murphy acting on previously issued warrants, but certainly when he goes in to arrest two crooked cops, he's acting on his own authority and probably hasn't gotten a warrant via what we know as the proper channels.
(I realize it's a minor point that can easily be hand-waved by "It's the future, the law is different." Still, when most of your audience probably knows the basics of the law just from decades of cop procedural, it probably wouldn't hurt to give them a little more to go on in terms of how the legal system works. I'm not saying I wanted to see Law & Order: Special Robo Unit, but a little more texture to the world would have done wonders here.)
Another weak point in the film is its tendency to stop dead for on-the-nose exposition. The Samuel L. Jackson character (who's clearly playing a riff on the Bill O'Reilly/Keith Olbermann sort of cable pundit who trades on outrage and fear) shows up several times in the film in scenes where he directly addresses the audience. He's a stand-in for just about any other method of dramatizing the pro-drone perspective. His first appearance isn't bad at setting the stage and taking shots at the propaganda of cable news.
The device gets diminishing returns when it becomes clear that he's an easy tool for the screenwriters to get information out to the audience without dramatizing it. There are also probably a few too many scenes of OMNICorp characters sitting around a table spelling out the logic that gets us from Point A to Point B.
Just a little more depth to the characters would have mitigated this somehow. As good as it is to see Michael Keaton, his Sellars character is underwritten. Keaton gives the guy enough humanity initially that he doesn't seem like a two-dimension evil corporate badguy motivated only by greed, but the script fails to add any shadings to his character throughout. I like that his motivation to put a man into the machine isn't that he thinks it will improve the performance in any way. It's a pragmatic PR act and him taking advantage of a loophole to get what he wants. If he thought a human brain was really the key to making a better drone, then I'd have issues with his motivations.
The problem is that by the third act, Keaton has little to work with except going through the motions of the CEO who needs to dispose of a PR problem. I'll grant that Keaton plays him with just enough weight that he comes across as a driven guy who's making the most efficient decisions he can. The problem is that he's still stuck being the bad guy in a script where the whole point is to see the "man" triumph over the "machine's" programming.
This necessitates a climax where Murphy will have to overcome his drone directives. There's an basic, easy way to do that - put his family in danger. Even more obviously, the most cathartic solution there is to have the man who tried to exploit him be the one they need saving from. Thus, Murphy faces off against the man directly responsible for taking away the little that was left of his humanity.
But that means that Sellars would have to create a situation where he is a direct danger to Murphy's family, smug in the knowledge that Murphy can't take action against him. And honestly, Sellars hasn't been written as a guy that hands-on or recklessly stupid up to this point. That's why it feels so false when (SPOILER) he points a gun at Murphy's family while gloating that he could shoot them both and there's nothing Murphy could do about it.
Keaton doesn't really sell the moment, though you can feel him trying. The problem is that this climax plays like a first-draft scene that isn't being true to the characters. It's servicing the needs of plot and story constraints, but I don't believe that Sellars would take the action that provokes just enough will in Murphy to allow him to strike. (And at this point, Sellars knows that Murphy has grown beyond his programming when he's found an emotional touchstone, so why in God's name would he tempt that by threatening his family when Murphy is all but subdued already?)
There's some good stuff here. I wouldn't say that ROBOCOP is a movie that deserves to be totally dismissed out of hand. But I'm not blind to its flaws and I feel like what ended up being shot was a draft or two away from being a strong film.
I plan on following this up with a review of the original ROBOCOP, but it's a "very long wait" on Netflix at the moment, so that review might be a while in coming.
However, it's clear that if you want to stir up an audience of a film, all you have to do is threaten to remake it. The mere threat of such a desecration tends to provoke an uprising that would have you thinking there was a mission to put arms on the Venus de Milo. Over the past year I've heard more about the original ROBOCOP in fanboy circles than I had in the 25 years that preceded it. As it became clear that the pending ROBOCOP remake was trying to take a different path than the original, I decided to do something that I wish I'd had the chance to do on Total Recall - I was going to go in totally fresh. I wanted to see if this movie could stand up without any affection or nostalgia for the original getting in the way.
The verdict? It definitely stands on its own. There's really no point where I was lost and had a feeling, "I bet this all makes a lot more sense of you've seen the original." If there are jokey, inside references to the original, they're integrated well enough that I didn't feel them sticking out like sore thumbs. (This is more of a sequel thing than a remake, but a good example of this might be something like the extended "zip it/sush" callbacks in the final Austin Powers.)
It's an unspecified point in the near future and OMNICorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is faced with a problem. His military drones have proven to be effective peacekeeping forces abroad, but thus far, Congress has passed legislation banning their usage on American soil. It seems most Americans are squeamish about the idea that a drone decides independently if a target is a threat and warrants the use of deadly force. (Which, to be fair, is a pretty a solid point.)
Enter Detective Alex Murphy, who's all but killed in an explosion arranged by a drug lord. With two limbs blown off and most of his body covered in fourth-degree burns. Sellars sees an opportunity here. In order to get the congressional act against his drones overturned, he needs to sway public opinion. What better way than to find a paralyzed law enforcement officer, restore him with the cybernetic limbs that OMNICorp research has developed and turn him into a drone, essentially putting a man inside of a machine. If he can use drones on American soil, Sellars' company stands to make billions.
This leads into what is probably the most effective part of the movie, where the reconstituted Murphy discovers he's little more than a head, heart & lungs and one organic forearm held together with robotic parts. Even his brain has cybernetic impants, which among other things, allows him quickly assess targets as threats or neutral, and accomplish things like calculating his escape from a building and over a high wall.
Gary Oldman features in these scenes as a scientist named Norton, who's working out the kinks of Murphy's new state and it's interesting how his character arc slightly parallels Murphy's. When we first meet Murphy, he's working with amputees, helping them achieve normal lives with their new robotic limbs. Initially, he rebuffs Sellars' efforts to exploit his work with a military application, but the promise of additional funds has probably won over many a scientist, and Norton is no exception.
Murphy is pitted against a drone in a side-by-side simulation and while Murphy performs well, compared to the drone's efficiency, he's a failure. The drone dispassionately neutralizes targets while Murphy's concern for simulated hostages makes him hesitate and act less decisively. Basically, the moral contemplation that the American public wants is a liability to Sellars' drones' effectiveness. The man in the machine might be an asset in terms of PR, but it's a detriment to performance in the field.
Ordered to find a way to fix this problem, Norton rewires Murphy's brain so that when he goes into "Combat Mode," the drone program takes over entirely. Murphy thinks he's still in the driver's seat, but that control is an illusion. It's a little chilling to realize this "fix" has taken away a piece of not just Murphy's soul, but Norton's as well.
Throughout the film, we don't chart just Murphy's path to becoming less human, we see Norton is on a parallel track. Norton is faced with a problem that his professional ethics get in the way of, so he discards them and merely follows his objects. This is precisely the same "problem" that Murphy's ethics cause until he is made to merely follow orders.
But the most disturbing moment of the film comes later. Just before he is to be introduced at a ceremony with the Mayor, Murphy undergoes a procedure that will upload the entire Detroit police database into his brain. This includes the Closed Circuit TV footage from the cameras in seemingly every corner of the city. Oddly no one involved anticipates that it might agitate their cybernetic patient when he processes the footage of the bombing that nearly killed him. Murphy has a total freakout and it comes at the worst time. Norton needs to make him ready to step on stage with the mayor in mere minutes, so he orders his team to drop Murphy's dopamine levels to below 5%.
The effect of reducing that particular neurotransmitter basically turns Murphy into a zombie that follows his programming without question. Norton has almost literally robbed the man of his soul, which is an incredibly disturbing thing to see coming from the guy who appeared to be our moral center when the film began. Norton does what he has to do in that moment, and the moral implications of his actions are probably more unsettling to the audience than they are to him at that point.
ROBOCOP is largely a story about two men losing their souls to technology in different ways. The man vs. machine element of the script is generally the meatiest stuff and the storyline that carries the most weight. The drone aspect adds some interesting elements to the plot as well, and between the two, there are enough moments that leave a viewer thinking this is a movie that could have been really, really good.
And then there's stuff that the film just leaves on the table. It's utterly baffling to me that the script is so blase' about the massive invasion of privacy that the CCTV cameras seem to represent. Once he surrenders to his programming, Murphy is able to access seemingly every CCTV camera at will and there seems to be no corner of the city he can't instantly watch. Later it's even demonstrated that he's capable of retrieving audio from those cameras and even enhancing reflections on shiny surfaces to he can see things not directly in the camera's line of sight.
It's Big Brother taken to an extreme. I suppose it's possible that in the future, the CCTV cameras have been so pervasive that no one gives them a second thought. There's also probably the fact that until RoboCop, there hasn't existed a method to collate and compile all that data quickly. Murphy is able to instantly process data and find connections that would seem to justify a warrant and also give him the means to find people and place them under arrest. That's both as impressive and as scary as it sounds.
If artificial intelligence is supposed to have advanced to this degree, I can't help but wonder why computers were never deployed in this manner. If Murphy can solve crimes so quickly just by matching archive footage with other evidence, you'd think that the police would have attempted some application of this tech before Murphy's rebirth. It also occurred to me to wonder how this process would affect the act of getting a warrant. Most of the time we see Murphy acting on previously issued warrants, but certainly when he goes in to arrest two crooked cops, he's acting on his own authority and probably hasn't gotten a warrant via what we know as the proper channels.
(I realize it's a minor point that can easily be hand-waved by "It's the future, the law is different." Still, when most of your audience probably knows the basics of the law just from decades of cop procedural, it probably wouldn't hurt to give them a little more to go on in terms of how the legal system works. I'm not saying I wanted to see Law & Order: Special Robo Unit, but a little more texture to the world would have done wonders here.)
Another weak point in the film is its tendency to stop dead for on-the-nose exposition. The Samuel L. Jackson character (who's clearly playing a riff on the Bill O'Reilly/Keith Olbermann sort of cable pundit who trades on outrage and fear) shows up several times in the film in scenes where he directly addresses the audience. He's a stand-in for just about any other method of dramatizing the pro-drone perspective. His first appearance isn't bad at setting the stage and taking shots at the propaganda of cable news.
The device gets diminishing returns when it becomes clear that he's an easy tool for the screenwriters to get information out to the audience without dramatizing it. There are also probably a few too many scenes of OMNICorp characters sitting around a table spelling out the logic that gets us from Point A to Point B.
Just a little more depth to the characters would have mitigated this somehow. As good as it is to see Michael Keaton, his Sellars character is underwritten. Keaton gives the guy enough humanity initially that he doesn't seem like a two-dimension evil corporate badguy motivated only by greed, but the script fails to add any shadings to his character throughout. I like that his motivation to put a man into the machine isn't that he thinks it will improve the performance in any way. It's a pragmatic PR act and him taking advantage of a loophole to get what he wants. If he thought a human brain was really the key to making a better drone, then I'd have issues with his motivations.
The problem is that by the third act, Keaton has little to work with except going through the motions of the CEO who needs to dispose of a PR problem. I'll grant that Keaton plays him with just enough weight that he comes across as a driven guy who's making the most efficient decisions he can. The problem is that he's still stuck being the bad guy in a script where the whole point is to see the "man" triumph over the "machine's" programming.
This necessitates a climax where Murphy will have to overcome his drone directives. There's an basic, easy way to do that - put his family in danger. Even more obviously, the most cathartic solution there is to have the man who tried to exploit him be the one they need saving from. Thus, Murphy faces off against the man directly responsible for taking away the little that was left of his humanity.
But that means that Sellars would have to create a situation where he is a direct danger to Murphy's family, smug in the knowledge that Murphy can't take action against him. And honestly, Sellars hasn't been written as a guy that hands-on or recklessly stupid up to this point. That's why it feels so false when (SPOILER) he points a gun at Murphy's family while gloating that he could shoot them both and there's nothing Murphy could do about it.
Keaton doesn't really sell the moment, though you can feel him trying. The problem is that this climax plays like a first-draft scene that isn't being true to the characters. It's servicing the needs of plot and story constraints, but I don't believe that Sellars would take the action that provokes just enough will in Murphy to allow him to strike. (And at this point, Sellars knows that Murphy has grown beyond his programming when he's found an emotional touchstone, so why in God's name would he tempt that by threatening his family when Murphy is all but subdued already?)
There's some good stuff here. I wouldn't say that ROBOCOP is a movie that deserves to be totally dismissed out of hand. But I'm not blind to its flaws and I feel like what ended up being shot was a draft or two away from being a strong film.
I plan on following this up with a review of the original ROBOCOP, but it's a "very long wait" on Netflix at the moment, so that review might be a while in coming.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Webshow: How much of a twist to reveal?
I'd be shocked if there's anyone reading this who hasn't wrestled with this question - when pitching someone your story, should you lay the major twists on them? Or is it better to let them discover those twists when reading the script? There's a pretty good case for both options, which means there's not an obvious right answer. So we'll delve into that question in this week's video.
The videos are going on a brief hiatus, but don't worry. The Puppet will be back soon!
The videos are going on a brief hiatus, but don't worry. The Puppet will be back soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
