Stutter on screen posted on November 1st, 2009

Now that Bravo! TV has screened our little short nationally we can share it with you here online and in full format. Enjoy!

Stutter from Artist Bloc on Vimeo.

This Thunder! posted on October 28th, 2009

MIDDLESCHOOL directed and produced by Katharine Wilson and Agi Gutkowska.

Eye Weekly blog feature.

New Hero posted on March 19th, 2009

I just learned that Art Spiegelman, creator of Maus, is also the brainchild behind The Garbage Pail Kids.

Movie Deaths For Which I Never Felt Much: Episode 1: Apollonia from The Godfather posted on March 1st, 2009

I’m a movie-crier. I’ll let that cat out of the bag right away. I’ve let the moist eye puppies out for a walk many a time. If it’s a sound friendship that has been tried and tested during a tumultous search for a dead body set to a 50s doo-wop soundtrack, a father and son playing catch after the latter brings the former back to life due to not helping the local economy due to a morbid-baseball-related agenda, or an elderly man gradually reaching the end of his life in the form of a cradled infant, my shirt sleeve’s gettin’ cried-the-fuck-on.

From here I’ll begin my point. Some deaths on screen are meant to Mike Tyson Punch Out our tear ducts, Michael and Janet Jackson scream in terror, or, most unsettlingly, satisfy our desire to see the bitch croak.

I won’t go deep into psychological rhetoric regarding what drives these death wishes and murder boners, as there have been several well-layered articles on the subject already. Instead, I’ll go into a semi shot-by-shot analysis of one very famous who-gives-a-crap death in cinema; Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone from The Godfather.

Backstory: Squeaky-clean Michael Corleone made his first organized hit, and he’s fled for Italy. He meets a hot Italian girl and they get married, even though he was just in a serious thing with Diane Keaton. Meanwhile, in America, shit goes crazy. Mafia families are blaming each other for various things, Corleones are caught in the middle, and brother Sonny is beautifully shot to high hell.

Before learning of his wacky brother’s demise, he’s teaching Apple Martin-Corleone how to speak English and drive a car terribly. He leaves the car, and speaks to his friend whom reluctantly breaks the tragic news from America. It’s a powerful moment. The camera objectively looks at both the messenger and the recipient. We can’t possibly comprehend what goes through Michael’s mind; his actions back home no doubt caused this to happen. He’s lost his big brother. We can only linger on these feelings for a few seconds, and then…

HONK HONK HONK

An annoying-as-hell whiny brat voice from the car, begging him to come back to teach her how to drive a car terribly and putting the days of the week in the wrong order. Completely ruining a moment of deep emotion.

Yes, she didn’t know of the situation’s gravity. I’ll admit, I didn’t think too too poorly of Apollonia when this happened. However, when her car eventually got blowed up real good, I didn’t feel badly at all.

Looking back, why would I feel badly? Coppola made certain that we audience members subconsciously wished for her death. He knew from the get-go that we would love Annie Hall (5 years before Annie Hall came out, impressively enough) and, although she was nice at the start, hate Apollonia’s whiny brat days-of-the-week-dyslexic eventual blowed-up arse. As well, she interrupted what could have been a heartbreakingly beautiful mourning scene.

So there you have it. A lovely, innocent woman dying for reasons out of her control…and we LOVE it.

It takes a master craftsman to accomplish such a feat.

Make that a once-master craftsman.

Wanted, Dead or Alive: A Poetic Pop Culture Potpourri posted on February 17th, 2009

So whatcha, whatcha, whatcha want?

Whatcha want?

I know what I want, and I want it now.

I want candy.

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day.

I want to break free.

I just don’t want to be controlled.

I want to have control,

I want a perfect body,

I want a perfect soul,

I want you to notice when I’m not around.

I wanna know what love is… I want you to show me.

You’re the one that I want, you are the one that I (OOH OOH OOH) honey.

All I want for Christmas is you.

I want you, I want you, I want you so bad.

I want you so bad, it’s driving me mad, it’s driving me mad.

I want to hold your hand.

I want you to want me.

I want to take you higher.

I just wanna love you.

I wanna lick lick lick lick you from your head to your toes

then I wanna move from the bed down to the down to the to the floor.

I just wanna fuck you.

I don’t wanna rape ya, I just want the papers.

Money! That’s what I want.

Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?

Oh baby, give me one more chance! I want you back!

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends.

I just want real love.

I don’t want no scrubs.

I don’t want no short tort man.

I don’t want no one minute man.

I don’t wanna wait for our lives to be over.

I don’t wanna close my eyes,

I don’t wanna fall asleep cuz I’d miss you baby,

and I don’t wanna miss a thing.

All I want to know…

How do you want it?

You want a piece of me?

You want to make a memory?

Well, do ya?

Do ya do ya wanna wanna go where I never let you before?

Well, you can’t.

You can’t always get what you want.

You can’t always get what you want,

but if you try sometimes,

you might find,

you’ll get what you need.

Written (kinda) by:

The Beastie Boys, Culture Beat, Bow Wow Wow, KISS, Queen, The Offspring, Radiohead, Foreigner, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, Mariah Carey, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Cheap Trick, Sly and the Family Stone, Jay-Z feat. Pharrell, Ludacris, Dr. Dre, Notorious B.I.G., Barrett Strong, Culture Club, The Jackson 5, The Spice Girls, Pink, TLC, 20 Fingers feat. Gillette, Missy Elliott, Paula Cole, Aerosmith, The Misfits, 2Pac feat. K-Ci and JoJo, Britney Spears, Bon Jovi, Franz Ferdinand, and The Rolling Stones.

Four Tips for the Prospective Children’s Playwright / Director posted on February 11th, 2009

I should preface this note with a re-definition. This is not directly for those who want to write plays for children off the top of their heads, but rather for those whom work with children and decide to make a play for them to either enrich them culturally or find a way to pass the time before the hour is up.

Even though this is directly for those dabbling in the medium of theatre, these tips may prove helpful for any artist looking to create a collaborative work for the youngins. That being said, if you have a track record of child-creepiness, I urge you to cease reading.

1. WIN THEM OVER EARLY ON. Oftentimes in my experience, children hate doing everything that doesn’t involve running in a circle. Planning an activity where they are required to take orders for the way they talk, move, entering and exiting the stage will initially sound like purgatory for them.

To win them over, ask them what kind of characters they would like to be. Ask for the types of personality traits they feel most comfortable performing and those that will be the most fun for them. Combine their favourite trait with a trait you feel they deplore and BAM: you have yourself a multi-dimensional character. Tina looooves to shop but she doesn’t like salmon (they come up with weird answers). Now they have a character they can instantly relate to.

Optional: ask for a character that already exists that they would like to be. This can prove challenging, as every girl in your class wants to be Miley Cyrus. I’ve written three children’s plays with Miley Cyrus as a character (and one erotic novella…um, scratch that). This will make the play’s structure a bit of a challenge but the actors will love you for doing it.

2. NO STARRING ROLES. I can’t stress this enough. Please. NEVER give a child a starring role. I don’t care how articulate she is or how quickly she evolves from lemon face to lion face. A child with a rampant ego will bring your production down.

Let your children’s play be an Altmanian ensemble piece. Make sure they all realize early on that everyone is, for the most part, equally important to the story.

2. b) One inevitable thing about which to be warned: as soon as your child actor will pick up a script, the first thing he/she will do is count how many lines he has in the play. It’s what kids do. Therefore, is it necessary to go overtime and make every character have exactly 22 lines?

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

Teach kids about humility. Quality over quantity. All that chutzpah.

3. STRUCTURE AND MORALS. Keep in mind, in this situation, your main audience is the parent and not the child. Thus, if your play ends on a note that leaves all characters in an existential quandary and they come home questioning why they need to go to sheep-herding Church, kiss your ambitious children’s playwright career ass goodbye. I find the most ideal story arc goes like such:

EGO-CENTRIC KIDS FIGHT AMONGST THEMSELVES —-> KIDS GET TRAPPED IN A BIND THAT REQUIRES THEM TO WORK TOGETHER ——> KIDS BECOME FRIENDS AT THE END

Suffice to say, no Gus Van Sant’s Elephant: the musical.

Keep this story arc in tact and you will find fans in both adult and child sectors. As far as the content goes, you can tell many stories with this arc.

HAUNTED HOUSE = Meddlesome kids work together to find no ghost at all, just creepy old man

MYSTERY OF THE MISSING (BLANK) = SPOILER! They all stole it together. Learn lesson at the end.

KIDS DISCOVER MAGIC = Each kid gets a turn with the magic object (causing rifts and chaos), but working together makes everyone happy

TRAPPED = Kids work together to find way out, blah blah blah

4. ENRICH THEM; CULTURALLY, SUBLIMINALLY. The best thing about being a children’s playwright / director is the ultimate power in your hands. There are two uses for this power: a) for evil (the police at your door) and b) for good. I call this usage of power for good Animaniacsifying. The classic cartoon was peppered with cultural references that its (so-called) primary demographic (7-11 year-olds) would not understand but would still stick in their subconscious. I knew what Citizen Kane was when I was 8 because of that show.

Ergo, go nuts. Have your story playfully reference David Lynch. Name a character after Yossarian from Catch-22. Innocently craft the climax after Pulp Fiction. Have your entire play be an homage to LOST (I’ve done that 3 times already).

After the final show, your kid will put on a good performance and will be able to quote the first stanza of T.S. Eliot’s Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock. Everyone wins.

There you have it! With these four tips in mind, you’ll be able to make something that kids will love, parents will love, and you will not completely hate at the end of the day.