Scandal Response Seminar

Here's two ways of handling a scandalized reaction from the public. One is the right way, one is wrong.

Case A: You do a topless photo shoot where you don't even show your boobs but couldn't anyway since your fifteen and within said photo shoot are also somewhat creepy pictures with your Dad. Public is scandalized that you showed the world your bare back at the photo shoot curiously booked with a photographer known for creating controversial portraits, often of a sexualized nature. You work for one of the largest, supposedly "family friendly" corporations in the world and your purity image takes a hit; even without the half naked MySpace self-protraits revealing a great deal more skin that subsequently appear with less public outrage, you've got PR trouble. What do you do?

Response: it's the wrong one, but it's only one you can do. When you're a household name who stands to lose millions of dollars from the company with its own questionable ethics that employs you, your path is clear. You pretend that you were victimized, had some sort of total loss of reason for days, or were just so terribly hurt by this thing all along. I'm scandalized that I'm actually posting a link to Omg! News (especially since there's the incredibly appropriate link to other topless celebrity examples on the page), but it's such the perfect example of the wrong response. It hurts your credibility and the integrity of people who are supposed to be watching out for you as a teenager. Plus, it lets the moral hypocrisy of the righteous-outragists continue. Gotta admit though, I'd probably be bowing and scraping too if I was about to lose all those bags of money.

Case B: You've unleashed a rant at a live concert against a fan who threw something you. Said rant includes telling the fan that you'd butt fuck him if he threw anymore shit at you, calling the fan a faggot and pussy multiple times as well as a "dickless fucking turd."

Response: it's the more difficult and dangerous choice to make, but it's right one because of the respect you earn, if only for yourself. You tell the scandalized people to eloquently go fuck themselves. You address the fact that your remarks might be considered homophobic and turn the moral outrage back around to the accusers. A much more perilous path to walk, but if done correctly, could deflate anything brewing from the self-righteous. I especially appreciate the "PC lingo" sign-off. A little humor never hurts.

Ren Faire: The Next Great Factory Show

The Factory Theater presents:


Think of a turf war between Renaissance Fair denizens and Old West stunt people in a West Side Story style, only funnier and with better song and dance. Verily, 'twill be some good fun, pardner.

Click here for tickets or go to www.thefactorytheater.com for more info. Now that the Factory website has been updated in a thoroughly modern style, you can see my mug there too, if you so desire. But you better be buying a ticket first or getting a drink from me as your bartender for this Saturday's gala performance. Cheers!

Another One Gone Too Soon

Sigh. RIP to an icon.





He will be greatly missed by many. He will not be missed by the uptight who think he was only about being foul & filthy (too bad for them). But Carlin's value to humor, social criticism, and skewering the American obsession with perceived naughty speech cannot be understated. Carlin lived by free speech even when it got him into trouble and he did it funny. I thank him and I'll miss him.

'Nite, Night.

It's been a really long time since I wrote anything movie related. A really, really long time. Damn. Movies are one of the great joys of my life, but home-buying and child-bearing (especially when done simultaneously) erase a lot of time that could be spent with movies. So here's some thoughts on something that also hasn't been around in a long time: a good movie by M. Night Shyamalan.

I have not seen The Happening and I'm not sure I will. The initial savage reviews are akin to the early bloodletting that The Lady in The Water received (I didn't see that movie either). With both movies, I was intrigued by some well-done previews and I don't think Shyamalan has ever lost his knack for creating some interesting premises. Sadly, based on reviews, it'll be three bads in a row for M. Night.

I can't speak for the success or failure of The Happening, but it is puzzling that such an incredibly successful and imaginative filmmaker could go from spectrum to opposite spectrum with his work. Maybe he doesn't give a damn what people think, maybe he's still convinced his movies are brilliant, maybe he just works for a paycheck like the rest of us; who knows?

The Sixth Sense is still a fantastic movie. The splashy twist at the end (does anyone not know by this point that Bruce Willis is a ghost?) created most of the buzz and played a large part in establishing Shyamalan's moviemaker identity, but the twist is not what makes The Sixth Sense so good. Toni Collette is a major reason why the movie succeeds so well. She terrifically plays her role of tortured mother struggling to care for her inexplicably and literally haunted son. Collette injects so much honest, raw emotion that she grounds the conflicts of the spiritual world into her own hard reality, making the movie's ghost story a real-life struggle. Shyamalan also did his best writing with The Sixth Sense. He's very good at creating an emotional investment in his characters and his movies. He's always been able to grab interest, and with The Sixth Sense, he made a valuable story of grieving people and family struggle to go along with a winning premise and the jaw dropper at the end.

Here's where it went wrong. Shyamalan wagered his success on making everyone's jaws drop lower. He figured that the basis for his success was fabricating the most amazing twist and basing his movies around the bait-and-switch. With the notable exception of Signs, Shyamalan's movies live and die by their twists. Signs didn't really have a "holy shit!" moment at the end, which is probably why Signs is Shyamalan's only other really good movie: Night got away from trying to bend his movies around their twists and simply wrote a good story about ordinary people struggling under extraordinary circumstances. The "holy shit!" moments kept coming in his other movies, but they weren't always a pleasant surprise.

The Village pissed me off. The first half of that movie is really good. Shyamalan created a fantastic medieval world with scary monsters running around an engaging love story between Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Howard (I refuse to validate that stupid three name thing popular among some actors unless you've earned those props through such kickass work as being Buffy The Vampire Slayer: S.M. Gellar [heh heh], you're worthy.) The twist of The Village is so ludicrous that it's insulting. Shyamalan devalued his entire movie with that stupid twist. It's a pity that the movie was based around trying to pull off the most amazing switcheroo. Problem is, people's jaws only drop so far, and if your only goal is to dislocate mandibles through surprise, you're going to miss more often than not.

The Happening may suffer because of that same instinct. If so, it's really a shame. M. N. Shyamalan is really a good writer and talented filmmaker. Maybe it would have been better had he not had such dizzying success with The Sixth Sense as his first movie. He might have had too many people telling him he's brilliant and how oh-so-amazed they were at the end of that movie. That might have made him forget why he was able to make a good movie through his characters' struggles. The twists aren't what made him a successful filmmaker. They certainly helped and my jaw was on the floor with everybody else's at the reveal of Bruce Willis' actual condition, but the movie was already good. I hope that Night puts his twisties to bed and wakes his basic storymaking skills back up; it's a question of whether that twisting instinct wants to go down or not.