Auteur Watch - George Huang

There's a lesson here somewhere. I guess if you make a movie about a lowly Hollywood underling who exacts revenge on his superiors, your career's not going to advance as far as you'd think. But Swimming with Sharks director George Huang's been busy! Maybe not Steven Soderbergh busy or Steven Spielberg busy, but busy! Did you know he filmed Frodo's audition tape for Lord of the Rings? I just found that out! God bless you, IMDb! Also, like Clint Eastwood and Haskell Wexler, he's made that pledge to work only with free-range Hollywood P.A.s, so projects take a little bit longer.
Much like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer's director John McNaughton, Huang swam quickly into much more tepid thematic waters after his stunning debut. His next pic was 1997's Trojan War, but if you're a purist like me, you probably remember it best as a pic called Rescue Me. But, the die is recast, that kind of thing's not up to me, it's a free country and that's their right, and God bless 'em for that. Then he went back to doing TV work, which wasn't a popular move at the time, but lots of directors work just in TV. Rod Daniel, for example, and Peter Bonerz. Yup, a guy can do great things in TV work these days, and with the (eventual) arrival of HD, it's almost the cooler of the two mediums!
Now, I don't want to be like 'Weird Al' Yankovic taking credit for discovering Kramer... and I'll bet he's backpedaling from that now. Nor do I want to be like Henry Jaglom swooning over David Duchovny in the commentary track, but I think Hollywood heard I was going to profile Huang on Auteur Watch, and LOOK! He's back, baby! Something called Locker 13. Oooh! Good title. Could you change it to Assault on Locker 13, by any chance? Would Carpenter allow that?... Oh, screw it. It's one of those multi-director B.S. projects. Well, it's still better than a poke in the eye. You're on the True Path once again, Grasshopper, back onto that Silver Screen where all great directors go to live forever. Keep on truckin', George Huang!