Oh good! Another short one. And... ooh, bad. I gotta watch something on YouTube. I mean, actually watch it. Yecch. Don't get me wrong, YouTube. I've got a channel myself, actually... somewhere. But Facebook is striking back! One of my Facebook friends in the virtual world... and a co-worker of mine in the real physical "wetware" world, sent me an invite to a Facebook group. I don't know if I've been approved yet, and frankly, there's too many things to like in the Facebook universe. Sorry, Brian Harrod, but I can only take so much news anymore. And everyone's got a film that needs Facebook funding these days. And what's that thing with Catherine Beta-Carotene again? It's called "Queen America" and it's a Facebook (TM) (R) (C) production!!! I gotta say, I only saw the end of "Cocaine Godmother," and it just bummed me out. She's fifty now! Seems like ten years ago that everyone was turning fifty. Now it's sixty! Well, she's slightly behind the curve, anyway.
ANYWAY, back to our current instant case, someone named Douglas St. John. By the way, is that you in this photo? Okay, so he's just an Assistant Director, and sometimes Assistant Camera, but this is my Auteur Watch segment, and everyone on the set says "Watch out, here comes the A.D." That stands for Assistant Director, BTW. Now, in addition to the rise in Direct-To-YouTube D.I.Y. "film" making, I'm just finding out about these 48-hour film festivals. As in, you have 2 days to make a 5 minute movie. That's when you know the marketplace is flooded. I mean, it's getting so out of hand that someone thought to make this video to help people out!!! Where's the daring, people? Be like Spielberg making Saving Private Ryan, man! NO STORYBOARDS, for God's sake!!! Then again, it's sort of like the beginnings of cinema. In 1896, for example, people would take a camera, go out and film stuff, slap on a title and show it someplace, probably in one of those nickelodeon dealy-boppers. Sixty years later it was called home movies. I don't know if anything good comes out of these 48-hour festivals, but by now Douglas St. John is a junior in 48-hour film high school. The first entry is 2017's "You Turn." It's like the worst parts of Back to the Future Part III, only shorter. I did like the drone camera shots, though. I'm trying to see the positive in everything now, for some reason. #notdyingyet #bloglife #nomorecrimeshowsplease
The next entry (for me, anyway) is 2018's "Cold Call." It's a vast improvement in terms of story and camerawork, even though the level of acting is still kinda amateurish. I'm no Lee Strasberg or Jim Belushi, mind you, I'm just saying. #justsaying #filmlife #killingmesoftlywithhishashtagskillingmesoftly I also gotta say the credit sequence was nice, but a) it probably put you past the 48 hour mark, am I right? ;) and b) In the future, you might want to linger on those last credits a little bit longer, especially if you have an outside producer coming in. Oh, they're gonna take credit, and how. Just pretend like your film is going to be shown on a projector that can't be paused or skipped over, or that you have to start after skipping the ad. #youtubelife #whathappenedtous #whenthepawnhitstheconflictshethinkslikeakingandallthatjazz ...okay, okay. I just remembered. The first customer blowing all the smoke was good. I can work with that.
Alas, I wasn't able to find the last entry, 2018's "The Basement." And I'm not talking about the one with Mischa Barton. No, I know it's Douglas St. Johns', because here is its "External Sites" page on the IMDb. I tried the actual link on there and everything, but POOF! It's gone! Apparently, they took all existing prints of this thing and put it back in the Dawson City hole! Ouch. However, I did find this laughable thing also called "The Basement." It's got a lot going for it and, like "Cold Call," it's about a door-to-door salesman, but with a dark twist. Then it turns into a bad fight. Then it's over, which I kinda liked. I guess we'll just never know about Douglas' take on "The Basement." I will, however, put on my critic's hat and start to nitpick... okay, just one thing, and then I'm going to bed. Here's the plot description: "What happens when an alcoholic father, begins to see things that are no longer there." I'll leave the whole, separate discussion of proper COMMA PLACEMENT to The Grammar Hooligan. But the concept is a fascinating one. I mean, if you were able to see things that were no longer there... what would you see? Dinosaurs from 65 million years ago? A healthy liver? Your now ex-wife? The ghosts of people who used to live in your house? Personally, I like that one graph with nine different superpowers, and you can only pick two of them. Opportunity cost, people! Don't any of you remember high school economics? I kinda do. I think that was the one with this kid that I didn't like, but kind of felt sorry for, for some reason. Then one day in that class, he decided to start telling a bunch of Holocaust jokes. I haven't kept up with him, but he's probably a Q-Anon guy. Q-Anon! It's Right Wing Woodstock.
And now for the News At Ton. This is now my new favourite thing.
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