Jeez Jon

The 2011 Film You Need To See: Pariah

At first blush, it's easy to tag Dee Rees' new film Pariah as "this year's Precious."  Both films deal with African-American teen girls in New York with difficult mothers played by comediennes.  But while Precious is as sublte as a carpet bombing, Pariah is sublime.  It tells the story of Alike (played with quiet authority by Adepero Oduye), a 17 year old girl in Brooklyn who is slowly coming out as a lesbian... to everyone but her family.  Her best friend Laura (the excellent Pernell Walker) is out as well and way more comfortable in her skin.  Her conservative, church-going mom Audrey is struggling to keep her marriage alive with her workaholic husband while pushing back against her daughter embracing her identity. 

Now, I know this all sounds heavy.  There are a lot of meaty topics being discussed in Pariah, but it all fits the story.  Director Rees balances out all the characters very well while keeping the focus on Alike.  There's a certain generosity to all the characters in Pariah: no one's the villian, no one's the saint.  Even the supporting characters are fully-fleshed out.  While the story easily could have fallen into melodramatic cliches or easy ways out, it goes the most logical route  (There's one scene in particular between Laura and her mother that is just outstanding). 

The acting in Pariah is spot-on; everything feels authentic and lived in.  Adepero Oduye is just wonderful, but the surprise in the film is Kim Wayans as Alike's disapproving mother Audrey.  I've been a fan of Wayans since In Living Color, and her work here is excellent.  You understand exactly where Audrey is coming from the whole way through; you get her very quickly, and that has a lot to do with Wayans' portrayl. 

On the technical level, Pariah is gorgeous.  It won the Cinematography Award at this year's Sundance Festival for a reason.  The opening scene at a nightclub is breathtaking.  The film moves very well, and the music is great.  This is one of those movies that fires on all cylanders, which makes me sad that it's not getting more attention this award season.  Definitely see this movie.  Look, if you don't trust me, trust its 98% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.  Pariah is a great film.

 

At Home Film Festival: Awards Screener Edition

The Screen Actors Guild gives out awards every year.  Every year, they randomly select a small amout of the 100,000 members of the union to be on the Nominating Committee, who is charged with coming up with the nominations for the awards.  Then, after the nominations are announced, then the entire body of the union gets to vote on the awards.  Well, after 11 years in the union, I've been selected to be in the Nominating Committee.  And, as you can imagine, I'm pretty psyched. And I'm also wicked busy.

I've been working on a new Spike show -- Flip Men, Tuesday nights at 10:30pm, check it out! -- which has been taking up a lot of my time.  I'm also taking classes with Steppenwolf, which is awesome and kicking my butt in all the right ways.  That eats up time too. So, in my meager downtime, I've been seeing movies.  The above picture shows the amount of screeners I currently have at home right now.  I'm due to get more in the mail too.  I'm also going to a lot of screenings as well, and those are gobbling up time too. I've become a movie-watching machine lately.

Of what I've seen so far, my three favorites (in alphabetical order) are Albert Nobbs, Beginners, and Bridesmaids.  All three are must-sees for different reasons: Albert Nobbs is a great little film showing a rich world of gender-bending Irish women fighting against poverty, Beginners is an assured film that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure, and Bridesmaids is a hilarious film that has way more going for it than you think.  While I'm not surprised that both Albert Nobbs and Beginners are getting the awards push, the fact that Universal is doing the same for Bridesmaids just makes me smile. It comes across at first like a gross-out goofy comedy, but at the heart of it Bridesmaids is really sweet and sharp movie about how we sell ourselves too short and how we have to be better people.  Its screenplay is one of the most well-constructed pieces of writing I've come across in a long time, and the acting is just amazing.  All around.  Comedy tends to get the short-shrift during awards season, so the fact that Bridesmaids is getting any love this time of year says something. 

Out of all the movies featured in the above picture, I've seen only seven of them.  I also have at least 7 more screenings I have to go to.  I have to watch everything and put my votes in by December 12th.  So, if you e-mail me and I don't get back to you promptly, it's because I'm either working on a TV show, working on my acting, or seeing and evaluating movies.  Send help.

[PS.  Since I'm an avid rule follower, all of my screeners are not leaving my apartment building, will not be posted onto the web, and will not be sold by me. I like my union and I'd like to stay in it, thank you very much]

Hollywood Nights

I've been away from this blog for a long time.  A very, very long time.  Apologies for that.  While it's obvious that I've been away because I've been busy, I wish I could say it's because something amazing was going on in my life.  That's not the case.  Nothing horrible, either. I've been working a lot.  In fact, the show I've been working on, Flip Men on Spike, debuted this week to some strong ratings. While that's going, I have other things going on as well.  Here's the list:

• Work: Flip Men
• Acting Class: Steppenwolf West
• Acting Career
• Marriage
• Family
• Friends
• SAG Nom Comm Screenings

My life is pretty busy right now, and I'll work in the blogging as much as possible.  I have to admit that Facebook has eaten up my political links and posts lately but once the 2012 campaign starts next year, I'll be more active here.  Thanks for being patient.  Be back soon.

 

Network Notes On Speaker Boehner's Debt Crisis Speech

 

OVERALL:

Having done many numerous seasons of Strange Bedfellows: U.S. Federal Edition, we really do enjoy the plot twist of having the Speaker of the House give a rebuttal speech to the President's, even though this isn't the State of the Union.  In previous seasons of the show, we have never done that, even with Speaker Pelosi!  So, this is a great change of events that we think fans of the show would appreciate.

That being said, we do feel that we can bring out more from the speech.  With some edits, bites and cues, we feel that we can maximize Boehner's speech for comedy and drama.

SPECIFICS:

00:06    Please make sure to adjust the color levels during on-line.  It could be the low-res copy we have, but the Speaker's skin tone looks a few shades off of "Oompa-Loompa." Please bring this to the same color-correction lab that does Jersey Shore.

00:14    Keep it dry until here, then start patriotic music under Boehner's story of his small business.

00:38    Put a dramatic sting after "Those days are over!"

00:49    Can we put in a flashback from the State of the Union where the President asked for an increase in the debt ceiling?  Please use the blue filter on this.  Also, I know you said we didn't have Congress saying "Not so fast, Mr. President!" on camera a few times before.  Please double-check to see if this is true; it would give the speech a better impact if we could see the Speaker (or even Majority Leader Cantor) say it on camera.

01:02    Shift to a dark, mysterious music cue after he says "And here's what we got for that spending binge." Right now, it's playing flat and I'm losing interest.

01:10    Please put in a comedic sting on "fodder for late night comedians."  That way, people will know it's supposed to be funny.

01:34 - 01:52    Pull up this section; it's repetitive to what the Speaker was saying in the previous scene. I know we've done a lot of repetitive bites in other seasons, but this is too much even for us.

02:00    Just thinking out loud here, but should we change up our lower thirds?  The chyrons for the past 18 seasons have changed a bit. Maybe something new?  Let's discuss.

02:09    I know the Speaker here explains what the "Cut, Cap and Balance" Act will do, but I'm worried it won't be clear enough for our audience.  Please do a clarity pass on this; maybe a funnier button?

02:14    When the Speaker starts talking about his sincere efforts to communicate with the President, please shift the music to a more heart-felt, sincere tone.  Maybe the composer can do a sound-alike of The Fray's "How To Save A Life"? We do have some money in the budget for that. Please double check.

02:39    We've been staying on the same kind of shot for a long time now; do we have a wide shot of this?  I'd love to know the geography of the room we're in. 

02:54    Can we have the Speaker talk about how the closure of tax loopholes will kill jobs?  Not a huge note.

03:03    Can we see shots of the Speaker's children when he references them?  How can the audience know he has children unless we see them?  Please make sure they have signed releases.

03:11    Do we have another version of the Speaker saying "He wanted a blank check six months ago, and he wants a blank check today"?  He's been more emotional for us before -- remember the 60 Minutes Scene?  -- but here's he's so flat and dull.  Please do a comedy pass.

03:34    The Speaker here is referencing a bill that's going to pass later on in the week.  Do we have that?  If not, there will need to be a significant restructure of this scene. 

04:10    Add cymbal scrape after "The Constitution."

04:19    Instead of the Speaker talking about how the politicians shouldn't focus on trying to get re-elected, could you have him say something along the lines of "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore?"  That would be great.

04:32ish   I feel like we're on the same shot for a long time here.  Can we vary things up a bit?  Maybe a slow push-in would be good.  Be creative.

04:47    Add sad trombone effect after "running at full capacity".

04:55    Add triumphant music under the portion where he's talking about breaking the grip of debt. Should be an awe-inspiring, a-ha! moment.

05:10    End with a big swell of patriotic music, then use the new graphics of the donkey and elephant in the boxing ring.  

Thank you! Please call to discuss! 

The Master Plan, Part 3: The Demo

The relaunch of my acting career has been a methodical process.  After getting my debt into a managable amount, I've slowly and surely been getting the rest of my stuff in gear.  The first was my headshots.  The second is acting class; it's been ages for me and now I'm back at Steppenwolf, getting my ass kicked in the best way possible.  Also on the agenda is redoing my reel, losing some weight, etc.  It's all part of the Master Plan, and I'm happy to report that another part of the plan is done.  My VoiceOver Demo is done.

See, as an actor I'm in a weird middle zone.  I'm too old for "Young Dude" but I'm a tad young-looking for "Young Dad."  I'm already a rather specific-looking actor, so falling into this age limbo is not helpful.  So, why not try something where my looks don't matter?  How the voiceover world works in LA is that you do commercials first, then you can start doing animation.  As a young lad who watched A LOT of cartoons, I've always marvelled at cartoon voices.  Mel Blanc is bit of a personal hero of mine.  I follow Rob Paulsen (voice of Yakko Warner & Pinky) on Twitter.  I wanna be Billy West when I grow up.  One of my dearest friends is voiceover goddess Pam Turlow (check out her blog here).  Doing voiceovers have always been part of my agenda, and now I've taken the most significant step forward to making that happen.  It won't happen overnight, it'll take lots of time and effort, but I'm more than on my way.

You wanna hear the demo?  Check it out here:

Jon Collins FINAL DEMO 3-23-11

The Master Plan continues in earnest.

Picking Up Where Someone Else Left Off

My most recent stint of unemployment has come to an end.  Two weeks ago, I was called in for an interview for Established Animal-Related Docu-Soap.  It was a Wednesday, and my appointment was at 2pm.  By 2:30, they made me an offer that I accepted and started bright and early the next morning.  The reason for the rush?  One of the story producers got another gig and left, so I'm finishing out his remaining 1 1/2 episodes.  So, my stint on this show won't be terribly long.  But it's work, so that's fine by me. I'm a week and a half in and everyone is cool people seem to like my work thus far.

Since I'm coming in on the tail end of a season, I'm taking over an episode that's already been started.  So, everyone knows the footge and show more than I do.  It's a balancing act where I am doing what I can to respect the work the previous guy did but also inject my own choices and POV to the material.  It would be folly for me to completely dismiss all the set up that was done before I started (since he was there when the outline was crafted) but the show can benefit from my outsider perspective.  This is a first for me;  it's doable but a definite challenge, that's for sure.

Imagined Conversation Between Justin Bieber And Handler

Handler: John Waters wants a picture with you.
Justin: Who's John Waters?
Handler:...famous film director. 
Justin: What'd he make?
Handler: "Pink Flamingos", "Female Trouble"..
Justin: [blank stare]
Handler: "Hairspray"

Justin: Oh yeah!  John Travolta was great in that!

Handler: Take the damn picture.

[Picture via DListed]

What A Bad Day For A Story Producer Looks Like

I didn't create this Xtra Normal video, but I do relate. (Note: while none of the editors I currently work with are like this, a few I've worked with before definitely are)

Doesn't the world of television look so glamorous now?

Point Me In The Direction of Central Jersey

As I previously mentioned, I've been story producing on a show since the beginning of July.  This coming Sunday, you can now check out some of my handiwork. And wouldn't you know, I'm working on a show set in New Jersey.  No, not the one with the Situation and Snooki.  No, not the one with the table-flipping housewives.  Nope -- I'm working on the Style Network's Jerseylicious, which takes place in a beauty salon in Central New Jersey.  And my first of three episodes airs this Sunday at 8pm on Style (with numerous reruns). 

In this Sunday's episode, the girls at the Gatsby Salon decide to throw a surprise baby shower for their very-pregnant boss Christy.  As you can imagine, some crazy ideas -- and some bitchiness -- gets served. The show is fun and silly and goofy and rather girly.  It's a fun show to work on. So, check it out if you have the chance and see what's been keeping me away from this blog.

A-List My Ass

Watch Gay Video & Lesbian Movies

Logo’s new series “The A-List” is disheartening on so many levels.  First of all, it’s one of these shows that you see the pitch-to-the-network first and the content second. “I’m telling you, Barry, it’s ‘The Real Housewives’ meets ‘Queer Eye’!” So, in it’s creation it’s highly cynical.  Secondly, every gay man on this show is the same type of guy: the Muscle Mary.  They’re all in fantastic shape with lots of designer clothes and all come across as a bunch of bitchy, entitled airheads.  Never mind variety!  Never mind that there are oodles of different kinds of gay people out there, no!  Bring in the mincing stereotypes and you’ll all be fine.  Hell, this is New York City, full of gay hipsters, gay bears, gay wolves, gay otters and tons of other types of gay people... even gay women! 

I work in reality television but this level of cynicism behind a TV show just galls me to no end. I know when I’m being pandered to, Logo, and it’s not going to work.  I really don’t say this often but seriously? Fuck this show.

ETA: As a person who works in reality television, this season preview (or "supertease", which is the technical term) blows. You don't know any of the characters in it, you don't get an idea as to what happens on the show (besides shopping, eating and push-ups) and there is no conflict shown. At all. No fights, no arguments, no beer being poured on someone's weave. I think, honestly, the flatness of this and dullness offends me more than anything else.