I get up fairly early and play around on the computer for a bit. Sue wakes up, rolls over, and mumbles out “season five.” I had totally forgot that Season Five of The Wire is released today. Man, I feel like a big let down.
We rush over to Future Shop and grab it. I drop down the coin with no problems for this small piece of awesomeness. Let me tell you something about The Wire.
I try not to watch TV. I’m not one of those snobs that say “I don’t watch TV” because I am. I hate those snobs too. Who the hell are you not to respect a device that is there solely for your entertainment? The reason I try not to watch TV is because I get hooked too easily. I have a show on everyday of the week, and that’s enough for me. Some nights of the week there are multiple shows that I watch. I get hooked on this shit too easily, and I know this about myself, so I try to stay away.
Now, The Wire simply blows everything I’ve seen out of the water.
I have a hard time thinking that I can go back to watching network shows when the Fall lineup starts up again after peeping out The Wire. It’s like being with the hottest woman you can think of, and then hooking up with a lesbian. Sure, the lesbian might be nice for an appetizer, but once you’ve had the main meal, you don’t want mozzarella sticks anymore.
Deadwood was a great show too, but the problem with that program was that they couldn’t end it. Apparently it was hooked up for a three year run, and Milch, the creator of the show, totally expected the show to be picked up for a couple more seasons. It was not, and therefore it has an improper ending.
The Wire was always supposed to end at five seasons. That means that it has a proper ending, so it shouldn’t leave a bitter sweet taste in my mouth.
Sue and I sit down and start watching the first episode. Of course, I get a call to interrupt my ecstasy, but it’s my Mom, so what can you do? I talk to her briefly and we finish off the first episode.
Then I get a call from Alicia with some news regarding tomorrows shoot. Apparently, she sent me a message that I didn’t respond to, which I am apt to do. I leave my computer on all day, it doesn’t meant that I’m sitting at it begging for a friend. Besides, she has yet to watch Raging Bull, which I gave to her sometime ago.
It turns out that Dan Bowers, playing The Seed, is unable to make it down to shoot his scene tomorrow as he’s been struck with food poisoning.
The way we were going to shoot it already was to do his coverage, then wait until another day and shoot everyone else in that scene. That’s not the best situation to begin with, so I ask Alicia if she can pop by and we can figure out when we can pick up this scene, and we can also schedule the other scenes that have yet to be scheduled, including the two big fight scenes as well as a couple of others that would have to run into September and weren’t scheduled because we’re unsure of everyone’s schedule come September.
I also ask her to bring back my Raging Bull, which is the best DVD I own, bar none, and we’ll watch it here so she finally watches the damn thing.
She comes over and we start going through the schedule. First things first, we have the crew ready to go for tomorrow, so I toy with the idea of shooting one of the fight scenes that day. Alicia phones up Irish and he’s a no go because he has finals. I ask if he wants me to take them for him, and that way he can still come and do the scene. For some reason he declines. Perhaps he underestimates my astronomical prowess. Alicia asks for him to send her his schedule so we can schedule these other shoots we have.
Alicia also phones Harry and leaves a message. He calls me back shortly, and the answer I get form him is one I expected: he’s good to go. We decide to shoot the scene we missed of him earlier on Thursday after he shoots his small scene with Logan.
Irish hits us back with his schedule, and we decide the only day we can do anything regarding him is on Thursday the 21st. We’ll have to do both fight scenes that day and I warn him that it’ll be a long day. He doesn’t seem to care. Okay, great, that’s out of the way.
We also add on to another long day and schedule the last scene that wasn’t scheduled for the 25th. We’ll have everyone here that we need to have here to schedule to shoot that scene. We also schedule a day for the 18th to shoot the final surprise scene in the movie. Looks like everything is finally sorted out.
As for Dan, well, there’s nothing we can do. I call Bill and he’s on the same page as I am. There’s been constant scheduling problems with him thus far, and even on the last show as well. He’s training to be a fireman, which I don’t understand because he’s tremendously talented, so his availability will only get worse. Plus we have no other days to schedule that scene.
We need to kill The Seed.
The problem with this is that The Seed is partners with Kitty, and Leslie McBay, who plays Kitty, and Dan are pretty good friends. We don’t want to lose her over this, but there’s nothing we can do. We have no more days to schedule with. We’ll either kill The Seed or make him go away from the gunshot wound he suffered at the end of the last episode.
This sounds awful doesn’t it? Well, the next part is going to sound worse.
We decide not to tell Leslie what our plan is. We’ll have to break it to her when she’s on set that we’re going to have to change the script. We’ll decide then I guess whether or not The Seed will die. It’s too bad, because I dug on this character.
In fact, this episode was going to originally be a lot different when I first started writing it, but my hand was forced when I started getting people’s availability. Originally, The Seed and Kitty had a much larger part involving Jukes, played by Rob Jukosky, and The Baby Jukes played by Kathryn Alexandre. Regardless, availabilities sucked, and I was forced to write something new. It’s funny how these things turn out, because I actually dig on this script more.
Also during this time, I hear back from the director. He likes some of my ideas, but I’m getting that his main concern is that I’m making the picture way too big for his budget. This is alright, but I have a hard time explaining myself completely to people sometimes. Sometimes, I just get too excited and blurb everything down without taking care of the concerns someone might have.
Oh well, at least I’ve officially been hired on as the writer right now. That’s kind of sweet. There’s some questions I have regarding this email, so I’ll have to email him back at some other time when I have more cognitive function.
So with the scheduling out of the way, it’s time for some Raging Bull. I’ve been itching to watch this movie again for a little while. It’s a flick I just have to revisit every so often. It’s got this weird pull on me.
We sit down and throw that shit up. It’s pretty late and I’m worried Alicia will fall asleep because it is a little slow. Luckily for her, she stays up through the whole thing, although she’s not sure how much of it she absorbed, because it is late, and the flick is slow, but she thinks it looks great. That’s a comment most people, well, casual film goers especially, don’t pick up on.
It’s said for this film, you can take every frame of the film, blow it up, and hang it on your wall. I tend to agree with them. This film is the closest to perfect I think I’m ever going to see. It’s simply amazing.
I was worried she would be abhorred by the makeup job on DeNiro’s nose, but she dug it. She wasn’t sure if that was Bobbys actual nose or not. I guess that’s the definition of a good job.
It’s weird needing people to dig on the same shit you dig on. Especially when it comes to movies, and especially if you’re showing someone one of your favorite flicks. If they don’t like it, you feel like they’re slamming you personally. Well, they kind of are I guess, I mean, that’s your taste they’re insulting.
Oh well, The Wire will have to wait for tomorrow now that I have a free day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment