Drawing a Circle of Life

I had my 20-year high school reunion last weekend. As you would imagine, it was quite interesting. Although (as with the 10^th), the most interesting things were the unexpected things. I have an impeccable memory. Until about my 20’s, I didn’t really realize how vivid and sharp my memory was. Not just stuff that happened long ago, but also stuff that’s really obscure that normal people naturally forget. Knowing this (or quickly discovering it at the reunion), many of my fellow alumni came to me for “verification” of a number of things – chiefly among them, “What’s his/her name?” I think this talent for meticulous recall is due more to sentimentality than higher brain function. I remember people and experiences that meant something to me and I was quite fond of my former classmates – even the ones I didn’t particularly like. So, imagine my surprise when they were able to “one-up” me.

I’ve always been a “drawer.” I hated that term growing up because, to me, a “drawer” was something you put socks and underwear into, not “one who draws.” However, I’ve now come to recognize that as an accurate description. “Artist” is too broad and I’m not much of a “painter.” You could call me an “illustrator” and be correct, but I feel like what I really and truly do – and have always done – is draw. I’ve been drawing longer than I’ve known how to read and write. So, growing up, that’s what the kids with whom I shared my childhood knew me for.

Anyway, what surprised me about the reunion (and what I’m referring to by saying I was “one-upped”), was how many former classmates of mine – who had all but disappeared from my life and presumably forgotten about me entirely – still had drawings that I done back in the day. I’m sure, by my standards, they’re terrible and most likely depict whatever pop culture was prevalent at the time (like Freddy Krueger, Spuds McKenzie, or the California Raisins), but it was very touching to me that these people would hang onto things that I would have thrown away (and did) many years ago. That is probably the greatest compliment of my life and it was incredible how many of these people still had works of mine stashed away with other mementos that had survived years of growing up and moving on.

I think I have a pretty good idea why they did hang onto these drawings all this time, although I’m amazed their objective remained so steadfast as to carry over into adulthood: It wasn’t uncommon for my childhood peers to say, “You’re gonna be a famous artist someday. This’ll be worth a lotta money then.” This being some dorky drawing I just cranked out to amuse them. I was flattered by their confidence in me, but I also laughed every time they said it. Even in high school, friends insisted I draw in their yearbook rather than sign them. I obliged, so if I ever do become famous enough to where my early work is valuable, you’ll likely see a lot of Hood River Valley High School yearbooks from the early 90’s on eBay selling for exorbitant amounts.

After high school, I went to a college of art since that seemed like the obvious thing to do. I didn’t want to waste my time with classes that weren’t art-related. After I graduated, I went into advertising design (or “Art Direction” as it is known in the profession). Not much room for mainstream celebrity there. I never really aspired to be a famous artist, though. As a kid, I always wanted to draw for MAD magazine, but that was more because I loved the subject matter, not because it was widespread publication. The closest I came to something of that caliber was when I worked for Zthing – a viral marketing company that did animated shorts and games for downloading and forwarding and so on. We had over a million subscribers at our peak, so that meant whatever I wrote, drew, animated, and – in some cases – performed voice talent for, had a built-in audience. It even culminated into developing a pilot for an animated sketch-comedy program for Comedy Central (kind of a cartoon version of “Saturday Night Live”) called “Hot Monkey Sex.” The show didn’t get picked up and Zthing eventually lost its funding and closed its doors during the dot com crash in the early 21^st century. I figured that was my shot at “fame,” artistically speaking. Of course, I was only about 27 at the time, so that’s a pretty cynical way of looking at it. It’s not like I’m aspiring to be a professional athlete. An artist (or “drawer,” as it were) doesn’t even need to be able to walk to produce good work.

So, here I am at my 20-year high school reunion and people are asking me the inevitable question “So, what’re you up to these days?” While I am clearly still not famous, I was very pleased to have something interesting to say (even if only interesting to me): I’ve been drawing pictures for a kids’ book that I’m very proud of and hope to self-publish if I can raise the money. Somewhat inadvertently, I’ve started a publishing company since my partner and I have several more picture books in mind (no less than five more, at the moment) and maybe even a few regular books (since both of us have written novels that may one day be fit for public consumption).

So, this book – entitled The Owl & The Wave – is the first step to, dare I say, greatness? It’s certainly great to me. At least, it feels great. It feels great to create again. To be drawing again like I did as a child, as a teenager, as a college student, and now am doing again as an adult (and should have been doing all along). We launched the kickstarter campaign yesterday and hit 15% of our funding for self-publishing The Owl & The Wave on the first day! I’m getting very excited and it’s hard for me to talk about (or even think about) anything else.

So, here I am taking the first steps of a renaissance. My own artistic renaissance – the future uncertain, but wonderfully optimistic. You can be a part of it, too. Yes, you. Go to www.kickstarter.com/projects/postareddy/the-owl-and-the-wave and contribute to the cause before September 12th and you can get a signed copy of the book and even some original art of mine. Quite a bargain considering someday I’m gonna be famous (as several children born in the mid-70’s and raised in the Columbia Gorge have declared many times over). If this book does well, the next will do even better and so on and so forth. And then, when I go to my 30^th high school reunion, everybody’ll say, “See? I knew it. Glad I hung onto those drawings of yours.”

Cinetopia Golden Ticket: July 2013

I breached my six-movie average to seven in July. Actually, I almost hit eight (which would’ve been a record) since I considered checking out The To-Do List on the last day of the month. Couldn’t bring myself to do it, though. Not because I was sick of watching movies (that’ll never happen), but because the trailers couldn’t really sell me on it; mostly because I’m not crazy about Aubrey Plaza. I appreciate dead-pan performances, but she just strikes me as downright emotionless. Anyway, why am I talking about movies I didn’t see? These are the ones I did:

Movie Twenty-six: Despicable Me 2 – The first Despicable Me wasn’t that long ago, yet I don’t remember much about it. I remember I liked it, but beyond that, all I really recall is that the minions stole the show. The same is true here (probably even more so this time). However, I’m relieved the filmmakers had sense enough to not make them the focal point of the movie because, even as amusing as they are, I don’t think they could support a whole feature film on their own (a concept actually referenced over the end credits with “auditions” for a minion movie). While this is a pretty unnecessary (if not downright pointless) sequel, it’s not without its good moments. Indeed there are some genuine laugh-out-loud gags and it remains consistently entertaining enough to never feel tiresome. The showing I was at had both kids and adults laughing a lot and I can’t imagine this movie aspiring to accomplish anything more than that. However, I’m also fairly certain I won’t remember much about it by the time Despicable Me 3 comes out.

Movie Twenty-seven: Pacific Rim – I was expecting something more like Independence Day (in terms of structure, not content or the lacking quality thereof). In other words: Monsters attack, humans rally, robots are built, vengeance is served. But, after a short preamble, they flash forward to where the monsters have already destroyed a great deal of the planet (giant robots included) and the movie we’re about to watch is humanity’s last-ditch effort at victory (with whatever robots are left). While I felt deprived of what would probably be an equally good origin movie, I can’t complain since the way they did it gets you right into the action from the get-go. Not many surprises here. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve pretty much seen the movie. But, on that note, if you liked the trailers, you’ll like the movie. Guillermo Del Toro is a master at wielding CGI. He’s even better at it than Spielberg. I can’t put my finger on what he does differently, but somehow, it seems so much more authentic and never feels cartoony. More importantly, the action sequences (while truly epic) don’t feel overwhelming or disorganized (like they did in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel). It’s not easy to do right, but it’s quite effective when it is. On those grounds, Pacific Rim is Del Toro’s masterpiece. I’ve been thinking for years that I’d like to see a live-action “Voltron” movie. Now, I don’t think we need one.

Movie Twenty-eight: The Lone Ranger – I can’t say I liked this movie all that much, but it was probably the most interesting movie experience I’ve had so far this year. Y’see, my dad was a huge Lone Ranger fan when he was a kid. He used to listen to the radio show in the late 40’s/early 50’s religiously – literally never missed an episode. To this day, he can still recite the introductory speech by heart. He was such a big fan of the original Lone Ranger that he held the subsequent television series starring Clayton Moore – widely considered the definitive Lone Ranger (just as Bela Lugosi is considered the definitive Dracula) – in contempt, finding it corny and ridiculous. He’d been saying for years how he wished they’d make a Lone Ranger movie and do it right. A version made in 1981 bombed so bad, I don’t even think he saw it. So, he got excited when he heard a new one was in the works. It was heartbreaking to see his excitement wane with every update about this latest version (starting with the news that Johnny Depp would play Tonto). It got to the point where my dad pretty much gave up and decided that, since this was the closest he was ever going to get to a bona fide Lone Ranger film in his lifetime (he’s 73 – although, at the rate Hollywood’s doing “reboots”, he may actually still get another chance), he’d just hafta take what he could get. His exact words were, “I'm training my mind to not look at this movie as being about the Lone Ranger, but a western with a lot of special effects. Maybe that will make it acceptable.” We went to see the movie together and I braced myself for his walking out in disgust (although it was probably more likely that he’d just fall asleep). Now, I don’t know much about the Lone Ranger, but I have my own impressions of how the legend should be represented. This wasn’t a horrible movie, but it certainly squandered its potential by making what I thought were poor decisions. For starters, the Lone Ranger himself is kind of a bumbling fool and a very reluctant hero. That doesn’t seem right to me. Even more implausibly, he seems to go from a wimpy priss to an expert-marksman/master-equestrian overnight. Almost everything Tonto says is a punchline and he’s more comic relief than faithful sidekick. Sporadically, there are several awkward attempts to make the movie appealing to modern audiences. For instance, the familiar catch phrase “Who was that masked man?” is replaced by “What’s with the mask?” and “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” is played for laughs. Even when they finally perform the William Tell Overture, it seems more like an ironic joke than a triumphant fanfare. So, I walked out of the theater shaking my head and thinking my father was going to go home and slit his wrists. Imagine my surprise when he said, “That was good.” Apparently, it was more true to form than I was even aware. Things I thought the filmmakers had just fabricated were actually part of the original story – even certain minor events and smaller characters. Remember that scene in A Christmas Story when the dad is answering trivia questions and asks the name of the Lone Ranger’s nephew’s horse? Well, the nephew’s in there too and was indeed The Lone Ranger’s only surviving relative in the legend. So, as weak as the movie was, they at least did their research and I hafta respect that. The one thing my dad did take exception to was the overabundance of CGI. Can’t say I blame him. It was phony-looking and thus distracting. If Gore Verbinski had the command of special effects that Guillermo Del Toro had, this would have been a much better movie. More importantly, this film shouldn’t have tried to be something it wasn’t. One of the saving graces of the recent Captain America film was that it embraced its timeframe and felt nostalgic, like an old swashbuckling movie serial. The Lone Ranger seemed to want to have it both ways, which created a mess. Audiences have reacted accordingly and it’s turned out to be one of this summer’s biggest flops. All that matters to me, though, is that my dad enjoyed it. After 50+ years of waiting, he finally got his Lone Ranger movie. I’m happy for him.

Movie Twenty-nine: The Conjuring – This has got to be the most derivative horror film I’ve ever seen. I realize that horror films by their very nature have to use similar gimmicks employed by movies made before them, but this is ridiculous. This movie is basically a checklist of horror movie clichés that could be entitled “What’s that from?” I’m not kidding, it borrows elements from 1944’s The Uninvited to 2007’s Paranormal Activity (and every haunted ghost story ever made in between). There’s even a creepy old car that resembles Christine. It’s comprised of so many movies we’ve already seen, the filmmakers might as well have made it a spoof and called it Scary Movie 6. One might argue that the movie is the way it is because it’s “based on a true story”. Right. I saw a documentary that interviewed Lorraine Warren (the paranormal investigator portrayed by Vera Farmiga in this movie) and the one thing about her I believe to be true is that she’s bat-shit crazy. Realism is irrelevant in this case, anyway. As Jack Nicholson said about being directed by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining: Just because something’s realistic doesn’t mean it’s interesting. The Conjuring is neither realistic nor interesting. It’s not scary, either.

Movie Thirty: R.I.P.D. – Speaking of derivative, R.I.P.D. clearly tried to re-create the magic of Men In Black by taking the exact same formula and simply replacing the aliens with ghosts. Unfortunately, what the filmmakers failed to realize is that it wasn’t the aliens that made Men In Black great, it was the humans. The chemistry and banter between Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith was what really sold that premise. Plus, everything was thought out so comprehensively in Men In Black, they made every ridiculous scenario seem hilariously plausible. So much of R.I.P.D. doesn’t make sense. I’m perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief for any movie that deserves it (in fact, that’s what I want from every movie), but you’ve gotta meet me half way. I don’t want to go into too many details about the number of things that made me scratch my head because that would take too long (and, frankly, I don’t want to frustrate myself further by dismantling a movie so perplexing), but here’s an example: You’ve probably seen in the trailer that the officers of R.I.P.D. have “avatars” so they can work undercover amongst the living. Ryan Reynolds’ avatar is an elderly Chinese man. That’s great. It’s ironic, it’s effective and it’s amusing. However, Jeff Bridges’ avatar is a smoking-hot blonde who, for some reason, wears a tight, form-fitting, low-cut dress. Clearly, the writers did that to be funny, but the gag is nullified by its senselessness. If you’re working undercover – especially as covertly as a spirit among the living – how is it effective to draw attention to yourself by being exceptionally good-looking? Even the movie itself shows how inconvenient it is since human bystanders are constantly ogling Officer Pulsipher and, in some cases, interrupting their investigation by hitting on him. It’s kinda funny, but not funny enough to justify its absurdity. The whole movie’s strung together by such aberrations that I just couldn’t swallow it. I was ready, willing and able to buy the concept of deceased lawmen hunting fugitive spirits, but I guess the filmmakers weren’t willing to take it as seriously as I was.

Movie Thirty-one: The Wolverine – I didn’t see X-Men Origins: Wolverine until a month or two ago and, I gotta say, I think it kinda got a bum rap. It’s not a particularly good movie, but it’s nowhere near the stinky turd everyone made it out to be. Never really having read X-Men comics, my pre-conceived notions were minimal at best, so maybe that’s why. At the very least, I thought it delivered enough mutant vs. mutant action to be worth watching. The Wolverine is a better movie, but seriously lacks in the mutant department. There are a couple in there besides Wolverine, but for all intents and purposes, this more closely resembles a samurai flick than a superhero movie. In a lot of ways, that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing mainly because it makes this a decent individual movie (as opposed to a chapter in a series). With the exception of references to the end of X-Men: The Last Stand and an epilogue that sets the stage for X-Men: Days of Future Past, there’s not much connection to the other movies and you don’t even need to have seen the previous installments (unless you require the basic exposition of Wolverine’s character, which the movie sums up well enough as it goes along) to get the gist of it. Frankly, given the haphazard non-sequential chronology they’ve been following with these movies, it’s felt a bit confusing trying to keep the timeline straight. Doesn’t sound like X-Men: Days of Future Past is gonna cut us any slack, either, since it will contain characters from all different time continuums. So, a stand-alone film with minimal mutants and a self-contained story is actually quite refreshing. Plus, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is always entertaining any way you slice it.

Movie Thirty-two: The Way Way Back – It occurred to me the other day that so much of everyone’s childhood is just waiting. By that, I mean all the times your mother or father would take you somewhere merely because they had errands to run and you were too young to look after yourself. I was thinking of all the times I sat in a shopping cart while my mom bought groceries or being in the car with my dad while dropped stuff off to and from work or even in the waiting room of the doctor’s office because my brother was sick, not me (to say nothing of all the “naps” I was forced to take where I just laid there wide awake looking up at the ceiling and thinking what total bullshit naps were). Suddenly, I felt deprived of a significant percentage of my youth by having to sit quietly and patiently while not playing, learning, or even working. My thinking on this didn’t even extend into my pre-driver’s license adolescence. That opens up a whole new level of painful memories and this movie is almost entirely based around those miseries. It effectively illustrates how sucky it is to be drug along on family outings (and exactly why they suck), but it kinda fails in its coming-of-age moments of actualization and redemption. Not from lack of trying, there are some great set-ups, but the outcomes aren’t as satisfying or realistic as I was hoping. Overall, the movie is basically the same story as 2009’s Adventureland, with a bit more emphasis on family. In other words, there’s nothing much new here. That’s okay, though. It’s important to tell stories like this every few years so we don’t forget our own experiences growing up. This movie wasn’t nearly as touching as it aspired to be, but I appreciated it for making me feel reflective.

And so, onto August. Not sure what my first movie will be, but it probably still won’t be The To-Do List.