How Not to Steal a Movie Concept

I read an interesting bit of Hollywood dirt yesterday, something which was likely common knowledge for a lot of people, but which I didn't know.

It seems that the special effects firm working on Battle: Los Angeles, which is about a group of aliens attacking that city, also decided to make a movie of their own.

That other movie happens to be Skyline which just came out, which is about aliens attacking Los Angeles. Hmmm. Interesting.

This leads me to a question: if you were a producer, would you hire an effects firm that clearly took your ideas and equipment to make a competing movie that could potentially damage your film's reception. I certainly wouldn't.

Given the box office returns for Skyline, it looks like this was really a case of career suicide for everyone involved. And I am sure Sony, the studio behind Battle: Los Angeles will be pursuing every legal option they have in their arsenal against this firm as well.

A Little Luck based word problem

I've always wondered who gets the bad luck in situations where two people are fighting and one combatant throws or pushes his/her opponent into or even through a mirror.

I mean, I know the person who went into the mirror has the bad luck in the short term, and the person who put them through it eventually gets some form of comeuppance, but is there some book of superstition rules that one who believed in such things should consult.

You know, something akin to the work Emily Post did for etiquette. There has to be some giant book of canon on this sort of thing to help people watching movies and reading books and the like keep up with who has given themselves or their foe some bad luck (like what if you ran under a ladder to push someone you were fighting against into the path of a black cat and through a mirror, but they managed to pick up a four leaf clover and clobber you with a lucky horseshoe... whose luck would be worse)? Sort of like a form of luck algebra or something like that.

Not that I am superstitious mind you... but I still think that would be an interesting book nonetheless...

Sometimes I have too much time on my hands.

Tags: luck, horseshoe, mirror, four leaf clover, black cat, goocher, luck algebra, rabbits foot

The Last Man

I was recently tagged by Samuraifrog to do this particular meme, and as you well know, I am not huge on these, but the premise of this is so interesting, I had to pursue it. And that being said, this whole thing was started by someone named JDC.

The question at hand is:
"You wake up tomorrow and every person on the planet has vanished. What do you do?"

Day One: I think it would take me a while to realize that I was perhaps the last person left on Earth. Upon that realization (which the television universe wouldn't entirely acknowledge the cataclysm because there would still be stations that run programming by robot. I would likely be in a state of denial about the situation at hand, but being a pragmatist, I would look up some of the little tricks I would need to know online before both the internet and power grid became non-functional, information which would not be widely available from any books I could readily find (like hotwiring a car and other activities which civil society frowns upon). While the amenities lasted, I would take advantage of the perishables, as I know they will be fleeting. I lack most of the basic skills to survive outside of the confines of civilization, so there are going to be some harsh lessons to be learned if I am going to survive.

Week One: I have discovered the fun of living in a world without consequences. I could see myself engaging in destructive behavior just because I could get away with it and engaging in other behavior that would lead to my former incarceration... like shooting at parked cars and breaking and entering. Then again, who am I really hurting at this point. At the same time, I would to contemplate the fact that without other human beings and their skills, I am going to be in trouble if I was to break my glasses (a situation like the one lamentably faced by Burgess Meredith in the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last), need medical help or require something else that requires specialization and timely maintenance. By now, I expect that the power system would have largely broken down, so any food which was perishable would have likely started going south. I have likely eaten the last fresh meat and frozen food I am going to have for a while. I stock up on a variety of medical supplies... just in case I get in a situation which makes it difficult to acquire them when needed. The water system is also likely compromised, so I would likely be living on bottled water.

Month One: I come to realize why in a post-apocalyptic society gasoline is so prized... and how important electricity is in delivering it. While I may have gotten used to elements of this new lifestyle, depression over the things I've lost will consume me. With a stash of prescription medications, including a wide variety of painkillers, anti-depressants and sleeping pills, along with unfettered access to booze from both bars and liquor stores, I would descend into a cycle of substance abuse, which while killing me, also keeps me somewhat sane. I will likely be cooking with propane, as it would still likely be available in a form that I could transport depending on the season. While I might have felt more comfortable in this survival mode, there are still many things to learn if I hope to survive. And part of me doesn't want to do so. I am soft, weak, and while I may fantasize about such scenarios, like the zombie apocalypse, I know that I am not a survivor. Every day will be a struggle, shortened by substance abuse of course.

Year One: If I make it to this point without killing myself on purpose, by an accidental drug or alcohol overdose or by act of nature, I will likely be almost ready to take dominion over the world. At some point nature will get the better of me, and my demons should be under control. Hopefully. Perhaps by this point I have a truck full of loot and am slowly making my way across down the highways and byways of the North American continent, looking for fellow survivors, those rare needles in a haystack who would have likely been as isolated as myself. It is a futile search, but it would give my life some meaning, some boundaries which were so painfully lacking in the months previous. I don't know how long I will struggle for, but I am not going to quit. Not yet.

Now I am supposed to pick someone else to do this as well.



I Choose You, Megan!

Tags: last man, cataclysm, zombie, end of the world, survivor, alone, samuraifrog, jdc

Burning Question: Homage or rip off?

I haven't done one of these in a while, so there may be a little bit of rust.

As I've said numerous times this year, I have been working on developing a television pilot. At this point, I am just about to take a lot of my copious notes and start putting pen to paper, but I was confronted the horrible thought that my clever references and such could be considered theft.

I am trying to figure out where the line is between paying homage to something and ripping that source material off, and I am all about the former and really wary about the latter.

So my question is: Where do you consider the line between paying homage and ripping something off?

Tags: homage, pilot, television, ripoff, plagiarism

Burning Question: Radiohead vs. Prince

So here is a little story about Prince that you may have heard already, but if you haven't, well, it is interesting to say the least.

Prince performed at Coachella in April, and as part of his set, he did a cover of Radiohead's Creep, a performance that some would call questionable.

Then people who attended the concert started putting those videos up on Youtube. Well, Prince didn't like that and he had his legal team sweep down and force the site to remove them, a move which has been part of his overall media strategy as of late.

Of course, Radiohead had wanted to see their song performed by the iconic Minneapolis-based artist, and have claimed that they, rather than Prince, should have the right to determine if a clip is to be removed or not.

Now, I've had a bit of fun taking some shots at the Paisley Park's Dancing Purple Fan Eater, but I can honestly say that in this case, I can sort of see all three sides.

Prince, as the performer should have some control over how his image is presented, and he had an agreement that the first three songs in his set would not be photographed or filmed. I don't know if Creep was one of those songs however.

Radiohead, as the original artists and the songwriters also seem to have their own rights in this matter. Do their rights outweigh those of Prince in this matter? That I do not know. But it is an interesting question in this day and age.

And then there are the fans who recorded the footage in the first place who are caught in the middle of this. Just because they were communal witnesses to an event, does that give them the right to be the arbiters of what is and is not acceptable in this situation? And did buying a ticket come with other stipulations that these concert goers were bound by in terms of recording and disseminating onstage material?

So my question is this: Who do you think is most in the right about this situation?

Tags: prince, radiohead, thom yorke, coachella, concert, creep, paisley park, burning question, youtube

Burning Question: What Would you Do for a Million Hits?

It has been quite a while since we had a burning question here at Culture Kills, but last week, a discussion emerged at Layercake because of that 3-year old critic of Star Wars.

That clip had about 46 thousand hits when Heidi first posted it, and then a few hours later it had over 1.2 million. Then I quipped "I am thinking about what I would do to get that kind of traffic. It is pretty extreme." And the slogan and music from those old Klondike Bar commercials played through my head.

So the burning question is: What would you do for a million hit day(one which won't kill your site or cost you hosting fees)?

Would you do something really embarrassing? Something frightening? Something against your better nature?

Tags: what would you do, klondike bar, star wars, gary coleman, burning question, digg, layercake, heidi, scruples, shakespeare

Burning Question: A franchise that should reinvent itself?

After seeing Casino Royale a few weeks ago, a movie which reinvented the Bond franchise with a harder, cleaner and more realistic line, it made me wonder if there were a few other movie series that could do with that same kind of reinvention. On the television end, Battlestar Galactica, seems to also be doing well in this kind of reenvisioning, so there another recent precedent for this kind of work.

Now I am not talking remakes(even though technically, Casino Royale was a remake itself), sequels that advance a world or story in a different direction.

Alien: Alien Vs. Predator doesn't count(because it makes absolutely no sense from a chronological standpoint). Ellen Ripley was a compelling character, but the threat from the Alien horde transcends her, and in the hands of a capable director and good screenwriter, I know there is more story worth telling in this universe without Ripley.

Gremlins: I admit, this one seems really really weird, but hear me out. It has been 17 years since the substandard and self-parodying Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and again, there are some story left to tell, and there is plot element that the original script of Gremlins had which Steven Spielberg had removed. Gizmo was supposed to become Stripe in that movie, but that was changed in a later draft of the script because he felt that such a change would have confused people. I think it would be a great final chapter for these movies. I think it is time for that vision(helmed again by Joe Dante), to make it to the screen.

So, are their any movie/television franchises you think need to reinvent themselves?

Tags: casino royale, gremlins, joe dante, alien, predator, battlestar galactica, spielberg, james bond, reinvention, gizmo, stripe, new batch, ellen ripley

Burning Question: Worst Books You've read

Hilly recently posted a meme that consisted of a list of 100 books, and other readers were supposed to examine the list and do their own variation on it. While I am not doing the meme, it did make me stop and think about some of the great books I read, and then as a sidenote, I began to think about the worst books I ever read. Now, this doesn't mean that they are in fact bad, and I have to be clear about that since at least one of my selections is likely to be someone's favorite, so keep that in mind.

Now because of the commitment involved, you most likely didn't finish some of the worst books you ever tried to read, and I understand that, so they count. I mean, there are a lot of books that I started and didn't finish. And there are others that you've probably forgotten(or repressed) that you can't or won't talk about either. Novels you've read for school count as well.

When thinking about the question, the first title that came to my mind was this book called World Without End by Sean Russell. I read it about a decade ago, and I did manage to finish it, but, wow, it really did not appeal to me, despite the fact that at the time I was into both fantasy and the history of early modern science. It just didn't captivate me.

I also recalled my grade 10 English class where we had to read both A Separate Peace by John Knowles and Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and I hated them both. The less said about A Separate Peace the better, but I would like to note that the reason I don't like Catcher in the Rye is Holden Caufield isn't really the most likable of characters. I think my words at the time was that he was "a whiny bitch", and to this day I feel comfortable with that assessment.

So, what are some of the worst books you ever read?

Tags: world without end, burning question, sean russell, scientific method, catcher in the rye, separate peace, salinger, knowles, worst book, snackie's world, holden caufield

Burning Question: Worst/Best literary adaptation

We've all seen them: movies based on books we love that are far less glorious than they could have been. Whether it be Bonfire of the Vanities, Johnny Mnemonic, The Time Machine or Battlefield Earth(Ok, there wasn't really that much good to work with anyway on this one), there have been a lot of movie makers that done a lot of damage.... and I was curious as to which movie adaptations you were just repelled by.

And by the same token, there are movies that just get it right when it comes to their subject matter. Even if they aren't word for word representations of the story they are attached to, they still manage to capture what was essential about work to complement it.

I am reminded of a moment in time where I actually burned myself. I was looking up the movie version of Ulysses again recently and there was a user review of it, and reading the title, I thought what idiot wrote that it was the best they could have done with the material. I was that idiot 7 years earlier. That is a unique moment. But I digress.

Now personally in my worst category I have to say that The Postman was perhaps the greatest cinematic disappointment I've seen... but Kevin Costner was involved, so I shouldn't have had high expectations. It wasn't David Brin's best book(I think Glory Season holds that title), but it was a good yarn and a well-thought out tale. It saddens me to think that David Brin claimed to be happy with the bloated, overly produced results. Total Recall is another movie adaptation that really missed the point of the simple Philip K. Dick tale "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale".

On the flipside, I was impressed by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, even though it wasn't 100% accurate to the books, it did seem to really capture the spirit of Douglas Adams and his sense of whimsy and it is my hope that if they ever do make a Discworld novel into a movie, that they at least try to accomplish that. Gettysburg, an adaptation of Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels is also particularly noteworthy in my mind.

Now my burning question is: What are the best and worst literary adaptations you've seen?

Tags: burning question, literary adaptation, time machine, postman, total recall, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, discworld, gettysburg, killer angels, philip k. dick, douglas adams, ulysses

Burning Question: Make one movie/series disappear

After yesterday's post, I began to think about what movies I would completely blot out from existence and make it so it had never been made. Quite a few naturally sprang to mind(Battlefield: Earth, Freddy Got Fingered), but one has so scarred not only me, but the entire world that I feel that someone should go back in time and destroy the prints before it is shown to another human being.

I am of course talking about 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Now I could just wail on that movie for 2000 words, and bore you all to death, but I'd rather let the folks at Rotten Tomatoes do it for me. I will just say this- Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees are not the Beatles and George Burns should never ever sing.

And it was this line of self-inquiry that brought about the Burning question: If you could go back in time and destroy a movie or even a movie series so that it never existed, what would it be?

I mean, Disney made Song of the South disappear(Yikes!) from the face of the earth, so why shouldn't you be able to make a film or film series disappear too?

Tags: sgt. pepper's, lonely hearts club, bee gees, george burns, battlefield earth, freddy got fingered, song of the south, disney, peter frampton, scientology, burning question

Burning Question: Who would you take on?

I was watching Fight Club last night, and when the scene where Tyler(Pitt) and Jack(Norton) were discussing the famous people they would take in a fight, it got me to thinking about the very same question in a few other variations.

For instance, I had never considered who I would take on in a fight if I had to pick an advertising icon. I mean, there are so many choices, and while someone like the Burger King or Ronald McDonald springs immediately to mind, they just don't seem right for my burning rage. And I admit it would be fun to beat the living crap out of the Pillsbury Dough Boy whilst yelling "Whose laughing now, beeyotch!", but that would still be unfulfilling.

No, the answer came to me in a flash: the owl from those old Tootsie Pop Commercials, that smarmy overly intellectual, conniving ball of feathers. He deserves that beatdown, because I am sure that wasn't the first kid that he conned out of their Tootsie Pop or other valued consumer good. I am sure there are stories about his days teaching at the local school that would also make him a prime candidate for a brutal bird beating. I would wring his scrawny professorial neck, I would, I would and boot that brainiac lollybiter to the curb. That would be some sweet satisfaction.

So, who would you take on and how would that fight turn out?

Tags: tootsie pop, owl, fight club, brad pitt, celebrity, burger king, ronald mcdonald, pillsbury doughboy, burning question