the Arcanite

A Simple Faith

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Sat, 03 Aug 2024 15:03:45 GMT

Searching for meaning in a religion gone rancid.

This article is the first in a series about my faith journey, it's near extinction, and how it's going.

In the West Building of the National Gallery of Art hangs a massive painting, 92 x 141 in. if you include the frame. The artist is Albert Bierstadt and this piece is "Lake Lucerne," painted in 1858. Bierstadt would go on to create some of my favorite landscapes of all time a few years later after visiting the Rocky Mountains.

My connection to this painting is not just my love of Bierstadt's landscapes, but the fact that it's depicting a real location in Switzerland. My surname, Spitler, is Swiss, meaning hospitality . It's also derived from the same latin word we use for hospital , possibly even connected to the Knights Hospitaller. I've been able to trace my genealogy back to Switzerland in the 1700s when our name was still spelled Spittallah. A hospitaller would have been our modern equivalent of an inn keeper, but their role in the Alps was to provide respite for mountain travelers. I'm digressing—a post for another day, perhaps.

So there I am standing in front of a picturesque lakeside village in the Swiss Alps painted by one of my favorite landscape artists, wondering why on earth my ancestors would leave this country.

This painting is nothing short of awe inspiring. The scale of the canvas allows Bierstadt to paint amazing details adding to the texture of the landscape. It really does feel like you're standing in a place in time. His use of light makes you feel the weather—the clouds moving over the sunlit mountains and lake. Those mountains feel enormous, towering over us with protective rigidity—timeless guardians.

As your eyes wander the canvas you'll notice the roads, the village, the farmhouses, the wildlife—and then a church. The church is not the first thing you'll see, not by a long shot. It hides in shadow in an embankment overlooking the valley below, far to the right of the image.

I suddenly had another connection to this painting, though I couldn't put it into words at the time.

Today, as I tried forming my thoughts for this article, I poured over some of the photographs I'd taken while visiting the National Gallery of Art. This one stood out immediately and gave me an anchor to express my point of view.

I find it fascinating that despite the building's location, atop a hillside overlooking the village, the church itself is hidden in shadow. It does not offer any comfort or majesty in the painting. In fact the lakeside village is detached from the church by a significant stretch of road but appears quite comfortable to be at opposite ends of the canvas in its sunlit mountain vista.

The church is not a central gathering place for the people of this village. It gives the impression someone felt the need to give an artificial importance to the church location, plopping atop the hill to overlook the villagers below.

I don't know anything about the real location of this painting, or the religious climate in Switzerland in 1858, but I do know this small feature of the painting speaks to how I feel about the Church today.

I grew up in rural Ohio, attending a little Methodist church in a village whose main feature was the grain elevator at its center. It looks strikingly similar to the building in this painting. At one point I was an "acolyte," which was a high title for the boys responsible for lighting the candles at the alter at the start of every service, and extinguishing them at the end. I was baptized in that church on some Easter Sunday (sprinkled, not dunked, because—reasons, I guess?) when I was too young to know what it meant.

But I did read my Bible. I read it enough to know what the Jesus in my Bible was saying didn't line up with what the Church was doing.

I'll give you an example, but I have to fast forward a few years. In high school I was the "president" of the youth group, which was controversial because I was no longer attending that church. My parents had opted to drive 45 minutes to an aspiring televangelist she'd seen on local television (he was not mainstream or nationally televised). I was also involved in the youth services at the new church (they were too cool to call it a youth group) .

The new church was going to put on a big event for the youth of Dayton, OH, wanting to offer to pick the kids up and bring them to the church for the event—but they needed a bus.

Hey, no problem, I'm the president of a youth group who just happens to own a bus!

We call up the pastor who thinks it's a great idea, BUT he needs to run it by the board of directors first. Fifteen minutes later he calls us back.

"Sorry, but the charter states the bus can only be used for official Methodist functions."

"Sorry, but the charter states the bus can only be used for official Methodist functions ."

Here is a golden opportunity for this small town, rural church to be part of saving souls in the big city and they totally drop the ball. There were multiple attempts to change the mind of the board but they wouldn't budge, it was cut and dry for them, as easy as the black and white in their worthless charter.

It had a lasting impression on me and I never went back.

Here was this little church proverbially situated atop a hill, completely in shadow, detached from the community it pretended to serve.

Let's fast forward 20 years. During that time I'd gotten married, joined the Marines, started a family, gotten out of the Marines, lived in Southern California, New York City, and back to Southern California. Our relationship with the church waned and my faith had all but evaporated at one point, but returning to SoCal made us want to reconnect with the church "family" we'd started relationships the first time we lived there.

We were quickly welcomed back with open arms and things were really looking up from an emotional standpoint. Over the years my wife built strong relationships, as did I. Four years later some really weird things started happening.

The church was trying to be anything but the steeple clad denominations of the past. These folks were putting on a concert every week and titillating the emotions of the congregation at every turn. We met in an old warehouse connected to a fitness center. They started in a living room, moved up to renting out the cycling room, eventually took over the volleyball court, and worked their way into the warehouse on the other side.

The thing is, the congregation hadn't grown to a point we could actually afford that space. It was all done "on faith" God was going to provide the congregation we needed, all we had to do was—well you get it.

And then the fitness center no longer wanted the volleyball court. This was a problem because we were still using that space for our youth church on Sunday mornings and the leadership wouldn't imagine putting the kids back into the old rooms, and I guess we didn't have the faith to believe God would take care of it so we rented that space, too!

"The church can't afford rent!"

Soon I started getting group texts and emails from the pastors begging for anyone who hadn't contributed their tithe recently to send it in immediately or the church can't afford rent! And then we'll be homeless! All the while, on Saturday mornings the men would gather together and reassure the pastor we didn't need the building. We'd happily meet in a field or parking lot and put our money toward helping the community.

But no, this was not acceptable. Our faith couldn't falter now, look how far we'd come! And just in time for the rent to start increasing on all that space we're renting, in the middle of planning to upgrade our spaces with more bathrooms and extra HVAC units on the roof, all on faith that if we build it, they will come.

At some point a new guy started to come. For the sake of this article we'll call him Bill. He had experienced some health issues and was no longer able to work. He'd been living in a pull-behind trailer in a parking lot with no electric or water hookups. His health issues also prevented him from driving, so in order to move the trailer he'd need assistance.

The church offered to pay for Bill to park his trailer in a park with hookups for 30 days, but after that it would be up to him to figure things out. The church touted this like it was a big deal and they were so Godly for helping a member of their congregation like this. All I could see was social media fodder with no real meat to the gesture. This man was going to be back to zero in 30 days.

My wife and I felt strongly our tithe needed to go toward paying for Bill's ability to stay long-term at the campgrounds. We did this privately and I'm only writing it here because it plays a role in the very next thing that happens.

The pastor's wife was paying close attention to who was and was not paying tithe.

It had come to light the pastor's wife was paying close attention to who was and was not paying tithe. It did not go unnoticed my tithe checks stopped rolling in. At this same time I'd also been attending a gathering of other believers for a deep-dive Bible study, something my current church did not offer. I was not quiet about this fact and often brought things I'd learned to our Saturday morning men's group. I didn't think anything of it.

One Friday night I'm asked to meet the head pastor at the church. He was emphatic it happen that night. I roll up with my young daughter in the car and see the youth pastor is also present. He is not a small man and I felt instantly this was intended to be intimidating.

We met in the head pastor's office, the youth pastor standing behind him like a mafia bodyguard, silent and unmoving, hands crossed like he's waiting for a fight. He wasn't, but it certainly felt that way from where I was sitting.

In fact there's another painting at the National Gallery of Art. It's part of a series by Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel. The painting is "The Trial of Joan of Arc (Joan of Arc series: VI)." Just look at the way the pope (or whoever he is) glowers at Joan from the darkness. Looking at this painting reminds me of how I felt sitting in that office that evening.

The tithe issue was never brought up, but the pastor's words were, "Your loyalties lie elsewhere."

I knew what he meant right away. He thought I'd been paying tithes to this other group I was having Bible study with and that my loyalty to him and his wife had shifted to another church, when in fact I'd been paying for a member of our congregation to have basic human living conditions.

My reply was simple. "My loyalties are to Jesus. If we're both loyal to Jesus there's no problem."

And then he said, "I've been told by another member of the congregation that's it's them or you. If you don't leave they're not returning."

It took me a few days to figure this out, but he was talking about his wife. She'd been eyeing the books and given him an ultimatum and I simply was not going to win this battle. Nor did I want to. True colors were never more clear.

Tears were shed. Feelings were hurt. Faith was broken.

I am leaving out a plethora of details as this article is already of significant length, but suffice it to say this was like a nuclear bomb to my family's emotional and spiritual wellbeing. That was six years ago and my wife is still resistant to attend church again.

Another church atop a hill in shadow, detached from the community it claims to serve.

For the sake of giving you a conclusion to that story, I'll add two years later the church disintegrated and the pastors moved from SoCal to Virginia in hurry. The congregation was absorbed by another. They were excited to finally have a building because they'd been meeting in a high school parking lot for years. Turns out even with combining congregations the building was not affordable and the new pastor did what the old one could not—simply walk away.

For six years I have worked at reclaiming my faith. It is no surprise to me at all my generation is leaving Christianity in droves. The denominations are more interested in becoming businesses, putting on concerts and motivational speeches that Tony Robbins would be proud of. But they're empty, void of meaning or any spiritual depth.

I will never walk into a traditional church again.

The tithe chasing mega-churches (and mega-church wannabes) are winning. There's no room for me there. I will never walk into a traditional church again.

But my faith has not disappeared. If anything, I feel closer to Jesus than I ever have. It's a simple faith I'm after—a relationship. No, it's more specific than that. It's a romance.

While I feel it's a simple faith , it is not without work, just as any relationship requires.

If you're still with me, thank you for reading this.

Make. Believe.

—Shawn

D&D as Therapy

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 18:25:24 GMT

How 'Game Mastering' helps my creativity.

If you Google ‘D&D therapy,’ you’ll find most articles are written about the therapeutic powers of playing D&D, but almost nothing about how running a game of D&D might be therapeutic.

Let me start by explaining what today's blog is not. I am not a therapist and am not here to give advice, but hope my exploration of running this game can give you hope and ideas on how you might find fulfillment through this unique storytelling medium. By no means am I an expert Dungeon Master or player of D&D, so these ramblings will never be me telling you how to do something better, and you’ll never hear me say you’re doing it wrong. To the contrary—I hope you’ll be the ones giving me advice!

From 2005 to 2010 I was an active duty Marine—a combat photographer. It was a sweet gig and I loved it. Mostly. After I was honorably discharged, I went to NYU and worked on earning a Masters degree in Film & Television Production.

I had almost zero transition period between my military career and rendering civilian life. If you don’t know, the military is notoriously bad at helping servicemen and women transition back into civilian life.

My first two years at NYU were amazing. Military life translates surprisingly well into film production. There are a lot of similarities with hierarchy, acronyms, inside lingo, crass humor, and being punctual. Simply showing up to class or to a film set a few minutes early every day earned me the nickname “Mr. Punctuality.” It’s surprising how much mileage I got out of that.

By my third year in the program, I was very popular with both students and professors and when I applied to be a Graduate Assistant I was accepted without hesitation. What they don’t tell you about PTSD, especially as you’re transitioning out of the military and need to hear it the most, is your symptoms can take years to manifest.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, this was the point in my life where my PTSD symptoms would start to surface. Additionally, I started to experience muscle pain so severe I couldn’t turn my head—the result of a training accident while fast-rope out of a Sea Stallion helicopter.

For those who don’t know, fast-roping involves sliding down a rope from a helicopter while in flight. The rope is anchored to the ceiling of the helicopter and descends through the “hell hole,” as we call it in the Marines (a square opening in the floor). To successfully fast-rope, you must properly wrap the rope around one leg, over one foot, and between your boots. Control of your speed occurs when you cinch your feet together. Your hands are for balance, not for control.

When it was my turn to drop, I couldn’t quite get the rope wrapped properly around my leg. The impatient Marine behind me, not realizing I was having trouble, decided to give me a helpful push. Zzzzzzzzzzip! Down I fell with only my gloved hands to control me. I can still smell the roasted nylon.

I landed on my right ankle and could feel a shot of electricity shoot up my leg, through my back, and into my head. I dropped like a rock. One of the training officials had to push me out of the way so I wouldn’t be crushing by the next fast-roper.

I was given an ankle brace and some Motrin and deployed a month later.

This would go on to become a chronic experience. In fact I’m experiencing a fit right now as I write this, nine years after it first onset in my third year of NYU.

My biggest PTSD symptom is probably anxiety, but for a person who’d never experienced anxiety before, it was a mystery to me what was happening. I was getting easily irritated—even made one girl cry just by shaking my head in frustration every time she asked a question about some hypothetical scenario we’d never experience. We eventually made nice, but I do think shamefully on myself for how I acted toward my peers in those days.

I was finding it increasingly difficult to follow through on simple tasks, or to ever feel like I’d properly prepared for a class as the Graduate Assistant. As long I remembered where I was supposed to be, my punctuality never wavered. Unfortunately, I was forgetting meetings and just not showing up.

Things got so bad one of my professors, bless her soul, called me into her office and asked, “Are you okay? What’s going on?” I didn’t have an answer. I knew something was wrong because I wasn’t myself. Every week of my life I’d been a joyful person and liked to imagine I was a light in the room. But now I felt I was draining the light from others, sucking away their joy. “I don’t know,” was all I could manage to say.

After NYU things got worse. Depression set in. I was trying to write full-time and make it in Hollywood. After a few meetings with big producers that led nowhere the depression got worse. Things got dark. Real dark. God bless my wife, her patience and her grace feel endless.

For five years she was the soul bread winner. I promised her from the start if she gave me five years in California, if I hadn’t figured it out by then, we could move back home to Ohio. By year three I was a barista at Starbucks. Don’t get me wrong, I love that company, but when you have a Masters degree from the most prestigious film school in the world, being a coffee jockey for lack of options does not help one’s self esteem.

Eventually I did find film-related work at the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA). They had partnered with the LA County Libraries to form a program called Veterans Make Movies. I started as one of the assistants and worked my way up to being a Teaching Artist.

The program was eight weeks long and took part several times a year. Veterans met on weekends and we taught them how to use film as an art form—a therapy.

There were always two Teaching Artists and two assistants. The teachers were always comprised of one military Veteran/filmmaker and one civilian artist who understood the art side of things (both film and traditional).

This was my first time experiencing a world where art could be a therapy, and I have to be honest, it wouldn’t occur to me for several more years what I’d really been exposed to. At the time I was full of myself and thought myself the master when I should have slowed my roll and listened more to the other instructors.

It surprised me how much incredible work came out of those classes in just eight weekends. Here’s a playlist of some of the work my students crafted.

Watch some of the videos here.

Over time I’d slowly lost contact with my childhood friends, even those I call best friends. Two such friends were Josh and Mike. We were in middle and high school together. All three of us attended the same church, pastored by Josh’s dad.

Mike joined the Army and was a huge part of my deciding to join the military. Staying in touch with him was never easy and eventually we stopped trying. Our wives follow each other on Facebook and that was enough to feel we had a connection.

Josh and I had a falling out of sorts. He graciously drove me to New York to hunt for apartments in 2011. On the way home we had a disagreement on politics (nothing ever good comes from a discussion about politics) and simply stopped calling each other. Nothing malicious. It just happened and before you know it seven years go by.

Seven years.

And then one day my wife comes into the room, eyes full of tears. She could barely speak.

“Your friend Mike … He passed away.”

What? How? Where? What is happening? He’s got two kids! He’s not even deployed. The room was spinning.

The first thing I thought to do was text Josh. It’s a shame the death of a friend is what it took to remind me of what’s important in life. And it ain’t politics!

Josh and I rekindled our friendship and I can honestly say if it wasn’t for him, I’d not be writing this blog.

I honestly can’t remember who brought up D&D first, but eventually Josh and I realized we both had a shared love of this game. Mine started in the living room of my childhood best friends when I was a young teenager. Josh’s started while he lived in Florida and he’d visit local game stores to play D&D Adventure League. For that to have any impact on you, you must first know Josh hates people, crowds, leaving the house, and interacting with most sentient life. But D&D had a magical effect on him (no pun intended).

Eventually he moved back to Ohio and to no one’s surprise found a complete lack of a D&D player base in the rural cornfields of Arcanum. Yes, he really lives in a village called Arcanum. Nobody in the town seems to understand how cool a name that is.

Fun fact, when thinking out a name for our company I researched the demonym for Arcanum. There wasn’t one, so I invented one and ARCANITE was born. And now you know the secret (pun intended this time).

Our discovery for a shared love of D&D occurred less than two years ago at this point. For you to understand why that is so significant to me, please note that I like to fixate on things passionately for short periods of time before moving on to something else. For about three or four months I can get really fired up about a given topic for no particular reason. But it’s my favorite thing and all I can focus on for that short period of time.

But D&D has been different. I’ve maintained a consistent love for this game for almost two years! Why? I don’t even think I’m that great at it, if we’re being honest. Not to mention I rarely get to play. And when I do get to play, I’m not a player, but the Dungeon Master—a responsibility most shy away from because it comes with a lot of work. Like, a lot of work.

I don’t have a definitive answer for you, but I think it’s somewhere inside this anecdote. Last month I was visiting good ol’ New York City! And all the friends I’ve made there. One such friend is Dan, a fellow Marine and NYU grad living in Jersey. We got to talking about our PTSD and anxiety. Part of Dan’s treatment involves driving for Lyft. When he’s not able to sleep or having a bad day, he turns on the app and drives.

For Dan, driving Lyft is calming. He enjoys the calming nature of brief conversations with strangers at random hours of the day and night. With Lyft, he’s in control. He can turn the app off when he’s done, or back on when he needs the therapeutic calm of hearing a stranger’s goings-on. Hearing Dan describe what he gets out of Lyft made me realize I was getting the same thing from Dungeon Mastering.

DM prep is whatever I need it to be, whenever I need it to be that. I can prep a game I’ll never play, just to enjoy the act of researching fictional encounters, mapping never before explored dungeons, or deciphering the bewildering texts of an official D&D campaign setting (seriously, why are they so hard to understand?). I can create entire worlds, races, creatures, puzzles, riddles, armor, items, names, cultures, biomes, et al.

All artists need one thing—crave just one thing—feedback. I believe art is sought after when we see how something we’ve created out of thin air is received by someone else. It usually starts with our mother fawning over stick figures in crayon. Hey, what’s that warm feeling on my insides? I like that. If I draw another one I can get that feeling again. And so the cycle continues until we’re impressing total strangers (the real prize).

For me, this is the hardest part about being a filmmaker—the feedback comes too slowly, if ever. In fact, there’s nothing harmful to an artist than negative feedback or harsh criticism. I’ve spent a decade writing screenplays and trying to get them made. How awful would it be to finally get one into production, spend all that time, energy, and money on something that ultimately fails?

With Dungeon Mastering, however, I can develop a small part of a world for players to explore and get realtime feedback during a session. I’ve had sessions I didn’t think went well, and we’ll talk about that more in other blogs, but that’s the addiction for me—wanting to win them back next game.

And that’s where Arcanite Weekly comes in. This is where I’m going to talk it out, feel my way through this unique storytelling medium that’s part writing, part theater, part improv, all creativity. Are you a military Veteran, artist, or filmmaker looking to find a storytelling therapy? Let me know in the comments about your experiences and we’ll work explore together.

Turning Point

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Sat, 04 Mar 2023 18:45:38 GMT

What I learned at grandpa's funeral.

As a child I remember seeing a party decorated with black balloons, black cray paper, black tablecloths, black napkins, etc. One balloon, the kind you used to buy at a K-mart checkout counter read, “Over the Hill.”

I asked my mother why all the black? She responded, “Someone is turning 40.” Why does it say ‘Over the Hill? “Because they’re middle-aged. They’re half way through their life,” she replied.

I could not wrap my head around this for two reasons. In my mind, people lived to be well over 80, so how could 40 be over the hill? How did they know this person might not live to be 100? In which case, the black balloons should not be brought out until their 50th birthday. Secondly, why was black being used to celebrate? All birthdays, to a child, are to be treasured and celebrated colorfully, with lots of confections.

Silently I promised myself I’d live to be 100. And no black balloons—ever.

I am 39, at the precipice of 40. My grandpa just died. I attended his Celebration of Life service in the same small village he lived in for 60+ years. In the little church he attended all those years, the same one I remember overflowing with children and laughter when I was little, had dwindled in attendance over time. The last time I visited several years ago, I don’t think the attendance rose above 60.

The day of my grandpa’s service, however, the church pews could not contain the number of people who attended. Even the overflow section was so full some folks needed to stand along the back and sides of the meeting hall.

He’d passed almost two weeks prior and I hadn’t cried yet. I knew I needed to cry. The only way I would is if I stood up and looked out over the crowd of people who’d been touched by this man we all loved so much.

Sure enough, before I could utter my first word, standing in front of this small sea of people, I broke. My words were not carefully thought out. They were not poetic. I simply forced every thought racing through my mind out and through my mouth—passed the falling tears.

I did not know a large number of folks who attended. A few stood up to share a story about this ornery, positive, prayerful, strong man who, despite more than a decade of living in a wheelchair with one working limb, still found a way to give to everyone around him.

He’d cart around the village and wave at passers-by. If the battery to his chair was too low for a stroll, he’d simply stay on the porch, waving at every car that passed by. The Town Greeter they called him.

For context, this man once loved body building. His house, which I visited at least once a week with my cousins, aunts, and uncles, had muscle magazines littering almost every room. We loved examining at the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger, but loved it even more when we could get our friends to punch grandpa in his rock solid gut. One of my cousin’s friends sprained his wrist.

Grandpa’s physical strength was matched only by his love for others. It was an active love. It was a love that overflowed from within him. It was the love of Jesus—and it touched everyone in that room even in his absence.

The hour I spent in that church changed my life as that love resonated around all of us. It felt like I was drinking a hot cup of cocoa early in the morning on a cold Winter’s day. It was warm, satisfying, and brought a smile to my face.

Grandpa was not afraid to talk about Jesus. Nor was he afraid to pray. Many of us will say, “I will pray for you,” or “My thoughts and prayers are with you.” But Grandpa would not wait. He would, in that very moment, say, “Let’s pray.” He would not wait for you to comply, he simply bowed his head and off he’d go in a conversation with Jesus whether you were ready or not.

I think we’re all afraid in moments where prayer is needed most we’ll sound dumb or look silly. But confidence is everything, and confidence only comes with practice. And he practiced every day. Furthermore, we might feel our unworthiness to pray. We think to ourselves that everyone can see our sins and scoff at our opportunity to show how pious we are, while they secretly whisper to themselves, your hypocrisy is showing .

But think for a moment on every moment you needed needed help. Now imagine a man with no legs and one working arm who, upon hearing your story, bowed his head, leaned forward, and with, “Heavenly Father …” You might have a moment of embarrassment, but more often than not I imagine you’d experience a wave of compassion wash over you. Warmth and emotion would bubble up because you’re seeing faith in action, not in lip service.

Grandpa was just as sinful as anyone else, but he wasn’t afraid to pull Jesus into the conversation. I am, however. I’m terrified every time. This is my new life goal.

In my youth I could not wait to leave Ohio. It wasn’t meant for me because I was meant for greater things . The idea of laying on a death bed full of regrets was motivation enough to send me off into the world with a vision of conquering and a passion for new experiences.

I did those things. I’ve had a full life. I’ve come to have many regrets.

What I thought I wanted was fame and fortune. Believe me, I tried to attain both. I think I got rather close. But in LA, you have to be willing to slit a few throats if you want to get to the top, and I don’t have the stomach for such things.

But there, in that small Methodist church in that small Ohio village, I was awestruck by the impact my grandpa had on so many people. He was by no stretch a perfect man, but that makes him all the more astounding—because his accomplishments are attainable.

Over the last half a year I’ve changed a lot. That moment with those people initiated a new metamorphosis. Where once I desired a fast-paced life, the money of kings, and the love of strangers, I now seek to slow down and to be present with people around me, both known and unknown. It’s no longer about being loved, but showing love to others. And true love is sacrificial. How can I help remove your burden?

I will not become this ideal version of myself overnight. In fact I believe it will be a long process of failing and continuing to be selfish. But my grandpa gave me a pretty amazing blueprint.

When I turn 40 later this year, I will, for the first time in 18 years, be living in Ohio. The land I fought so hard to leave behind now feels like the only place to offer peace—and fulfillment.

To be surrounded by friends and family, to offer help when it’s needed (and it’s always in demand), to grow roots and invest in community, to live a simple life—these are things I now want most.

Now to practice. How can I help remove your burden?

Where Does the Time Go?

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 19:26:18 GMT

... and why do I look so different?!

Yesterday, I stumbled onto an old YouTube video of mine used to promote my IndieGoGo campaign for Soul Stealer , a short film I made at NYU (you should definitely watch it). Unsurprisingly, I look a little older now, but my wife simply could not believe how DIFFERENT I looked. Indeed, the shape of my face and its features is very different now than it used to be.

Obviously, when we look at ourselves every day, we’ll never see the inevitable effects the slow passage of time will take. Lately, however, I have increasingly felt these effects as I find old friends and acquaintances on social media. My memories of them are frozen in time, but they’ve clearly aged and time has not been kind to all.

From my childhood I remember hearing old men say things like, “One day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and wondered where that old man came from.” Yesterday, I really felt the truth of that statement. So did my wife, I think. And some emotions were shed. All I could do was look at her with a smile and say, “You want to grow old with me?” We laughed and she agreed.

I’ve always been aware of my mortality, even as a young child, but I’m reminded constantly of it now. A co-worker and friend of mine passed away almost two weeks ago. He was only 58 and died by heart attack while riding his bicycle, of all things. He was a healthy, athletic man, with no expectation of what was about to happen to him. I was blessed enough to interview him for a podcast in February, and you can hear how excited he is for the future and the new activities he’s pursuing. I had to edit that podcast the week of his passing and it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

All of this transpired a week after I myself had a medical scare that turned out to be nothing, but for a few days I really started to wonder, is this how it ends? Suddenly, nothing I cared about seemed to have any meaning. All was vanity under the sun. What would I do with my last days? Depends on how much time I’d have, or, more realistically, how much money was in the bank. But honestly, the conclusion I had was to ensure my wife was going to be squared away after my passing. To take a vacation only meant stealing from her future and that simply was not an option.

But, as I said, it turned out to be nothing. With that relief returned my feelings for all the stuff I’d previously found to be so vane. I’m cognizant of the fact that it’s all vanity, but I sure do enjoy wallowing in it. What a strange feeling.

You might half expect I’m going to summarize all this up with some philosophical bumper-sticker-phrase you can turn into a meme, but I honestly have nothing. There’s no grand reveal. Just the musings of an aging man.

Draw On Everything

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 01:12:28 GMT

And Stop Erasing

Drawing with ink forces me to accept my mistakes and move on. I have to draw through and believe the overall story within the i mage shines through. During one of my online drawing tutorials, the instructor discussed this very concept and said something very interesting. “Nobody remembers an accurate drawing. They remember an interesting one.”

That struck me like a bolt of lightning. He went on to emphasize the embrace of our mistakes helps in two ways. Firstly, it helps us to see where we messed up and allows us to get better. Secondly, it makes for a more dynamic, more interesting image to look at, potentially pulling the viewer in. This little phrase has helped me, just a little, to get over this idea that I’ve failed when my proportions are off. Quite the contrary, to be honest.

Through this study I’ve come to see how the Renaissance masters were not concerned with accuracy. They were, in fact, concerned with infusing their drawings and paintings with emotions. Staying true to our emotions when creating art will always be interesting.

Even the act of sitting down to draw an object requires the artist to take a moment and ask, “Where am I emotionally right now? Can I convey this to my viewer/reader/audience? I could, in theory, draw the exact same image multiple times while experiencing different emotions and could conceivably draft wildly different images that all make you feel differently. Isn’t that cool to think about? I think so.

This has all helped me move forward and draw just a little bit more than I have in a long, long time.

I think it’s working.

Broad Strokes

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 01:33:43 GMT

How Studying Art Is Informing My Storytelling

I've long imagined my perfect self—that version of me I long for others to see. I picture an artist, dedicated to his craft, working long hours with a pencil in hand, sketching and writing and dreaming on the page.

Move In the Direction of the Curve

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 21:15:44 GMT

Finding pleasure in the grind.

When I attended NYU I took a few classes from the now Academy Award winning documentary filmmaker, Carol Dysinger. She's an amazing human being and is one of my all-time favorite teachers. She taught both documentary and editing. In both of those classes, part of our class time was usually spent showcasing work that we'd filmed to garner feedback (from both the professor and other students).

It was not uncommon for someone to comment about how something could have been filmed, or "if they'd only shot an additional angle," etc. Carol was always quick to cut that student off to make the acute observation that an editor can only work with the footage provided. It doesn't help to lament what could have been, you have to work with what you have.

Carol had an amazing talent for looking at your footage and seeing the potential beyond what you'd presented in its current state. She helped you understand the emotion of something you'd captured, before it existed in edited form. It could be a matter of shaving off a few frames here, or cutting to a reaction shot a little earlier, or rearranging shots altogether.

Most intriguing was her observation that sometimes the editor needs to "move in the direction of the curve." This phrase was used to elicit a driver on the road who wants to continue driving straight despite the road curving to one side or the other. Practically speaking, we might have set out to write, capture, edit, and deliver one type of story, but the footage you have in front of you is not allowing that story to come to fruition. Therefore let the footage speak to you. Listen to it. What direction is the footage taking you? Move in the direction of the curve.

It was not uncommon for us to feel freed by these words. You know what, you're right. I didn't film the story I thought I'd made, so it's time to put that aside and enjoy making this new film with the footage on hand. Move in the direction of the curve.

These words came to my mind this week as I continued my struggle to simply enjoy drawing. But it hit me, like a ton of bricks, that my problem might not be drawing itself, but what I'd chosen to draw. I'd gotten stuck in my head that in order to be good at the type of art I wanted to master (drawing animated storyboards), I needed to get really good at anatomy. And anatomy is really, really hard. Suffice it to say, despite my wanting to learn, I found it very difficult to sit down and pursue this avenue. I was trying to drive straight when the road was curving.

While falling down a YouTube rabbit hole this week I stumbled onto a video discussing " 5 CRUCIAL Habits to Become a Better Artist ."Herein, the host's first recommended habit dealt with defining your "main quest" and your "side quests." This guy totally speaks my language. The first question you need to answer is what kind of artist do you want to be? That's your main quest. But don't feel like you have to learn every type of art out there to be good at the one thing you're trying to do best.

For example, if you want to be a great landscape artist, it can't hurt to know how to draw vehicles, but vehicle design is an art unto itself. To the landscape artist, vehicle design is a side quest. It's something you can dabble in, but don't let it distract you from your main quest.

For me, my goal is to become a better film director. Unfortunately, if you aren't being paid to do this full time, it's an impossibly expensive hobby. If I'm lucky I'll get to direct one or two small projects a year. To combat this, I decided I could focus on two areas that will help me to grow stronger as a director even though I can't be on set or in pre-production everyday.

The first area is to take acting classes to keep that muscle strong for directing actors. And secondly, I wanted to learn how to drawn animated storyboards using 3D software. This way, even though I'm not on set, I can practice camera placement and movement, working out how shots can elicit emotions in an audience. To pull this off I believed I need to master anatomy. After all, I need to draw people over and over again, so it stands to reason anatomy must come first. But that's not true at all.

Instead, I need to learn 3D software and practice drawing and animating storyboards, even if I'm using stick figures. THAT will get me closer to my goal. Anatomy is a side quest. Something to dabble in and get better at over the long term.

This idea freed me up. It gave me a small sense of joy. I could see, or rather feel, the road curving. All I have to do is move in the direction of the curve.

On Rekindling Joy

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 00:02:17 GMT

... in the face of post traumatic stress.

In my previous post I touched on the fact that my joy for drawing had faded away. The reason for this is something I can only speculate on, but I believe it's related to post traumatic stress. And no, not from my military experience. This started years prior to my joining the Marines, while I was still in high school.

Between my junior and senior years, an event occurred in my life that I'm still feeling the effects of 20 years later. At the end of the 2001 academic year, life was perfect (as perfect as it could be for a teenage boy post 9/11). but by the start of my senior year, everything I'd come to appreciate in life was tarnished.

For context, my dad was a graphic design teacher at the local vocational high school, and my teacher during junior year. It was not uncommon for the two of us to ride to school together. All my life I'd been picked on, teased, and bullied, but when I entered that vocational school my junior year, I was popular. I was among my people. And my charismatic dad was part of the reason why, as his popularity with other students helped give me a leg up.

During this time of my life I was a drawing machine. I'd rather grab a sketchpad and a pencil over watching a movie or playing a video game. My skills were advancing by leaps and bounds. I was looking forward to attending the Columbus College of Art and Design. Drawing was my life. It defined who I was.

Once you learn my senior year was the last time I'd draw with any passion or joy, you don't need Sherlock and Watson to start pinpointing the problem. So what was the problem?

My dad was having an affair—with a family member: my aunt (mom's brother's wife).

It got ugly. And messy. And painful. And so much worse.

The affair was discovered during the summer, by me. I revealed it to my mother after we started back to school in the fall. By the second half of my senior year mom and dad were split but not divorced. That's when the second affair started—with a girl in my class not one year younger than me. Here I am in the part of my life where drawing was not just a hobby, but an academic pursuit. I was drawing more than I'd ever drawn, all while enduring the heartaches of this affair right in front of me.

I believe that years' long emotional trauma was hammered into my psyche and I now associate it with drawing. Sketching in a notebook is not just joyless, it's painful. It's depressing. It's harder than hard.

It took a long time to forgive. Like, a really long time. But my dad and I are on good terms now. He even helped me produce a movie loosely based on that first event. With that said, the problem still remains—I can't find joy in drawing.

How does one cope with that? Move forward? Is there something I haven't dealt with yet? Am I harboring hidden emotions that are blocking me from a breakthrough? Or is it simply the fact that I haven't drawn in so long that I feel my talent weakened? Could it be as simple as drawing more to move out of this funk?

I've heard a few theories and suggestions, and some I'd like to try very soon. The truth is I just want to be over this event. I want to work through it, even if it's hard. Especially if it's hard. Let's do this thing. Show me the mountain I need to climb so I can conquer it once and for all. Something tells me it won't be that fast. It's going to be a long hard road with a lot of work.

So this will be a journey and one I hope these blogs will help me with.

The Art of a Long Lost Love

shawn@spitpics.com (Shawn Spitler) — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 23:10:17 GMT

Rekindling a passion lost to time.

For 20 years I've allowed my talents for drawing to atrophy. This is not for a want or desire to draw. No. In fact that desire has burned deep within me for a long time. But for whatever reason I lost the joy I once had for quietly sitting for hours with nothing but myself, a pencil, and the sketch pad. I have a dozen theories as to why this is, all of them tragic, but that's not the point of this discussion.

For the last year I've been trying to rekindle this joy. It's hard to explain what it feels like for me. Art, drawing specifically, was so much a part of who I was as a child and young adult, that one could not think of me without associating me with that habit. I drew on everything, all the time. I had terrible grades in school because I'd spend the class time sketching away on the hand-outs, paying no attention to the teacher or the lesson. I'd "watch" TV with a sketchbook in my lap, never knowing what actually transpired on the screen for my attention was on the page.

And then one day I didn't like it anymore. It felt like work. I was good, but not so good I could make a living with this talent I'd spent my life pursuing. I was going to be a comic book artist, a graphic designer, a concept artist for movies, etc, etc. And then nothing.

After 20 years, however, I can feel the loss. Looking at other artists my age who were not as skilled as I was in my youth are now making a living doing what they love with a skillset far surpassing anything I could have dreamed of back then. Am I jealous? Not in the way you're thinking. I do not wish to make my living as an artist (at least not that kind of artist). But I do want to love drawing again. I want to desire sitting at a table with nothing but a pencil and sketch pad instead of with the TV on, or a phone in my hand.

So what have I done about it? Over a year ago I started seeing a therapist. We've worked on lots of things, and one of those things is what I've described above. If nothing else, I enjoy the accountability of a therapist. I tell him what my goals are between then and our next meeting, and that little piece of homework can sometimes be enough to push me into what I need to do but am sometimes too afraid to pursue.

The image above is from this weekend's homework. I started taking drawing lessons online, specifically for human anatomy. So far, the joy has yet to return. It still feels like work. Hard work. Frustrating work. But just like going to the gym and working out, it feels so much better when I'm finished. When I look back at the work I've done, I smile. It's not perfect and I have miles and miles to go, but it feels good to know I inched forward today.

With enough time, I hope to form a habit of drawing. And who knows, maybe I'll learn to love it. God, I hope I love it.

My Failed Attempt At Symbolism

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 00:40:20 GMT

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

For my thesis film at NYU, Bull Thistle, I wanted to be ambitious. My love for aviation led me to draft a script where an imaginary airplane haunts the main protagonist of the film. In the original script, Dawn, an angsty teenager, yearns for freedom from her over-worked life on the farm. This was to be a subplot motivated through the imagery on screen and never explicitly stated in the film. I already know what you're thinking, but film school is where we're meant to make mistakes and learn the hard way.

The practical footage we shot for this subplot is some of my favorite footage. This also made it a painful reality for me when I had to chop it out of my final project. The reason for cutting it is twofold. Firstly, it doesn't cut together very well, as you can see above. This type of scene required more shots that I simply didn't have. I'd storyboarded this scene until I was certain it would work, and it still fell short. Looking at the footage now, after all these years, it's clear to me how I'd approach the shot list but even then I'm sure I'd fail to gather everything I'd need (because you never have enough footage).

The second reason, the reason I'm writing this article, has to do with symbolism and how I've learned not to do it. More importantly, this is somewhat a diary entry I'm airing publicly, because I'm exploring how I'd tackle this again if I had the chance.

My failure became apparent during my NYU thesis review. For the uninitiated, this is where your thesis film is screened by select faculty members and they determine if you've learned enough to be worthy of receiving the coveted Master's Degree. Going into my review I felt uneasy with the product I'd made (for good reason). Some of my previous work had received high praise around the school, and it felt like folks expected a lot from me. I wasn't handing them a product I felt good about.

And the feedback was more hurtful than I anticipated. One of the faculty members stated, "I'm worried. I don't think you have the footage you need to make this into a coherent story."

Ouch.

My biggest problem? I believe it was the dream sequence whereby the protagonist is chased down by an airplane. When I'd written it, it made complete sense. Dawn is haunted by her passion to escape her current life. This desire is manifested through her visions of an airplane that haunts nearly every scene: in the background, on the fringes or through audio cues.

And how, exactly, did I tie this symbolic figure to Dawn's desires for freedom? In the opening scene she's sitting with an aviation book in her lap. What a terrible idea. What was I thinking? Past-Shawn is very dumb. Future-Shawn is a little less dumb, so let's see what he has to say about the scene where the airplane attacks.

In the lead-up to this scene, Dawn discovers her dad has been cheating on her mom with her aunt. This movie is actually about Dawn struggling with this information and finding the courage to tell her dad she knows about his adulterous affair. In a subsequent scene, Dawn and her father are shoveling cow manure until her aunt arrives and daddy goes a running. As Dawn watches the aunt's mini van drive down the lane with her father inside, Dawn is chased by the airplane.

This confused EVERYBODY! And it should. It makes no sense.

It makes no sense because I failed to do two things: (1) tie the airplane to the symbol it represented, and (2) distinctly separate her reality from her fantasy.

In one of our directing classes, my professor screened a short film made by a prior student. If memory serves me right, it was called Stick Boy , but I can't find any evidence of its existence on the internet. It was, to me, a perfect MOS film (a movie filmed without sound or dialogue). The film opens on a young boy poking a condom on the ground with a stick. He then stumbles on a young girl playing hide and go seek. He begins to poke her with the stick. She resists. He persists. She struggles. He kills her. It's very striking.

The stick in Stick Boy is symbolic of, well, his penis. How do we know? Because there has been a direct correlation made between the stick and the condom from the very first shot. When Stick Boy pokes the girl, we have carried our prior knowledge of that shot into this scene. The stick has been sexualized and we understand clearly what we are seeing—a rape.

At no point in Bull Thistle did I connect an airplane to anything outside of itself. The airplane was always an airplane and nothing else.

I might have gotten away with this if I'd addressed issue number two and better separated Dawn's reality from fantasy. Honestly, it might have been as easy as changing the color balance so we could see something was different. We'll never know. But from a screenplay perspective, this was flawed from the get-go.

When her aunt's car drives away and immediately the airplane chases her down, the absurdity alone is not enough for an audience to understand what's going on. At the end of the day, I'd failed to be an audience member of my own movie. I did not visualize my film from the only perspective that matters.

I'm lucky to have had enough footage to prove the professor at my thesis review wrong; I did have enough there to tell a story sans-airplane. But it was a painful process of recutting the film a thousand different ways in an attempt to salvage this footage. In the end I had to let it go.

Bond. Jimmy Bond.

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 13:23:00 GMT

While in my hometown last summer perusing a Best Buy I overheard a portly fellow express to his wife how boring Skyfall was. "The first ten minutes were great, but that was it." This, my dear reader, is the mountain I must climb as a filmmaker.

I watched Skyfall for the first time yesterday. I know, I'm behind the times, but at no point was I bored. It worries me that our audiences of today want spoon fed exposition and moment to moment action. That's why Robert Rodriguez keeps getting paid and The Fast and the Furious now has six films to top off its franchise.

Heaven forbid James Bond would have a backstory or have time to grow as a character. If you don't know, James is out of commission for apparently six months while everyone thought he was dead. He goes a drinking in the Pacific Islands it would seem. Good ol' Jimmy B also seems to get soft.

His aim is off after a bullet enters his right shoulder and a lack of exercise make him a bit shaky. This is great news for a guy like me! Now Bond has space to grow as a character, he can have an arc. No longer is he bound to be a robotic killing machine.

I was half expecting there to be a moment when, whammo! I miraculously have my aim and my charisma back! But director Sam Mendes and his team of writers are better filmmakers than that and I'm forever grateful. Mr. Best Buy Guy, you can have Machete Kills. I'll take this Bond over your fluff any day.

Mendes carefully balances the old with the new. We never hear "shaken, not stirred", but we see a woman shaking his cocktail and as she pours it into his glass Bond says, "Perfect." We know what this means, and it means more to me to see it rather than hear it all over again. One of my favorite parts of Casino Royale was Bond replying, "Do I look like I give a damn?" to the waiter who asks how he'd like his martini.

There's so much I enjoyed about this movie I don't want to start, for fear of pissing off the few of you who haven't seen it yet. But let's just say the moment Bond and M go "back in time", I was transported with them.

In Memoriam

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 12:56:00 GMT

As a combat photographer in the Marines I expected to see more combat than I did. In fact I didn't see any real combat. The Grunts (what Marines call Infantrymen) would make light of this fact by nicknaming me "Combat". "Get over here Combat!"

This makes me feel two very complicated emotions. On one hand I'm blessed. I have no physical or psychological damage to burden my family with. On the other hand I'm upset. Does it make me less of a Marine having not seen combat? Often I question what I might have done under those circumstances. Would I have buckled or "maned up" and focused on my mission? Would I have hid behind my lens and captured the events or picked up my rifle and fought back?

Under Fire interviews a group of men and women who never had that last option. They had their cameras, a vest, and sometimes a helmet - but never a rifle. Their only choice and their only job was to take photos.

I'm closer to this subject than most having just finished up my most recent short film Soul Stealer, about a female combat camera Marine who takes a photo that results in her friend's death. In fact I watched Under Fire as research for the feature script version of Soul Stealer.

What I'm finding is that a lot of people didn't believe my character would take that photo. As my good friend said in Screenwriting class, "Bullets are flyin' and people are dyin', Shawn! This girl ain't gonna grab her camera!" But she does. And so do the very real people in this film.

And that's what Under Fire is all about. It's about those moments of taking pictures when common sense dictates otherwise. One journalist admits thinking, "Is it worth my life to take a silly photo?"

The final interview is the most powerful, in which the journalist feels personal guilt for taking the photos of a dead Army Staff Sergeant being dragged around the streets of Somalia in his underwear (inspiring Black Hawk Down). But the U.S. government was denying what was happening, so the only way to prove they were lying was to take the photos.

And that's what photojournalism is all about for me. Proof. Proof that all this tragedy exists.

But this film delves deeper than this. It's really about the psychological costs of covering these incidents. Most of those interviewed have some form of PTSD, and the film spends more time than I'd like it to have discussing this disease and its specific effect on the journalists interviewed. More interesting is understanding what type of person goes into these situations in the first place.

All of the journalists believe it's like a drug, likening it to heroine more than not. When asked if he'd ever return to cover a conflict, one journalist replied, "No. Never. That's like asking a heroine junkie who's finally sober if he plans on shooting up again."

You can watch Under Fire now streaming on Netflix.

The Rich Get Richer

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 11:51:00 GMT

Park Avenue

In New York City there are two Park Avenues. There's the one in Manhattan, where the largest concentration of Billionaires in the world are located, and there's the one in the Bronx north of the river where poverty is rampant. This film doesn't talk much about those north of the river. Instead it focuses one particular building. 740 Park.

The most intriguing part of this film for me was the metaphor one psychiatrist uses in the beginning. He asks us to imagine sitting down to a game of Monopoly. The catch? All the properties have already been bought up and houses/hotels built. It wouldn't take long and you're worse off than when you started.

This same psychiatrist did an experiment. He pitted two player against one another in Monopoly. After the throw of a dice one player is randomly selected to be the "wealthy" player. Every time the wealthy player crosses Go he gets $200, and he gets to role with two dice. The "poor" player is only given one dice and will receive only $100 for passing Go. He also starts with half as much money.

This part had nothing to do with which player would win first. Instead the psychiatrist had a camera trained on both players to study their behavior. In every case the randomly selected "wealthy" player started to act entitled. The wealthy players even ate more pretzels out of the bowl sitting at equal distance away from both of them.

What I'm about to say next might end a couple of my friendships (assuming they read this). Why? Because I have a couple of very wealthy friends via NYU. What I've noticed is that wealthy (I won't say rich) people do feel entitled to their wealth, even though most of the people I know did nothing to accumulate that wealth. It was earned by their parents or grandparents.

One particular person has said, "It's not our fault we're rich," when she felt she was being attacked for her status. She was responding to a professor who asked, "Can anyone afford to pay an actor $1,000?" To her that was an attack, but that's for a shrink to analyze.

Another friend will act as if she has no money (she's worth millions), another trait I find true of most wealthy friends (I use the term friends loosely). The wealthier you are the more suspicious you become of everyone and tighter you hold your cash. Never ask to borrow a dollar from a rich person. They'll want your soul in return or be very offended because they think you're asking because you know they have money.

Moving on. The latter half of the film focuses on how these 400 richest people have rigged the game in their favor. When politicians need money they go to 740 Park and usually walk out with a hefty check. Now if I can't borrow a dollar without owing something in return, what's it like borrowing millions for my campaign? This isn't conspiracy, it's business, and it's true.

Lastly there's the issue of Ayn Rand's theories in popular political culture of today. Keep in mind that Ayn Rand was dismissed as a radical in her day. If you don't know, Ayn Rand believed in a system where government did not interfere with the private sector at all. They would be given a blank check to do whatever they wanted and the free market will always go for the person with best business practices. She also believed there should be no public anything. All libraries, roads, health services, hospitals and prisons should be privatized.

Some of you might agree with that. Let me tell you why I don't. I'll use one example and that's prisons. When you have a privatized anything it exists solely to make a profit. So a prison out to make money needs what? Prisoners! We have a lot of privately owned prisons in America today, and plenty of other documentaries and news programs covering the corruption going on to keep them full. One judge was convicted in 2011 for convicting kids to juvenile hall for cash in return. You can read about it here at the NY Times website.

What disturbs me most is the collective acceptance of Rand's theories by conservatives. Rand was Russian-American and a strict atheist, no doubt from her life in Russia and the many revolutions she experienced and participated in. So why do secular American Christians accept her opposing view points? Rand's book Atlas Shrugged paints an apocalyptic picture of the future where all the rich people band together and leave to the mountains after us 99% to fend for ourselves. Apparently we're not good at running anything without them.

Personally I don't call that an apocalypse, I call that a miracle.

You can watch Park Avenue now on Hulu.

"Star Trek: Into Darkness"

Tue, 28 May 2013 23:36:00 GMT

The first ten seconds of "Star Trek: Into Darkness" provides the viewer with a birds-eye-view kung-fu zoom. This film gives us plenty of interstellar kung-fu zooms much in the vain of the Battlestar Gallactica series. They still feel just as cheap in a multi million dollar franchise. Director J.J. Abrams is also consistent in providing us with his now trademark lens flares [see video below for examples].

I expected nothing less than a good ol' fashioned popcorn adventure ride and that's exactly what I got. In fact I expected it to be full-on action ad nauseum. It wasn't and I'm glad. There are a few moments for the characters to develop, but not many.

If I have any beefs with this film it's that we aren't trusted as an audience. We're spoon fed every bit of information quite a few times just in case we didn't catch it the first go-round. The exposition becomes blatant at times. For example, a few members of the USS Enterprise head down to the "abandoned" Klingon planet of Kronos and are subsequently surrounded by, who else, Klingons! Several ships make their presence known by fire a few rounds from their ship to the small one containing Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and a couple of other guys whose names aren't worth knowing, they'll both be dead soon.

Uhura (Zoe Saldana), makes it very clear to us what's happening by stating, "We're outnumbered. We're outgunned. If we attack we'll all be dead." (or something like that). I laughed. But something tells me Abrams knows what this dialogue sounds like. He's more interested in the youngsters if you ask me. And let me tell you, my inner 5th grader was very pleased. If only Alice Eve had more skin time.

"Life is Beautiful"

Tue, 28 May 2013 22:47:00 GMT

"Life is Beautiful" is one of those films I always put on the back burner with little interest in watching. I was in high school when this film was released in the US in 1999. I remember most vividly Roberto Benigni jumping over the seats at the Academy Awards as he climbed his way to the stage to accept his Oscar.

Truthfully I didn't really know what the movie was about. It was in Italian and it took place during the war. Benigni road a bicycle through the streets with a goofy grin on his face. That's all I knew. Boring…

Boy, what was wrong with me!?

This film is extremely touching. The trailer I've embedded below is quite deceiving. I ensure you this film will make you laugh hard and gut punch you with reality a moment later. I can't really say it's like anything I've seen before (in terms of theme and approach to that theme).

In all honesty I don't think I would have appreciated this film as much as I do now, but it's so good I would have laughed just as much back then. If you don't know, "Life is Beautiful" follows Guido (Benigni), an Italian Jew around and during WWII, as he pines after Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a non-Jew, who he eventually marries and bears a son with, Joshua (Giorgio Cantarini). The film is split into two parts, the first being the time he swoons Dora away from her fiance prior to when the war begins, and the second half follows his time in a concentration camp separated from his wife but protecting his son.

As I write this I now realize how intricate this film really is. But during the entire film Guido's humor is ever present. It reminded me of the late great Jacques Tati. Guido uses his humor to save his son, who should have been killed in the gas chambers but whose own stubbornness against taking a shower saved him! Benigni's character turns the camp into a "game" for his son, who believes if they score 1,000 points they can go home with a real battle tank for first prize.

I don't cry during movies, but this definitely made me water up a time or two. It's well paced and I never felt burdened by the subtitles thanks to the humor, which isn't always a punch line but often very physical humor.

My 11-year-old daughter and I laughed very hard together during a bit where Guido "kidnaps" Dora away from her birthday party, wrecks his car during a rain storm, turns a pillow into an umbrella, and manages to rip the back of Dora's dress off. Oh, and let's not forget the green horse.

This is definitely on my top ten list of comedies. There is so much to this film that I could write and write. But that would take away the magic if you haven't seen it. I urge you to see this film now streaming on Hulu.

"To the Wonder"

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:55:00 GMT

Terrence Malick's To the Wonder pushes the filmmaker's visual style further to abstract than it has ever been. For those of you unfamiliar with Malick's work he continues to push story and plot to the side in favor of powerfully emotional moving imagery. However, this is also a problem. The law of diminishing returns is alive and working in To the Wonder. So much visual information is being poured over the viewer for such a long time (110 minutes) that I often found myself daydreaming.

To be fair, Malick's Tree of Life is much the same. For some reason I was touched and moved by that film so much more than I was by this one. In Tree of Life we are in a childhood memory and experiencing an almost spiritual exploration of the character. This means the cinematography was visually supporting the narrative. Granted, it was booed at Cannes. So speaking for myself Tree of Life was emotional and welcomed.

So why doesn't To the Wonder - despite tremendous similarities with Tree of Life - work as well? The visual style in this film does not support the narrative as it did in ToL.

Enough comparing and contrasting - there's no sense in it beyond what we've already explored. In all, I liked this film. It has its flaws but I can't deny its visual captivity over me. A Malick film is not meant to be watched it's meant to be experienced. It must wash over you. They are delicious and bitter and all the better for providing both.

If you're in need of a story, this isn't for you. But who needs story when you have Malick?

A Year In Movies

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:38:00 GMT

I have long desired to watch one movie a day for a year and then write about it online (arguably I should be doing this anyway).

First of all I'm doing it for primarily selfish reasons. I want to start expanding the library of cinema in my head and make myself a better storyteller.

There are several movie "lists" out there that I can choose from: Roger Ebert's Great Movies and the Criterion Collection to name a couple. I could simply pick a list and start viewing from the first to the last.

That sounds like a logistical nightmare.

Instead I'll sample what I can of those lists from what I have - namely Hulu and Netflix.

This is all well and good, but I want your input! What should I start with? It's my goal to have a weekly list released on Sunday to give you an idea of what I'll be watching for the next week. I'll spice it up each week with films ranging from comedy, drama, documentary, musicals, old school black & white, new school action, etc., etc.

Tomorrow I'll finish Terrence Malick's To the Wonder. A movie I started but couldn't finish thanks to Amazon's issues with their own On Demand service. That's another story.

Ironically enough I won't be starting tonight and won't be watching anything on Thursdays for at least a couple of weeks.

I can't promise every day will equal a single film, but I can aspire to watching 365 films within 365 days. That means I might be doubling up on a few of those days - but hey, I won't be complaining.

Warmest,
—Shawn

My Life As Jacque Cousteau

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:22:00 GMT

No, I'm not an oceanographer, a scientist, or an inventor. I like the water well enough, and I’m certainly not afraid of it. Boats are intriguing, the open ocean is spellbinding in all its forms, and snorkeling is okay. Nothing about the salty wet equivalent of space draws me in quite the way it did for Cousteau. On the other hand, I have my own world of fascinating mysteries I can’t wait to explore. This is the world of cinema. Herein is where our stories overlap. Truthfully, I could have used any person whose name is synonymous with their work: Walter Murch, Amelia Earhart, Ansel Adams, to name a few. Cousteau was on my mind because I began to wonder if learning more about his subjects somehow made them less desirable.

Before I begin delving too far into this original question, let me lay the groundwork. First of all, I know many people who watch movies simply for the surface of pleasurable eye candy, and certainly many films go no further than this superficial layer. For me, however, the cinema is what the ocean must have been like for Cousteau. Instead of the seven seas, I have genres and subgenres. Instead of sharks and octopi, I have Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Charlie Chaplain and Sidney Lumet are my fellow biologists. I don't look at these elements as alien from one another, nor do I imagine they are unreachable or unrealistic to understand. Cousteau's oceans, with all their hidden secrets, were invitations to delve deeper, and go farther. The movies, their actors and directors, and all the science behind the illusion, are my invitation to stand on the shoulders of giants, and push the artistry forward.

Cinema is more to me than smoke and mirrors, or camera tricks and special effects. There’s the manipulation of light and shadow, the willing suspension of disbelief, discovery of new talent, the processing of silver halide on acetate, unit cohesion on a set, artistic exploration of emotions, and, among many other things, a little something called magic. Cousteau would know what I’m talking about, it’s an unexplainable connection that is never fully explained or understood. Why did he like mantis shrimp so much? I’m certain he couldn’t even fully answer that. Perhaps it was a nostalgic memory from his childhood that so pressed into his mind that he never gave up the affinity. Why do I love shutter speeds and foot candles? or the concept behind the zoetrope? or even the subtle ways Hitchcock finds of inserting himself into his movies? I don't know. But whatever it is, it's behind me, and it's propelling me forward, as I'm sure it did for Cousteau.

The question, however, is not finding out what motivates me to be who I am. The questions brings us back to Cousteau's long career. In a nutshell, did all that exploration dissolve away the mystery and intrigue? Does finding out how dolphins communicate, or why whales migrate take away some of that magic? When we solve a mystery, and are no longer spellbound by its secrecy, there may open up new questions. But this is not always the case. As I continue to learn more about filmmaking, its history, the science, and the “industry”, I can understand how so many are turned off by finding the man behind the curtain. Although I would argue that these are not people who truly love the cinema. For me, as I believe it must have been true for Cousteau, there is comfort in knowing we can't possibly ask all of the questions. Unfortunately I do find myself a bit distracted by persons who think they have a passion in cinema. They serve multiple functions in life, but primarily to purchase tickets to the next Tarantino film.

Cousteau surely met hundreds of people who only liked the idea of the sea, and all its wonderful creatures. They read a book, or saw an episode of Planet Earth, and wanted a close up look of the cute beluga whale. In my line of interest, I meet these people almost everyday. They want to meet Angelina Joli, or Steven Spielberg; geek out over knowing the minutest details within a superhero film, or simply think they have what it takes to amass a cool looking action sequence (usually by forming their short movie around a special effect they learned in AfterEffects). I often invite these people into my life, and only later realize they suffer from delusions. For them, the movies are a topical relief to their mundane lives. To them, Sucker Punch was well worth the $8 ticket. This is the love of my life we’re talking about here, and they can’t stop looking at her breasts!

Comparing myself to Cousteau is a bit tripe, I know, but how else can I explain to you how cinema makes me feel? or the degree of passion I have for it? I’m not famous like Cousteau, and don’t care if I never am. What I do care about is the continuation of learning the craft, and enjoying the work of my fellow artists. Film is art, it’s just too bad some people paint Elvis on velvet, and worse yet that others pay good money for it.

Finding the Artist Within

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:06:00 GMT

Every artist struggles within himself to find his voice. Be they a writer, a painter, or a filmmaker; their voices lie deep within them -- a fossil hidden within rock. And as the archeologist must break away earth to find the beauty within, so must the artist. This is never easy, always painstaking, and many times never accomplished with success. The problem is different for each artist. We are all unique, and must determine by ourselves the best approach for success over our internal conflict. The problems are many: do I obey the rules or break them? which one's do I break? should I imitate those who inspire me? do I have an original bone in my body? is this worth doing?

Is it worth doing? That's the stumbling block for most artists who seem to have forgotten why they loved their art to begin with. Perhaps, after trying to make ends meat with their talents, they became burnt out, ashamed of how they commercialized their skills. Or perhaps some lost their passion after a random set of external circumstances. The truth is, if you don't find your purpose in something, your voice will never be heard, because there's nothing worth listening to. I struggled with all of the above questions at some point. I was a draftsman, dabbled in painting, looked for an occupation in graphic design, and eventually realized I wanted to be a filmmaker. This epiphany occurred to me at the same time I realized why I needed to be a filmmaker. Not everyone gets to have that, and I won't be sharing mine with you here. I mentioned it only to say that having a purpose is only part of the solution.

Passion, too, is important, but will only get you so far by itself. Passion without purpose is fruitless and bound to crumble. I believe all artists are born with a passion for their art, why else would we spend hours on end staring at paper, forming illusions with graphite? It starts with a crayon or finger paint, and something within us bursts. It was always there, but we connect to it suddenly, without realizing what's happening. Of course the feeling is cemented the moment our mother's eyes grow wide with excitement as she exclaims, "Oh, how beautiful! Did you do that?!" Inevitably this is followed with, "What is it?" but we never seem to understand where such a question would come from, and it doesn't matter. We're infatuated with what we've done. We have entertained, possibly even captivated.

What are we to do when others start to comment on our growing talent? We're helpless to such compliments, addicted to them even. It's why we do what we do, in the beginning at least. For some of us, when we leave the comfortable surroundings of high school, we realize we are not the only artists walking around, nor are we the best. In fact, there are thousands better, with talents far exceeding ours. A sobering moment of question. Should you continue? Here is where purpose comes into play. It keeps us on the road despite the weathered path, with its cold and thankless breath. I have often found that it is myself who creates the feelings of artist's depression. Those are the moments you think you're a worthless craftsman who has waisted so much time outside of his craft. You hate yourself for watching sitcoms you can't remember the story to, instead of painting, or writing, or in my case filming. But my purpose keeps me from taking that factory job, where I know I'll be sucked up into oblivion.

Passion is why we do what we do, purpose keeps us doing it. Still, these are not enough. Still we struggle to find our uniqueness, the voice that will set us apart. For me, it has been the act of learning about arts I would not normally enjoy that has progressed the uniqueness of my own voice. Studying foreign literature and women's literature, the methods of criticism, and documentary films have had the most profound influence on me. I believe, early on, my scope of such things was too small to fully appreciate what I had the potential to say, and be. On the cusp of earning my degree in literature, I can say for certain that my education has played a vital role in becoming a well rounded visionary. Heap on top of this my experiences, something that can never be learned.

I encourage all artists to first seek experiences. No, I'm not talking about the time you spend at the drawing table. I'm talking about getting out of your hometown and experiencing life from another perspective. Life in California is nothing like life in Ohio. Neither is life on a ship, or in the desert, or in the jungle sleeping beneath the stars and eating python, in any way, the same as life in Ohio. And certainly nothing is as life sobering as hearing, for the first time, your friend has died in a roadside explosion. If anything has had an impact on my continual journey forward into filmmaking, it has been the obsession with my own mortality. Being in a constant state of reminder that my life is fragile, capable of being extinguished any moment, has led to a fervent desire for me to leave my mark on the world. It is possible I will never succeed, but I have learned to look through the possible what-ifs, and to the why-nots. I encourage the artists out there to do the same. Find your purpose, find your voice, and keep seeking experiences. We're only here for a short time.

Schindler's List

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 04:50:00 GMT

The creation of Schindler's List started with Poldek Pfefferberg , a holocaust survivor who persistently pushed for Oskar Schindler's story to be told on film. His efforts began very shortly after the war, but the fruits of his constancy did not take shape until 1980, when the Austrian novelist Thomas Keneally agreed to write the book Schindler's Ark . After it was published in 1982, Pfefferberg began pushing the idea of a film once again, but this time to Steven Spielberg . It would take 11 years before Spielberg felt capable of tackling the subject matter, but the result of Pfefferberg's tenacity paid off.

The scope of Schindler's List is so vast that a book could be written about it in the name of critical analytics. This is not only a great film, but an important one. Every decision made during its inception has culminated into a brilliant masterpiece, and it is not insignificant that Spielberg won his first Oscar for this film. Several decisions were made by the director that would not only go against the typical way in which he made a film, but agains the Hollywood norm as well. This is difficult to accomplish, even for a man of Spielberg's clout. Many were worried upon hearing of Spielberg's decision to make a Holocaust film, in that he would create a glossy Hollywood movie and undermine the events. However, this did not end up being the case. Shooting in black and white, using hand held, and the absence of the crane and Steadicam were all choices that culminated into something almost anti-Hollywood. Spielberg himself did not think the film would do well.

The use of symbolism was also included in addition to the aforementioned changes to Spielberg's style. There's never anything below the surface of what you're watching in the typical Spielberg fare. Schindler's List makes an exception. While symbolism is held to a minimum, occurring only once with the infamous "girl in the red coat", credited in the film as Red Genia, it serves a large purpose with multiple layers. Spielberg's explanation of her color choice was explained on AMC 's Imagery Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust when he stated:

"America and Russia and England all knew about the Holocaust when it was happening, and yet we did nothing about it. We didn't assign any of our forces to stopping the march toward death, the inexorable march toward death. It was a large bloodstain, primary red color on everyone's radar, but no one did anything about it. And that's why I wanted to bring the color red in."

There is another reason for the decision of Red Genia's coat breaking the pallet of black and white -- one of recognition and change. IGN 's Andy Patrizio explains after Schindler sees her coat on the cart, "The look on Schindler's face is unmistakable. Minutes earlier, he saw the ash and soot of burning corpses piling up on his car as just an annoyance." One could argue that the color takes you out of the film, making you realize you're watching something that isn't real. However, I argue that a film such as this, boldly attempting to express a message of immense magnitude, uses a splash of blood red not stop our willing suspension of disbelief, but to pull us in, make us sit up straight and say, "What's that? Who is she?" Without a single word or action outside of walking through a violent street, we the audience have suddenly become attached and sympathetic to a small girl in the ghetto. We are therefore all the more saddened by her death, noted only by her coat on a cart.

The fact that Spielberg decided to shoot in black and white did not go over well with the studio. Universal chairman Tom Pollock preferred Spielberg shoot in color and do black and white in post, allowing them to release a colored version on VHS. Spielberg has famously refused by saying he did not want "to beautify events". You can also observe how the imagery appears to mirror everything we have seen from actual footage of the Holocaust. For the viewer this can make the experience all the more real and immersing. Hand held shots were used in just less than half of the film, also making the movie feel as though we are watching the documentary footage we have all seen. Spielberg opted not to use storyboards for this reason, in order to have a sense of spontaneity and realism.

The crane and Steadicam are often used to create that Hollywood look we have come to recognize, and they have been included in every Spielberg film up to this point. He is practically responsible for there overuse today. Spielberg wasn't just taking a risk by excluding them, he was, for the first time in his career, becoming a different director. He grew up as a result of this movie. Gone are the days of Spielberg's fantasy and adventure films. Remember Jurassic Park and Hook ? The 15 years following Schindler's List would result in Spielberg directing 10 films. Only three of those could be considered his typical fantasy movies -- The Lost World , A.I. , and Indiana Jones 4 . The rest of his filmography looks like that of Amistad , Saving Private Ryan , and Munich . Even his action films have been affected by his experience on Schindler's List. Minority Report and War of the Worlds both have messages larger than their subject matter of explosions and special effects.

In 1998 Judy Gerstel said it best in the Toronto Star while reviewing The Lost World when she wrote, "after Schindler's List (1993), the filmmaker's sensibility seems to have matured and switched gears."

Even Spielberg agrees that at one point he would not have made Schindler's List the movie that it is today. This was most prevalent in a Washington Post article titled "The Man at the Top of 'Schindler's List'" when he said, "I would have had much more drama if I had made this picture when I first bought the book in '82. I would have looked for the drama instead of the reporting of the facts. I would have been looking more for the histrionics." To be blunt, the skeptics were right, but only if Spielberg had made this film a few years earlier. So what does this mean in context to the film? It means that Spielberg's story revolves around facts, not drama. No where is this more important than when examining the Amon Göth criticism.

Many critics, and not just film critics, have been disappointed in Spielberg's making Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Amon Göth too much of a psychopath, believing it created an excuse for Nazism. Had Göth been more relatable, it is arguable that Nazism in the film would appear as an act of choice, and therefore all the more barbaric. Ralph Fienne s said in the TIME magazine article "The Man Behind the Monster", "I got close to his pain. Inside him is a fractured, miserable human being." Perhaps here is a way of humanizing the character. In defense of Spielberg, Göth was a real person. There would be criticism had he not portrayed Göth as the character of true events. The same article in TIME explained Fiennes' likeness to Göth was so believable that a survivor of the events, Mila Pfefferberg, trembled with fear upon seeing him. Truly the man represented was nothing less than a monster, and he was rightly portrayed.

For Spielberg it was not about how characters interacted as much as it was about the truth. Schindler's List is 195 minutes long, that's 3 and a quarter hours for those doing the math. Surely no film running 195 minutes can tell the story of the Holocaust. This makes it all the more important to tell the facts and not dramatize any events. Nobody thought a Holocaust film could be successful, and this is the greatest reason for the success of Schindler's List. Not even Spielberg expected it to make any money. He was free, in a sense, to make the movie he needed to make, and not what anyone thought might make a financial success.

Attempting to make a film about the Holocaust not only seems impossible, it is impossible. Claude Lanzmann made an astonishing effort with his documentary Shoah , but it's 9 hour running time prevents it from being watchable by the typical moviegoer. Herein lies the problem. What then does a movie of this subject matter intend on doing? It is in my opinion that a movie on the Holocaust should do the following: inform, preserve, and be watchable. A 9 hour motion picture on any subject does not reach but a few small audiences, and therefore fails to reach the world with its message. Therefore it must be contained within the prospect of a reasonable time frame, and Spielberg does that with his movie. Of course he can't say everything, and he shouldn't have to. This movie informs us of things we might have forgotten, and therefore preserves the tragedy in a watchable way for billions of people, including the Germans themselves. In the Washington Postarticle Spielberg said:

"I felt a kind of ignorance about the Holocaust from rank-and-file Poles. It's not taught in schools, not gossiped about. There was no curiosity about it. The curiosity was that we were bringing money to a bad economy. There was great curiosity about 'How can we be involved?' … I received so many apologies from Germans playing Nazis," Spielberg says. "I don't know any of them who didn't at one point in the filming come over to apologize to me for what happened: 'I'm sorry for what my father did, I'm sorry for what my grandfather did … I'm sorry' was said so many times by young Germans playing Nazis in this movie. They even said it on tapes made for the casting. It was incredible the atonement that was going on just in the casting of this movie in Germany."

That is the most important aspect of this movie. It has taught, is teaching, and will continue to teach people about what really happened. We are already experiencing a sense of denial in the world about the Holocaust, and I can only imagine what would have happened in a world without Schindler's List .

Who Needs a Critic?

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 06:54:00 GMT

It has become increasingly popular, in our modern society, to view the role of the critic with more aggression than was previous. This comes mainly from the divergence of the critic from his audience. Our society today places emphasis on the individual, who need only surround him or herself with those of likeminded interests and opinions. Outside opinions are not welcome to the individual, who holds his or her beliefs to be the highest and most supreme authority. Often enough the individual believes they are the beacon of truth, transmitting a message of absolutes, which they apparently received from within their closed off adolescent experience.

The narcissistic hold on the public has been ever tightening with the onset of social networking sites and other web based social media, placing the individual in a position of influential power over others, without any proper understanding of that influence or power, and without the slightest credentials for what they are pushing. This issue could invariably circumscribe several topics, but we will contain it within the field of the critic as it pertains to us and our site. Herein, a film reviewer without proper credentials is not a critic, and provides not the slightest ounce of value to the motion picture medium.

With YouTube and Facebook, potentially amazing outlets for media and content of a higher caliber, the aforementioned individual has now become the center of his or her own universe. The attention span of an individual has declined so drastically that even a 10 minute YouTube video can be cumbersome to watch. In fact, some readers out there have failed to read this article into its third paragraph, pressing onward to another topic with similar disinterest in search of instant gratification. Regarding the 10 minute YouTube video, however, we are invariably brought around to our original point of discussion; the individual making the 10 minute video.

A search query for "movie review" will provide a cumbersome amount of results. The reviewing of a movie today consists of a once over and an opinion based rating. The reviewer watches the film once, and comments based on any number of preconditioned rules, or lack thereof. Perhaps they used a list of generalized questions, answers to which are numerical, and the end result is the averaging of those numbers together. Or perhaps the reviewer simply rambles on about how he "felt" during the screening, and what emotion he was left with when he walked away from it. So, what's wrong with that?

There's certainly a market for this type of review if, in the end, all you want is to know whether or not you're going to like that popcorn thriller. If, on the other hand, we are to hang on to future generations of artistic and influential pieces of motion pictures, we desperately need both critical analysis of film, and to care about what it is saying. Matthew Arnold , a 19th century poet and critic, wrote The Function of Criticism at the Present Time outlining the importance of the critic, saying, in effect, the art and the critic are two halves of a whole. In other words one cannot exist without the other.

I know what some of you are thinking. "Why do I care about any of this, and how does it apply to Transformers 3 ?" Basically this: Mainstream cinema has devolved to a handful of cookie cutter movies, often ending with more gunfire and explosions than have been used in all of our current war. Criticisms of these films have also devolved, satisfying the customer and not the art form. Criticism is not for the audience! It is for the art, intended to push it forward. not keep it stagnant. Simple movie reviews and opinionated columns from uneducated and untalented reviewers has placed our mainstream movie industry into a holding pattern.

Hollywood is too afraid to touch anything that is not a sequel, remake, or translation from an 80s cartoon, theme park ride, or a board game. The true works of art are being left to independent directors and producers, who are finding it increasingly more difficult to secure financing. Simplistic and mindless movie reviews, not pertaining to the critical analysis of a film, paralyze the system by convincing you to be disinterested in thought provoking cinema. Let's face it, you don't have any plans to see Mike Leigh's Another Year , and the studios know that. The American film industry is rapidly turning into postwar Japanese cinema.

Prior to WWII, Japan had some of the most prolific and influential directors in the world. They had an apprenticeship system which allowed new generations of film directors to learn from the wisdom of the old, all while working on set and gaining valuable experience. After WWII, however, the Japanese studios were too afraid, and financially incapable, to back the artistic directors anymore. Today you know Japanese entertainment for three things: anime, horror films, and pornography. This is slowly, and miraculously, changing, with directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda , whose film Still Walking , a poignant family drama, resembles the work of the late great Yasujiro Ozu .

If it sounds like I am being unnecessarily harsh, it's because I probably am. Don't get me wrong, I love movie reviews, but I in no way let my end-all to movie opinions land on the shoulders of one man. Instead I find it necessary to learn as much about the film before forming a conclusion. Quite simply open your ears to several commentators like Jim Emerson , Elvis Mitchell on his radio show The Treatment , and the ever great Roger Ebert . You should definitely check out Roger's Great Movies , where his film analysis is deeper, and the section he calls his " f ar-flung correspondents " . This part of the site gives the American filmgoer a chance to understand movies from the perspective of film critics from around the world. Many of them are fascinating and fun to read -- I'm positive you will enjoy them. Stimulating film critiques such as these keep the public informed and the artists responsible. So sit back, light your pipe, and enjoy.

Keep it balanced!

p.s.
Lights, Camera, Jackson , the 11 year old film reviewer, is fascinating to listen to. While I don't take his opinions seriously, he is excited about movies and fun to watch. Check him out, but keep it balanced!

What to Expect

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:05:00 GMT

The unique approach of analysis in the films I will be discussing has prompted me to write this article. Firstly, I want you to be aware of what not to expect. This is not a site where you will find simple movie reviews or ratings. It is for critically analyzing motion pictures as a work of art; understanding their individual purpose and place in our culture. However, let me not be so pompous as to exclude the occasional rant or rave. With that being said, let me establish the way in which each film will be analyzed.

We must all agree, up front, that motion pictures are art. Granted, there is some really bad art out there, but it is art nonetheless. In order to analyze movies as art we must understand what a critic is, and what his relationship is to art. The first critic of worthy note is often cited as Plato . From there we can examine Aristotle and the many theorists and critics that have come after them. No, I won't be citing each of these men during my critiques. I will, however, be adding, as time goes by, an exploration of a new philosopher/critic/theorist through the coming months into an archive. This archive will allow you to link from the critiques to a specific theory I may be talking about with regards to a film for easier understanding. There will also be links on the sidebar of this page that can provide quick answers to other, possibly confusing, topics of interest. But that will come when the time for it is needed.

For now we will breakdown the four central questions to artistic theory. Alright, there's no such thing as the "four central questions to artistic theory". There does exist, however, the four central questions of literary theory. We will be applying the questions, with the help of some rewording, to motion pictures. The questions are termed mimetic, expressive, rhetorical, and formal. The following is a quick reference to what each term asks:

Mimetic : how do motion pictures reflect or represent truth or reality?

Expressive : how is a motion picture created?

Rhetorical : what effects does or should a motion picture have on its audience?

Formal : what parts, structures, and qualities should a motion picture have, and how should those parts work together?

These terms were formed by the literary historian M. H. Abrams in his influential treatise The Mirror and the Lamp (1953). More specifically, mimetic theory focuses on the relationship between the work of art and the world. The rhetorical theory emphasizes the relationship between the audience and the work of art. The third type he called expressive stresses the relationship between the artist and the work of art. Lastly there is the formal theory which stressed the aesthetic relationship between the parts of a work. Think of it as the analysis of "themes" or "motifs". Below is a version of the Abrams map, which may help you to better visualize what we have been discussing.

While your local newspaper's film critic has probably learned about these theories, he by no means applies them to Harry Potter when he writes about it in his weekly column. That is where this site comes into play. I have been hoping for something of this sort for a long time, and having been starved of it I decided to attempt it myself. This is, however, a work in progress, and your help and interaction are both needed and welcome.

Our work is cut out for us. We have much learning to do, and I'm sure with each passing film we look at you will not only be pleased, but more open to films you never thought you'd like. The following article entitled "Who Needs a Critic?" , will outline in specifics the purpose of critical analysis, its history, and why it is important. With that, we are closing in on our first critique. Onward!

Expectations

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:05:00 GMT

Cinema. It is the emotional expression of an artist through the medium of light and sound, created with an army and imagination. I am enamored with cinema, as I'm sure you must be, or you wouldn't be reading this. This article will not immerse you in philosophical banter -- that is for another blog . Instead, this article is going to outline what you can expect from this site and future posts.

Firstly, the articles you will find here are a creative exercise for myself. My intentions are to write critical analysis of motion pictures, be they old or new. If, however, my tastes change in some form or fashion, I will not hold back my desires to write of such things. On the other hand, I have started another blog for writings which stray too far from the intended nature of this page.

I do encourage critical analysis of my writings from others, such as yourself. If my structure does not flow or my ideas are disjointed, please, by all means, let me know . As I stated before, this is a creative exercise intended to further my writing abilities. I can only get better through your engaged responses.

To make this site the best that it can be I encourage you to participate and interact. Do you have a film you would like for me comment on? Curious about something you saw in a movie and want some help deciphering the mystery? By all means let me know. Consider this a place we can interact and stimulate intelligent conversation.

This should be fun.