Goodbye John Hughes.

John Hughes died today. The director of Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and Planes Trains & Automobiles was only 59.

My acting career high point occurred courtesy John Hughes, in Planes Trains & Automobiles. I played John Candy's wife, Marie. You never do see Marie, only her photo. Del carries the photo around with her; he talks to it. It's sitting on the bedside table when John Candy and Steve Martin are sleepily snuggled in that motel bed, hand between two pillows...
Neal: Those aren't pillows!

Actually, This is my favorite linie from PT&A

Neal: [riding in back of pickup truck in freezing cold] What do you think the temperature is?
Del: One.

I was 23 and just out of college. I earned the trust of a casting office, so they brought me in. They took my Polaroid; the director wanted someone who could pass for really young and innocent. I got the job. I was just going to shoot a series of photos. An early 1960s high school graduation photo (the one you see) but also a string of photos: Del and Marie on vacation, Del and Marie at Christmas, et al. Del would flip these photos out of his wallet and bore Neal (Steve Martin).



I was young, unafraid and full of ideas. So I started to send "Del" letters to the set on location and signed them Marie. I sent Del cards. I told him to be well as he sold his shower curtains. I guess Mr Hughes liked my creativity. He decided to put me on camera.

I went to the Paramount lot and we filmed improvised scenes, just me and John Candy. Del and Marie at Thanksgiving. We did a couple Thanksgiving dinners. It was at the very end of the shoot. They were so strapped for time they were actually filming scenes with Steve Martin on the other side of the sound stage, so we had to keep it sorta quiet. I spent a lot of time in John Candy's trailer, talking to him about the business. John Candy was a sweetheart. I don't remember much about Steve Martin. But I remember Mr. Hughes. He was a very nice man.

A month before the movie came out I was scheduled to do ADR (automatic dialog replacement) where you redo the audio because the sound wasn't so great. Maybe we were being too quiet for Steve Martin's corner of the sound stage.

They had a special premier at Paramount Studios. I brought a friend. At the very end of the film, Neal is sitting on the train platform and thinking back on everything Del has said. Cut to: Del alone. He's thinking back on Thanksgiving with Marie, and then you have the flashback to Del and Marie having Thanksgiving. Cut back to Neal. He realizes Del is alone.

Only, no flashback. Just Del alone, then back to Neal. I was cut from the film. I was crushed. The fundamentalist Nazi church counselor I'd just fired predicted God's judgment would descent upon me for removing her authority in my life. The film editor said it happened all the time, just like Kevin Costner in "The Big Chill." He told me not to worry. My time would come.

Well my time went and never really came. That PT&A photo is my one shot at cinematic immortality (okay and Seinfeld). John Hughes went too. He left Hollywood. Rumor had it he didn't like the way Hollywood treated people: he blamed them for working Candy to death. And he didn't like the way Hollywood was starting to warp his sons' ideas about reality. So moved to Chicago where he hoped his family could live like normal people He occasionally wrote under a pen name. I don't think those scripts were so good.

I hoped he would return to Hollywood some day. My motives were selfish: I wanted him to come back and do a director's cut of Planes Trains & Automobiles and include my scenes.

That hope came to an end today on a Manhattan street. John Hughes was in Manhattan to see family. You see, he had one. He even had grandchildren at age 59. That tells me, he raised his sons right: they were healthy enough to grow up and into adulthood and have their own children; rather than follow Hollywood's directive and extend adolescence up until the time Medicare kicks in.

I just read a blog written by a woman who started corresponding to Mr. Hughes when she was in high school. Mr. Hughes went above and beyond the call of answering fan mail. He became a friend and mentor. Please, please read it. It might restore your faith in humanity. And if you're like me, you will repent of any selfish desire you had for Mr Hughes to go back to La La Land.



Goodbye sir. We've missed you for a while. Now we'll miss you forever.

Change Your Life! Video Clips

I did a movie a while ago, a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary called "Change Your Life!"; that skewered the multilevel marketing industry, motivational speakers, scams and stupid products. I finally got clips, so here for your enjoyment: These were half-scripted, half improvised, and total fun.

Les and Pam discuss the effect of multilevel marketing on their personal life.


Here's Pam waxing on about "The Secret" she's learning in a new self-improvement book.


Pam thinks "hell" is a "Gateway Swear Word."


Pam's email regarding a Nigerian Investment Opportunity!

Sex And The City: the Ordeal

I finally saw Sex and the City: The Movie. Most of my girl friends saw it the first weekend, so I was delighted to discover my friend Lori hadn't. As soon as she got down here from Portland and had a free afternoon, we went.

Here's a pic from the LA Times: 20-something girls dressed up to see the film on opening weekend, at the chichi Arclight Cinema. I don't see labels. They probably had to save up for the $15 movie tickets and the gas to get to the theater.

I had a love/hate relationship with the TV show. I loved the portrayal of friendship: the love between friends is really the big love in the show for me. But the sex didn't seem realistic to me. Yes I know women sleep around nowadays, but I don't think we can do that without numbing ourselves out first. Maybe that’s why they drank so many cosmopolitans and went shopping. Yet so many women who came of age during the show’s tenure believed that was what life is about: “labels and love,” as Carrie begins the VO in the film. If Carrie Bradshaw sold off her shoes she could feed Darfur for a couple of years.

But I had a certain nostalgia with the show. I moved to New York in 1998 when the show debuted, and when the show made its final bow in 2004, I was finally done with New York and my single-woman dreams. Actually, my relationship with New York was much like Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big: that exciting, suave, bad-boy boyfriend who strings you along with promises but is too difficult and to expensive to maintain. Still you're haunted by the moments of brilliance. They say New York is only for the very rich or very young. By the time the show ended, I knew I was no longer young, and I was never going to be rich.

Anyway, Lori and I went to the first matinee of the day. There were only two other people in the audience. Two men who were probably in the SATC closet: too ashamed to admit they loved the show, they bought a ticket for Iron Man and slithered into SATC with their caps pulled down.

The first half hour of the film was a glee-fest as the girls reunited on the street and went shopping. When Carrie and Big decided to move in together, there was another squeal-fest as the girls get together to pack up Carrie’s apartment. (After ten years of dating they’re only now moving in? RED FLAG). Samantha is living in exile in Malibu, so every time she shows up, which is like once a week, they squeal as if she’d just returned from Gitmo.

The biggest romantic moment in the first two acts came when Big builds Carrie a massive closet, whose construction budget outspent the Sudan economy for a year. Anthony Lane said in his New Yorker review, that women in the audience sighed, gasped and applauded. His review sums up how I felt in much better language.

A half hour into the film I didn’t care what happened and I didn't like the women anymore. Charlotte had no conflict, Miranda was bitter, Samantha griped about living in a massive house on the beach, and Carrie—always my hope for humanity and balance in the show, was forced into a plot contrived split with Big.

Speaking of Big, the men in the film felt castrated. Charlotte’s husband had little to do but glow at his wife. Smith shrugged. Steve was on the verge of tears the entire movie. And Big: well Big’s allure is noncommittal devil-may-care nature. Chris Noth seemed to be gritting his teeth every time he had to say something sincere.

Top be fair, it’s hard to cram an entire TV season into two and a half hours. The writer/director had to follow four separate plot lines. So to flesh out four different versions of “Girl has boy, girl loses boy, girl must go on or get boy back,” was impossible. And he tried.

I do appreciate that the film starred four women over forty and celebrated friendship. But isn't there more to life by that age, than labels and love? And what kind of friend lets another friend spend $500 on shoes? For me anyway, if there is absolutely no spiritual search in anyone’s life, that’s what you end up with. Sex, shoes, distractions. Samantha’s goodbye line to her boyfriend was, “I love you, but I love me more.” Was that the take-away? Narcissism? Yucch.

It relieved me of any residual nostalgia I had for the TV series. As for a romantic vision of New York, that died in 2004. If you want a more poignant, realistic depiction of a young, single woman’s life in the Big City, read Joan Didion's short story, “Goodbye to All That.”

I'm on Cisco Does "The Office"

Spinal Tap and The Office propelled the mockumentary comedy style to new popularity. So I got hired to do some short films for Cisco Systems. Here, my friend Tim Washer and I play husband and wife going in marriage counseling. There will be more episodes to come, but here are the first three.

Meet Don (improvised)


Meet Rhonda (improvised)


Counseling Session One (partially scripted)


You can subscribe to the Webisodes on You Tube here:

Art, Dogma

Tonight I went to see my friend Erik's play, He Asked For It, a "frank and eye-opening view of contemporary urban gay culture that's hard-hitting, funny and tragic." (from the theater's website). Erik is such a gifted writer. His play was at places hysterically funny, yet he pulls no punches when dealing with the dark side of addictive sex, AIDS, death and forgiveness. I left the theater in tears and the last play that moved me that much was "Terra Nova," by Ted Tally. I can think of only a handful of films in the last few years that have moved me: The Lives of Others, The Station Agent, and my recent favorite, Lars and the Real Girl.
I was listening to a podcast in which Don Miller talked about story: the elements that make a good story are the same elements that make for a good life: a strong character, a deep desire, and of course conflict. Conflict shapes our character; joy and peace don't so much. And I mean conflict over high stakes issues, not getting a massive apartment or lots of Jimmy Choo shoes. Don quoted screenwriting guru Robert McKee. McKee is an agnostic and anti- religious, but he writes the following in the preface of his book, "Story."

"The final cause for the decline of story runs very deep. Values, the positive/negative charges of life, are at the soul of our art. The writer shapes story around a perception of what's worth living for, what's worth dying for, what's foolish to pursue, the meaning of justice, truth -- the essential values. In decades past, writer and society more or less agreed on these questions, but more and more ours has become an age of moral and ethical cynicism, relativism, and subjectivism -- a great confusion of values. As the family disintegrates and as sexual antagonisms rise, who, for example, feels he understands the nature of love? And how, if you do have a conviction, do you express it to an ever-more skeptical audience?"

How many movies have you seen that have presented that kind of story without preaching at you? Or boring you? Or going in the opposite direction and trying to convince you that the answer to your longing is in a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes or a sexual conquest? And how many of us try to manipulate God into giving us what we want so that we DON'T have conflict? How many of us settle for a goal like a house or a Volvo, Don put it in this podcast.

Larry and I got invited to a literary 'salon' put on by a church known for its theological rectitude. The quote at the top of the evite said, "if Christians attempt to approach culture from a human, cultural standpoint, they will be acting in disobedience to God." (The evite also stated that "all food will be put away at 7pm ... All eating will stop at 7:00pm until after the discussion.) I understand, they don't want distractions during discussion. But it reminded me of Nurse Diesel in "High Anxiety": "Those who are tardy will not get fruit cup."
I couldn't help but notice the contrast between the scolding tone of the evite and the vulnerability of the play. Perhaps it's not fair to compare. One was a play; the other a discussion. But I don't understand how not to approach culture from a cultural standpoint. Isn't that like saying you shouldn't approaching sailing form a sailing standpoint? And how can I not talk about humanity in human terms, when I am human? Of course my perspective is limited and 'broken.' Of course I need to look at life through God's truth. But even God didn't sit up there on high; he ultimately became human to relate to us what it is to be truly human, full of grace and truth.

I've got to knock it off. I let certain language close my ears, I get defensive, and I start thinking I'm better than others; which is just the kind of exclusivity I despise. It reminds me of what author Sara Miles said in an interview: There’s something I need to learn from a relationship (with other Christians) that I didn’t choose. …That the Spirit has something to offer Pat Robertson through me, and has something to offer me through Pat Robertson. It’s precisely the non-exclusive welcome of Jesus that’s the most interesting (if the most difficult) thing about the faith. The thing is, I want to see everything. I don’t want to just see the parts I like.

So really maybe I need to be at that salon. Maybe I'll find it inspiring and wonderful and it will humble me. But I better get there before 7pm or I won't get any fruit cup.

Oscarpalooza

I stopped watching awards shows. It costs me 3 hours of my life, and unless I'm watching in a group, I'd rather live those three hours, and get the 5-minute wrap up later that night. Besides, I can never remember who won what award from the previous year. Do you remember what won Best Picture last year? I had to look it up.

Our Small Group meets on Sunday afternoons. It's an arts and entertainment focused, so we invited everyone to stay after and watch. It's only fun with the running commentary. Tomorrow, we are voting on which book we're going to study for the next few months. Among the titles nominated: Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, by Peter Scazzero, The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Sex God by Rob Bell. I don't know about you, but I think it would be a very rewarding experience to study The Cost of Discipleship while sitting in our hot tub. Provided our group stays small and we all wear speedos.

But back to awards shows. Our friend Dave Kopp's son, Neil Kopp, has been nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, and is in Santa Monica today to attend the gala. He's been nominated for producing Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, and the Piaget Producers Award for producing Paranoid Park and Old Joy. The kid is 28 years old. UPDATE: Neil WON the Piaget Producer's Award!

Larry and I haven't seen any of the nominated films. We've been too busy working on our own stuff. But we are going to go see Juno tonight. I hear all the characters talk the same way, they've all got those smart alecky comebacks you usually only think of after the fact. As the french call, "esprit d'escalier." Witty things you say when you're walking downstairs away from the target of your bon mot. One thing were told NOT to do in screenwriting school, was make every character sound the same, or sound smarter than they really were. And this movie is up for best screenplay. Well, esprit d'escalier ou non, Il dit que "Juno" est tres enchante. It's supposedly delightful. Even if the screenwriter was a stripper.

Tune in tomorrow and I'll tell you which book we chose. I'm voting for Simply Christian. I've already read it and loved it.

Best of The White Album?

When Beatles-fan Adam Christing casually asked me, "if the white album could only have 12 tracks, which 12 would you choose?" I decided to ask my music enthusiast friends. Brian Godawa complained it was like separating the trinity. John Fugelsang refused to play. "That's like telling Leonardo Da Vinci to only paint four apostles at the last supper. "

But others went along with it. Dana Bisignano, a Beatles connoisseur and a composer, even suggested the order in which he would place the songs. Because well, what could follow Revolution 9?

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was voted by everyone until Terrie Silverman came along and not only DID NOT VOTE for "Guitar," she voted for "Don't Pass Me By," which includes the odious lyric, "you were in a car crash, and you lost your hair." (Which reminds me of my next survey: What is the WORST Beatle Song ever done?)

So here it is, with only nine people voting. Vote in the comments if you want to change the results!

The Truncated, Sacrileged WHITE ALBUM on One Disc

While My Guitar Gently Weeps 7
Dear Prudence 7
Birthday 6
Blackbird 6
Helter Skelter 6
I Will 6
Julia 6
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey 5
Back In The U.S.S.R. 4
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da 4
Rocky Raccoon 4
Revolution 1 4
Cry Baby Cry 4

Rest of the Results
Glass Onion 3
Happiness Is A Warm Gun 3
I'm So Tired 3
Why Don't We Do It In The Road? 3
Mother Nature's Son 3
Sexy Sadie 3
Good Night 3
Martha My Dear 2
Piggies 2
Yer Blues 2
Honey Pie 2 (only the girls voted for this)
Savoy Truffle 2
Bungalow Bill 1
Don't Pass Me By 1
Long, Long, Long 1
Revolution 9 1 (Brian Godawa's bonus track, proving he IS a Satanist)
Wild Honey Pie ø (the only one with no votes!)

Okay so play if you dare:

If you could choose 12 tracks plus one bonus track of teh white album, which would they be?

SECOND:

WHAT IS THE WORST BEATLES SONG EVER RECORDED?
you can choose any song penned by one of the fab four. Dishonorable mentions for early covers (ie Chains)

Where were you at 28?

The news of Heath Ledger's death is hitting me hard. He was young, he didn't seem to be any kind of party animal. He loved his daughter. He seemed to have a deeper melancholy about him that indicated he had a depth in his soul or character. That may just be conjecture, but it seems quite *wrong* that he's gone, while other unnamed celebutantes remain alive, drugging and driving and shopping like Teflon roaches. NOT to wish a plague upon her house, but doesn't Ms Spears realize how precious and precaious life is? I hope she figures this out before it is too late.

Ledger was only 28 years old. It got me thinking about where I was at the age of 28. I was back in Orange County, living in a guest house in Newport Beach, and "concentrating on my relationship with God," as opposed to career pursuits. I had barely figured out life myself at that age.

I know that God stands outside time, and any prayers for Ledger today can count for yesterday or the day before or eternity. I pray God reaches back into time and grabs him, and that Heath finds peace, rest, and home. But what a loss. I also pray Brit figures it out before it's too late.

Olan Mills and Captions

I'm not blogging, I am revising. But I thought I should alert you to the following ....
A masterful tribute to master portraitist Olan Mills.
Some of the funniest captions ever conceived.
Okay back to the chapters ...