Friday, July 24, 2009

Economic Mayhem in America

Years ago I was in a writing group, which was fun and educational. What I learned, primarily, is that there's a good reason most people are unpublished and/or unknown. That reason is usually that they're not very good (and I class myself in that category). But there were other reasons, too.

There were, for example, some excellent poets. But, you know, poetry. Some good writers wrote really unmarketable stuff. One guy wrote a very good episode of "The Golden Girls". (Hard market to break into.) Then there was Paul, who wrote plays.

Paul's play--the one that I read and later he actually managed to put up a few years later--was an interesting look at racial tensions in upstate New York, in which he used a clever device of showing two stories at the same time, where alternating scenes were in the different time frame. (And he cued it in a very plain way, making it easy to follow, which is the real trick.)

He's been doing short films since at least the early '90s, making me look like a schlub, and it looks like now he's taking on the financial situation with his series Economic Mayhem In America. (He's got collaborators, mind you; I don't mean to say it's all him. He's just the guy I know who's involved.)

If you have seven-and-a-half minutes, check it out:

Part 1. (About four minutes)

Part 2. (About three-and-a-half minutes.)

I'm particularly impressed by the technical aspects. There were elements of Public Enemies which were harder to look at. Not bad for $500. (I wonder if that scales: Could he make a feature for $6,000?)

As I said, check it out and forward it, blog it, retweet it, whatever.

4 comments:

  1. The kid who shot our videos at the store made a movie with his brother. They are pimping it hard. The problem is it is real derivative of Woody Allen's most sappy work like Manhattan. I hated to tell him that so I didn't.

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  2. You are so right about how hard it is to write a novel or a play. It is really a job. A part timer can't approach it if you are not acting professionally and writing every day.

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  3. I would love to try to publish something like "Laura Bush's Diary" but I know it is too repetitive and hits the same themes all the time.

    I mean it's like Robert Parker's Spencer series. He follows a formula. He get's case. The bad guys try to kill him or his girl Susan Silverman. He gets one of his buddies who are contract killers to help him out. They eventually get the bad guys and kill them all. Usually the contract killer guys kills them. Rinse and repeat.

    I do the same thing with Laura. No matter how it starts, it always ends up with wild and crazy sex with old Barb Bush doing it with midget wrestlers.

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  4. Now that's allways funny but I think you might get tired of it if it is all in one place and allways the punchline.

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