Sunday, September 28, 2008

Channeling Mitchum, a Hollywood Animal named Hensleigh and getting your house in order.

Been a long while.  Just trying to decompress after a trying week, listening to some Peter Gabriel from the grand soundtrack of Virtuosity circa 1995 (highly suggest renting this brilliant Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe starrer).

I've been an anti-remake advocate for so long that when the opportunity arose to collaborate with the Hollywood animal named Hensleigh, the mastermind behind such tent pole pictures as The Rock, Armageddon, Con Air, Gone in Sixty Seconds and The Punisher, I was a bit intimidated at first.   Now, not so much.  The point of a remake is to simply make it better.  Embrace the original, pay your respects, dig in and make a brilliantly crafted and deserved remake to best the original.  Christopher Nolan has done it exceptionally well.  Now if only studios would pay the same respect as they rewind time and visit the classics.  

It was just over a year ago when I first encountered the Hollywood animal.   I grew up devouring his & his wife's films.  From The Terminator to Die Hard with a Vengeance...who would've thunk this opportunity would arise as I moved from Minneapolis to the west?  One hopes, but dreams are pesky things to grab a hold of and not let go.  Heeding his words of getting my house in order, a year to the day, the task was presented.  And I was finally in a place to accept the terms and begin.  

Life got itself together.  After dealing with struggles a plenty as most everyone out here has gone through, it's been well worth the wait.  Friends came and went, a kid like a little brother raced into my life - tugged on my heart strings and his life was unexpectedly extinguished far too early.   Soon after his beautiful soul of a mother gifted the world with another exceptional life and is finding her true calling and exposing the world to her creativity.  It's about time.  

And love.  Paraphrasing the brilliant Jack Kerouac, '...And I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a common place thing, but burn, burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "awww!"  

That's what love should always be like.  Nothing less.

Godspeed.