Vessel Of Knowledge

The Shame

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sat, 23 Aug 2014 18:32:00 +0000

Well, the unthinkable has happened. I have missed a day here and there over the run of this blog, and always made up for it the following day. I've never been so busy or so disengaged that I let the issue of filling this space fade that far from my mind, and it's been a few years of times that were not always so placid. I always managed to keep these interruptions minimal. Indeed, there were none for a very long time, but that has come to an end.

Here's what happened. I wrote something for Wednesday - an item about how good I had been feeling through the midpoint of the week. Then I just don't know what happened. It's true that after my post Wednesday was written and posted, a string of things happened. That night I had my first meeting of a new sketch team, which was exciting. The following day it was the tenth anniversary of my Toastmasters club followed by an audition, which was also followed by my first chance to write for Top Story Weekly as a staff writer.

Friday too was very busy, and I had hardly a moment to myself until 2 or 3 in the morning, and I sure didn't give any thought such things as this blog. Mostly I was eager to eat something, recover my voice with glasses of water and cough drops and go to sleep. I achieved that, and woke up the next day comparatively ready to face the world. I still did not have the blog on my mind. Finally it somehow occurred to me when I was reading other people's blogs.

I think this is not an unhealthy thing. In my opinion, classes are to get you ready to work, so when the job starts impinging on the class, that's a good thing. When bigger opportunities for writing loom, that's the whole reason I started writing a blog in the first place, so it's a mission accomplished. If the blog diminishes some (not in popularity, since that's not possible), that's entirely all right. I still aim to publish on a daily basis, but missing is okay now.

Out Of The Stretch

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Yesterday was the third day in a row that I was feeling good. That's a rare streak, and it's notable that this stretch hit a Sunday, a Monday and a Tuesday.The Sunday is no surprise. Sundays are often pretty good, or at least they finish well. Lately they've been really good, of course, on account of the sketch stuff I've been getting to do. Actually, that has been spilling over, so I guess this Sunday was really very good. I don't mind that.

Monday often is good if Sunday was great. There's a lot of congratulations and thanks going back and forth between different people. It never was enormous when I was just doing two line jokes for the medley portion of Top Story Weekly. There would be a little, especially if I got several jokes in and I was very enthusiastic about it. Doing sketches is different. You don't have to tell people which ones are yours, and you get the boost of all the actors who are in the sketches. That's nice.

So, on the Monday after you have a sketch in a show like that, you have the actors, other writers and personages like that. If you have two sketches in that show, it's even better. If you have a sketch in two different shows, as I have each of the last three weeks, you get the actors in each of the sketches plus writers and others from each of those shows. It's a real multiplier, and it's made Mondays so good that it's now touching Tuesdays.

Across Monday and Tuesday, I've also been getting the lovely feeling of connecting with new people. Being active in sketch stuff each Sunday has necessarily meant meeting a lot of people, and that's really been cool. That might not remain true indefinitely, but so long as there are sketch people I don't know yet and I stick with it, I'll definitely meet them. I do look forward to that. When that's done, it'll be like Alexander. Will I cry because there are no more friends left to make?

More on Moron Process

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Writing a sketch provokes particular feelings. When it's going well, I'm really cruising. There is, hopefully not a lot of labor in it. It just sort of happens, and it seems like it just happens to be my fingers on the keyboard as the sketch assumes shape. I stop and look at it and feel really good about it. I don't know how others will see it, but I see it in a positive light. Sometimes, but not always, it's like the ball leaving your bat and you already know it's going all the way out.

The best sketches write themselves in my head so long as I get out of the way. I live my life and ideas occur to me. Wherever I am, I put them down. Later maybe, I actually write them, but not aggressively. In a very casual sense, I decide that I am now writing but permit my mind to wander. It goes far afield and comes back, looking at the idea from different angles like it's a Jenga tower and sees parts of the sketch form up. It is, again, more like I'm watching it happen than that I'm doing it.

Some first drafts are harder than that. You bull through the thing. You try to work it more like a math problem, and it's a more direct, more intense mental process more likely to induce a lot of cursing, temple rubbing and sighing. It's not impossible for one of those to come out well, but I seldom am very sanguine about them unless someone else (who perhaps is unaware of the process to that point) avows that they like what they see.

Rewrites are different in any case. It's a surgical procedure, or maybe it's more akin to renovating a historic building. I try to change as little as possible- to mainly trust my initial instincts, or to honor the intent of the original writer if that is not me. I try to make the final sketch solely out of the words that made up the original one. I'm reminded of that Jimmy Stewart movie where the survivors of a plane crash make a new plane out of the working remnants left from the stricken one.

Anyway, however you get to the end of that part, it's a real delight to see the thing given life. It's terrifying to sent it out into the real, practical world where a million factors can and will warp what was in your head, but you must never let it remain in your head even to save it. To save it is to keep it from ever being. Now you'll have to excuse me for getting high-minded and putting on airs. I haven't earned that. I'm just a guy who's written a few good sketches and who has a lot of ideas.

Carry On

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Something I've learned about sketch comedy compared to improv is (as you would guess) that there is more equipment involved. Each of the past three weeks, I have had to read through scripts and identify props and costume pieces that my sketch needed or that I could contribute to someone else's. I have then had to obtain many of those things, and then dump it all into a duffel bag which I then had to bring down to the theater from my place.

For me this is a slightly more onerous task than it is for others, since I have to do this using public transportation. God knows I wouldn't make an issue of it being a difficult thing to do, since I'm able to do it. I'm a man of slight build, but adequate brawn to carry what amounts to a fair sized bag of dog food. I just loop the strap over my shoulder and I could carry that for miles. It could only be more manageable if I had my hiking backpack.

Hard to carry the bag is not, but odd it is. I worry often about police stopping me and insisting on seeing inside it. A major contribution I have made on a weekly basis is providing prop guns for all sketches that have needed them. As real as they look at a glance, I rather imagine facing some harsh treatment from police until the matter could be straightened out. At least I have not had to carry dismembered mannequin parts in addition, though we've used those.

Last night was I think the second time I got home and discovered deep purple bruises on my hip from carrying a bag bulging with hard, angular items between one and two miles altogether. I was more amused than anything, although sleeping on my side was a little tougher, as was sleeping on my back. That, along with my room constantly looking like it's been robbed due to me looking for props, makes this a challenging aspect of sketch comedy, but I do love it.

Seagulls

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sun, 17 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I have lately been watching some Steven Seagal movies. I had seen a couple. I was rather fond of "On Deadly Ground", and Of "Fire Down Below". In those, Seagal was some manner of elite operative looking after the environment. The former takes place in Alaska, and the latter in Kentucky. Other than that they are more or less the same movie, which is not a bad thing. I like them. I guess Fire Down Below has the edge since it's a little less preachy about the environment.

I had never managed to see either Seagal's early work or his late work. Over the last few days, I've seen some of both. In "Out For Justice", something like Seagal's fourth film, he plays a Brooklyn cop who clashes with the mob. It's one of those 'we all grew up in the neighborhood' movies. It's not at all bad. Seagal tries a little hard to convince us of a Brooklyn Italian accent. He also somehow is the worst at running. You wouldn't expect that of a martial arts guy, but he looks awful running.

He didn't stay in the kind of shape where you'd even ask him to run long. He was already rather past his physical peak by the time of "Under Siege", his biggest hit. It's still a pretty fun time, however much that may be owed to the film's villains and supporting cast (which include Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones). This was Seagal's moment, and he sure made the most of it. You see in this film Seagal's inability to be down even for a second. It's a problem for dramatic conflict.

"Exit Wounds" is probably Seagal's last bearable film as a lead. He's a Detroit cop who gets busted down to traffic duty before uncovering a criminal conspiracy that reaches inside his own department. The film throws in some fun stuff, like an anger management subplot featuring Tom Arnold, who is one of three or four supporting characters who momentarily seem like they're going to be Seagal's improbable sidekick. Ultimately it's a fun film.

I wish I had not finished this cycle with "Half Past Dead". It is the worst. I'm usually good about finding the good in movies, but this one didn't have much. Seagal is an undercover Russian in a new Alcatraz prison where a guy who stole and hid a bunch of gold is going to be executed. A guy who wants that gold busts in to find out where, and the whole thing is very murky. It's literally murky visually, with low light constantly masking Seagal's physical condition. This movie is bad, man. It's one of the few films I've seen that made me angry.

I'm left with many gaps in Seagal's career, and I think that filling in some of them will be rather pleasant. I still have some three early Seagal films, a number of midrange Seagals and all too many late Seagal movies. I don't promise that I'll ever get to those. If I do, it will be out of real desperation after I've watched all the other action hero movies. Hopefully that won't happen for a long time, when I'm old and gray and have a family of my own.

Writer Rider Right Here

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sat, 16 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

The past few weeks have seen me do more writing of significance than I've ever done before in my life. As I write this, I am buoyed by the knowledge that I have been accepted to be a writer on a sketch team at iO West. You might consider us a humble little "Saturday Night Live". I submitted a writing sample and it was liked, so I will get to write more stuff like that and talented people will breath life into it on a stage once a month.

Other sketch writing got me to that point. I had been futilely writing sketches for no outlet the couple of years before this one, and got to where some 80 or so of my sketches were just piled up doing nothing. By chance I saw half of a show called "Top Story! Weekly" at iO a year ago because I was at a festival with an improv team. I shortly after submitted a writing packet, but it was not accepted. I have spent the year since writing two line jokes for them, watching lots of live sketch shows, and getting good enough that they have accepted and run a number of my sketches. That has been an intensely gratifying experience.

Being around sketch people, I kept hearing about "Sketch Pool". A group of writers and actors are thrown together to put on four sketch shows in a month. Teams usually do one in a month. It's a fast growth experience. Finally I determined to get in on it, and I was accepted. As I write this, there remain two shows left to be done, but it's been fantastic. There are intense highs and lows and rapidly close relationships borne out of necessity.

That last will be over in a couple of weeks, but the general thrust seems to be more and more writing, which pleases me. As much ability as I have felt I had in this area, it was seldom that some reward or validation of it seemed to come, so that if I was told I could write at a high level (for a magazine, or something of the like), I was flattered but not necessarily convinced. These days, I'm rather apt to believe it. There is much growth left for me, but I know I'm good, which is cool.

Wrappin' It Up

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sat, 16 Aug 2014 00:29:00 +0000

Every day since the 21st of last month, I have been dissecting "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". A quick estimate (which will probably be proved false with just a few minutes work) would be that I've written in excess of ten thousand words on the matter. Many of them have been harshly critical, and you might wonder why I would spend so much time on something I dislike. I hope I've made clear though that I don't dislike it.

I really like it, but I'm clear-eyed enough to see its faults. It disappoints me because of what it could have been. It was all right, but it was definitely a failure in the eyes of those who shelled out the money. Maybe my way isn't what would have made it any more of a financial or a critical success, but I do believe that my ideas at least would have given it more of a chance. I don't know what brought those people to make that movie. Maybe I couldn't have done better, but I sure would have busted my ass to try.

Regardless of the merit of my suggestions (so many years late), I hope you enjoyed reading them. If you've seen the film, I hope there was recognition for you in my words. If you've never seen the film, I hope you felt some new incentive to watch it- not cynically, not with an eye on what's bad, but with an appreciation for what's good. There was love behind every word I wrote, and I think that's the only way this kind of a thing works. No one wants a hateful, unloving critique or parody.

Tomorrow I'll have something else to say. It not being about this movie, it will take a minute for me to call forth an idea, but it's time to move on. If you have any strong feelings about what I've been doing for the last month, I could write more like this, and I probably will at some point, but for now you can expect to see something pretty different. Maybe I will shed light on myself for the first time in a while. Whatever is here tomorrow though, I hope as always that you like it.

Reshaping, Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I was yesterday getting deeper into how I would change up the story for "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". I mostly laid it out as I see it, but there are a few more things that occurred to me that I think it's worth getting into. As little effort as seems to be put into this aspect of these films, I figured it was worth the risk of getting too thorough. I can always hold some stuff back when I pitch this to the license holders and money people, right?

For the character of Sean, I see some refinement necessary. In the original film he chafes under his overbearing father, who is much duplicated in McCulloch. I say we get rid of the father, but McCulloch elicits the same reactions from Sean, so it works out fine. Sean's arc involves him coming to terms with what his father wanted for him when he sees how he's been forged as a man to deal with the adversity and evil of the world. It's kind of a "Red Dawn" thing.

You ease down on the petulance the character has, and have him be what Rennie needs. Rennie finds strength and stands on her own. It ought to be a Ripley/Hicks kind of thing. That would be a smart rip-off. He's a lot more likable as a more silent, martyr time. As it is, he's not very likable. Rennie isn't unlikable, but I know I don't care much about her. Played by a Heather Langenkamp type, that could change, and something needs to. You've got to like those two.

That relationship, with McCulloch and Jason as hindrance and accelerator, obviously gets the lion's share of minutes in the film. You give what you can to the rest, because there's room for others to have their own stories, and we badly need to care that they die. They don't need to change a ton beyond what I outlined yesterday. There's really a lot of decent stuff to work with here, which is why I care at all to even write about it. It could have been good.

Reshaping, Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Yesterday I decided that "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" would be stronger if the film took place mostly in the dark, isolated places in the five boroughs of New York that I feel sure must exist. Hell, who overlooked the novelty of Jason stalking teens in Central Park? The point is, if that never would have worked, that you need to work hard to keep Jason in his comfort zone even as you put him someplace new.

The general thrust of the plot is something a little different. Most of the films in the series would benefit from roughly the same notes as I shall be giving here. So we have a group of sight-seeing high school seniors in New York. Let's say that some kind of incident- something comical, like an inability to read a map, or something more serious like a health emergency - gets them good and lost, and maybe the same kind of thing that actually gets Jason to New York still does in this version.

The core characters are mostly valid. I would shy away from "topical gimmick" characters, but mostly the characters are valid. Rennie, the traumatized sensitive soul and Sean, the son of a sailor are basically fine, although I surely would recast. McCulloch, the overbearing principal is fine, although I would recast and omit his absurd status as Rennie's legal guardian. Julius, Tamara, JJ and Wayne are basically fine. You could throw Eva in there, just so we could could give her a real character arc this time instead of her being an Asian-American token.

You have a screwball comedy style romance between Rennie and Sean- the artist and the military brat (as we're making his dad a real Navy officer instead of a "cruise ship admiral"). You have McCulloch, motivated by the reasonable goal of getting everyone back home safely, but employing extreme, desperate measures. You have Wayne wanting Tamara and JJ wanting Wayne. Wayne obviously needs to not be a pathetic piece of shit. You have the brash, athletic Julius trolling for local women, but maybe realizing what's right there in Eva after an ill-fated fling with the flashier Tamara (who can remain a villain among the victims).

The whole thing ought to be playing out as the group tries, Warriors-style, to get back home. Initially it's just about restoring the itinerary of an expensive, once in a lifetime trip, but quickly becomes about survival when Jason enters the picture. Why not have the trauma that drives Rennie be that she's had some kind of encounter with him before, either firsthand or through someone she cares about who was murdered by Jason? God knows the series has done that before, and I wouldn't be above doing it again if it was better than the alternatives.

Reshaping

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I think we're at the point in my examination of "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" where I begin to sum up what I would have done differently with the film. God knows I would have done plenty differently. Frankly, I would not have even begun with the premise of Jason leaving Crystal Lake. That's where he lives and where he belongs. Taking him away from there, you might as well get rid of gravity or make apples currency or make fish talk. Why moor yourself to anything at that point?

But let's say you're committed to this New York thing. You should really have the film inhabit New York. Much has been made of the fact that it's really "Jason Takes A Cruise Ship And Eventually Reaches Manhattan". That doesn't make it a bad movie, but it does make the movie a bait and switch. I would say the thing to do is to make the movie take place almost entirely in New York if not entirely. Why spend time on the trip there?

Of course, they had financial considerations. It was too expensive to shoot a ton in New York, so most of even what was presented as Manhattan was in fact Vancouver, I think. I'm not badly bothered by that, really. I think it's smart to just get the iconic, irreplaceable stuff like Times Square or Madison Square Garden in New York, and then the rest can be Vancouver. I don't know really why it was a good call to go so hard on the cruise ship.

I think we can even fix my problems with the premise. Something I find fascinating about certain films set in New York, like those made by Larry Cohen, is how they can make the city feel like a desolate, dark place. They have a charming cheapness to them, and not being able to afford lots of actors and extras actually worked for them, I think. I bet there are many times and places and situations where for all the difference it makes, a New Yorker might as well be in the middle of the woods instead of technically in one of the world's biggest, most populous cities. It worked in "The Warriors".

That film is not a terrible template, in a way. Let's suppose that the group of graduating seniors makes it to New York, and a subset of them watched over by one teacher are set upon by Jason. They could be out deep in one of the more remote boroughs where there is relatively more space than the heart of Manhattan- where there are places unlit by neon signs and uncrowded by tourists. That is Jason's place in New York.

Times Square and the other famous spots in the city are where Jason loses the advantage- where the teens can get the best of him. The journey is not from some damn place outside of the city to the city: it's from uptown to downtown. I don't know the city at all, but that's my opinion. Tomorrow, given this broad structure, we can get into more detail on the exact thrust of the story and the arcs of the characters therein.

Not Tough Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

In "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan", Jason has all too few scenes where it matters much that he's in New York. One of the scenes that's supposed to be a fantasy fulfillment is when he walks down the major road and wrecks the boombox that these punks are listening to. Very reasonably, they get upset, and even though Jason is a horrible legend not that far from the city, no one thinks twice about confronting him in the city.

The punks call out the shitty thing Jason just did, which already undermines their menace. Why don't they just do something about their displeasure, like really come at Jason? There are too many witnesses, maybe? It's not like they realize he could kill them yet. I don't know that they ever learn that to my satisfaction. He's huge, but no bigger than your average Canadian farm boy, of which New York of course has many. It's tame behavior.

Jason's reaction is, I'm sure, supposed to be a priceless moment. He reveals his face to them, and they are revolted and scared enough to run away. Jason then goes about his business, having resolved the conflict without having used violence (which is something he is strangely reluctant to do in the city- maybe he has a history with the NYPD?). I found it to be a very lame moment which makes both Jason and the punks look weak.

Why exactly would he not kill them? Is the reason that, while deeply menacing among small numbers of people, Jason would be exposed as being as vulnerable as the rest of us to a hail of SWAT team-fired machine gun bullets? Jason has to refrain from doing what we want him to see any number of times because of the logical problem of him facing the authorities in force or even ordinary citizens. It's a real problem with this movie.

Why And Why Not?

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

One of the things about "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" that I dislike is how the menace of Jason is undermined by the city. He is best in the woods around Crystal Lake for any number of reasons. One of them is that the area around that lake is dark and remote. New York is by comparison well lit. That's not true everywhere, but it seems much harder to get into the same kinds of vulnerable positions there.

Also there is the fact that there are millions of people in New York. Jason can't kill them all, which makes it less interesting that he's among so many people who presumably would trigger his code. The fact that the code would mandate that he kill them all is less interesting when he obviously can't. He passes up many opportunities to kill in favor of killing the people from the cruise ship, but why is he any more invested in killing them than the New Yorkers?

It's really very baffling. He leaves alone the people in the diner, the punks on the street, the people in the subway, all to get those cruise ship people. Why then does he kill gangsters who are just going to inflict violence upon the very people he's after? I'm sure you'll say he wants the privilege himself, but I don't think he thinks that much about these things. I still can think of no good reason for him to act as he has any more than I can think of reasons why he got on the cruise ship in the first place.

It's interesting to think of Jason still being in New York at the story's end. How does he get back to Crystal lake for "Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday"? May we assume that he killed some people while still in New York, and found some novel way of returning? I'd like to think something happened similar to Michael Myers being nursed back to health, but I'm sure I'd be disappointed. This movie is just chock full of disappointment.

Cooking Up A Defense

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Hey, how about the huge cook in the diner we see during the third act of "Friday The Thirteenth Park 8: Jason Takes Manhattan"? I fretted that I had exhausted subjects within the film that warranted coverage, but then I remembered one of the little moments in it that is unintentionally kind of amusing, at least to me. You'll remember without my prompting you that the surviving characters enter a diner in hopes of getting help? Little do they realize how little New Yorkers care.

The moment Jason threatens the diner itself though, the staff cares. The cook, burliness personified, readily rushes out to face the threat. He's huge, but you'd think in the big city that simply being physically imposing is not necessarily the means for an automatic victory over all threats. Someone could have a gun or knife, there could be several of them or there could be some other issue. Why not call the police? Would they not care?

This cook was really something, though. He gets handily defeated- some wonder if he actually dies, but I don't think he would if it was a real thing- but he is something. He seems very Canadian to me. He undoubtedly was Canadian, as they would certainly have shot the diner interior there. Was the waitress Canadian? She has on a pretty thick New York accent. Anyway, the cook sure looked like some gargantuan Canadian farm boy to me.

I do imagine that he is alive after Jason hurls him back across the bar and leaves him there. That really is a lucky thing for him, that Jason becomes a little inconsistent in his application of his code while in New York. Of course, he can't kill everyone there, but then I can get more into that tomorrow. The point today is that the Canadian farm boy cook admirably tried to stand up to Jason, and even lived to tell the tale.

Man's Best Hindrance

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I was thinking about the dog in "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". It shows up in the second scene and shows up unexpectedly for a last scare at the end, but in between it doesn't do much. It doesn't fight Jason or tip someone off to Jason or get killed by Jason. The last of those things is the last thing that would happen in a movie. People will tolerate a thousand people getting butchered in a movie without worrying a bit, but God knows they won't accept one dog getting killed even if torturing and killing animals is a known precursor to being a serial killer.

Any of those other things would be a viable reason to include the dog. If the dog affected the story at all, that would be a good reason. I can't remember one important thing the dog did. It just was there for a little bit, gone for a while so that you forget it ever was there, then there again at the end. The only thing you could even begin to argue the dog did was impact the image of its owner, the character Rennie. The trouble there is that Rennie's already supposed to be very likable without being demonstrably kind to animals. If Mickey Rourke was in the movie you'd have to show him being nice to dogs.

What's the excuse for Rennie bringing the dog? Well, people don't usually take their pets on cruises, I don't think- or rather, they didn't then. Today there are no doubt many pets-centric cruises, let alone pets-allowed ones, but then I think less so. You'd leave the dog with a friend or put it in a kennel, but you'd want it out of the way, not needing to be fed and walked and picked up after. It's a vacation, you know?

Besides, if nothing had gone wrong, that dog's going to New York. What are you doing with it once you get there? You're going to lug a dog all over a city that it's probably going to spend all its time freaking out in? Never mind whether you're even going to have a place to stay where you don't have to hide the dog from the staff. You spend all your time back home with the dog. Why have it taking up your attention when you're on a trip you're spending serious money on? It's just something that bugs me. I like dogs, but I'd never bring a dog on a damn cruise to New York.

Down There

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I covered yesterday most of the things about New York that "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" has to teach us, but not quite everything. There is something going on beneath the city's streets that may seem hard to believe, but why should a film like this like about a thing like that? The apparent truth is that every night at midnight, the sewers flood with toxic waste. For all we know, it happens in every city.

Where does the waste come from? It's beyond me. The film offers no explanation for that, nor does it say why exactly the waste comes through at midnight. I wonder also where it goes after it drains away. Perhaps it goes into the sea? Perhaps it comes FROM the sea. Nothing is for certain, but until City Hall comes forward with some kind of information, we must speculate wildly about every one of these things.

Our sole source of information for now is one lone, brave sanitation worker who has evidently emigrated from Canada. He gets out the solid information I have stated above before being murdered in silhouette by Jason. Why isn't he murdered in a more visible, more explicit fashion? It's hard to say, even considering how tame most kills are in the Friday The Thirteenth series. They really are tame when you think about it.

What's important, I suppose, is that we not go down in the sewer, which not only has this rigidly scheduled deluge of lethal waste going on, but Jason and a whole slew of victims for him to off in addition. Maybe the waste is there just to prevent killers and victims from going down there, but clearly it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Then again, we ought to be glad that our civic services work as well as they do. What would happen if this was a Somali sewer?

The City That's Not So Nice

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

As "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" would have it, New York (or rather its best-known borough) is a pretty rotten place. It's not just run down or populated by absurdly jaded and bad-mannered citizens, it's also both very crowded and nearly vacant. It has a touch of Woody Allen's magically real New York as well as more than its share of Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" New York. It's a horrible, horrible place.

Grumpy McWet Blanket Principal McCulloch is mad at Sean for landing them in a bad neighborhood, though it surely seems like a step up from when he was mad at Sean for not being able to navigate them out of the fog. He does seem vindicated when the group is mugged by thugs who then spirit Rennie away with intent to rape her. You don't generally get stuff like that in a Friday The Thirteenth movie. There are characters like the bikers from Part 3, but rapists are something new.

His lack of inclination to rape makes Jason a relatively innocent character by comparison with almost all New Yorkers we see in this film. Rapacious thugs steal, hardened innocents lack empathy, punks rule the main thoroughfares with impunity, and our little band of survivors is somehow worse off than the Warriors in the film of the same name. Indeed, Jason is their savior when those thugs threaten the group before he returns his focus to the group itself. His code is a hard one to follow.

Somehow when it's all over, the ultimate survivors are not seized with a desire to flee the city and return home or to set about pick up the pieces of the horror they've just live through. Instead they start strolling about the city as though they're Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt at the end of "As Good As It Gets". It's a very puzzling thing. By the time their dog- who they'd lost some time earlier -shows up, it's like they're living the life of Reilly. They don't think for a second about the dead. Instead we get a callback to their plans to see the Statue of Liberty. New York comes out smelling like a rose. Go figure.

A Sign

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

The first really interesting thing that happens in "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" is when Jason himself climbs out of the water and sets foot on land. There's a touch of humor that does work, but that badly undermines the menace of the character, and not for the first time. Jason looks up and sees a billboard for a hockey league. He cocks his head ( as a dog might if it saw itself in the mirror) before stalking off to kill the survivors of the ship.

It's a funny moment. It's a kind of clever contrast with the sinister persona that Jason has, and chances are it's one of the things from this movie that people are going to remember, and more likely than not, they're remembering it fondly. The problem is what cost that comes at. A character you can laugh at is a neutralized character. He's scary never if he's funny ever, and the effect is cumulative. By the end of the original run of films, Jason is a joke. It's too bad it happened that way.

Also, I find it kind of interesting that it is (I assume) a minor league billboard. Are they competing with the multiple NHL teams in the area? If that sign was there for real, then I guess so, although I'm not sure that league was even in operation at the time. Let's say that part makes sense, though. Does it make sense that you're promoting hockey out on the docks? Who's seeing that? I guess it would have to be boats out in the water, right?

And why even get into the question of whether the style of goalie mask Jason wears and the billboard features was recent enough that you would use it in advertisements? Anyway, it's a funny little interlude that probably shouldn't have happened and that provokes in me a lot of little nit-picky questions that no one else has, I'm sure. That's fine. My whole identity is tied up in being the only one who thinks things. It would leave me fumbling for someone to be if anyone felt the same way I did about this billboard thing.

Adrift & Miffed

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I'm going to jump ahead a little in my continuing analysis of "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". Suffice it to say that after most of the characters are killed on the boat, Jason makes himself known to all and the ship catches fire. The survivors pile into a lifeboat, which is the next really interesting thing to me. This is the scene that makes it tough to say how much time the film occupies, for one thing. How long are they in that boat? It's entirely unclear to me except that it surely must be no more than days.

It's a lengthy sequence. I would have advised one good shot of them in the boat and a fade out/fade in to them being within sight of New York. Instead, we get numerous shots with dialogue that stress what a tough spot they're in. That just doesn't seem smart to me, since it's really hard for "stranded on a non-cross Atlantic vogage" to compete with "stalked by a murderous maniac aboard a relatively small ship". Being stuck on this boat in what seems like pretty reasonable temperatures is heaven by comparison.

I wondered where they shot this. Fog strikes at just this time, which seems like a great way to not have to actually be on the water anywhere like where the scene is supposed to be taking place. It doesn't seem foggy when they get to the city. I guess fog can roll in and disippate, and it can be localized, but it just seems funny to me. The scene looks pretty phony to me because of the fog, I'll say that much. Maybe that's just what it looks like.

Finally, the lifeboat reaches New York (with a lot of strained navigating by Sean), and Julius is especially enthused. I still find myself wondering how long it's been, to say nothing of why the gang thinks they're home free at this point. Indeed, Jason appears on land moments after they do. How did he make the trip? Was he somehow clinging to the bottom of their boat? Was he swimming underwater? I'd love to have seen that. Was he just walking along the seabed? That would be fun too. There's just no knowing. Too bad.

Scheme!

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

One of the more interesting subplots in "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" - a film which hardly needs any story complications - concerns the beautiful and amoral Tamara, who is interested in sex, drugs and using those things to evade actual effort. Somehow she is on the senior trip despite not having done some kind of biology project which, as I've said before, doesn't really add up. How she's even on the trip is odd, but maybe not more so than the fact that this project makes or breaks her ability to be done with school. It must be some kind of unusual school.

In any case, her scheme requires the video camera skills of Wayne, but first she must lure Principal McCulloch into her cabin. That's easy, since he insists on visiting her cabin in order to see said project, which she's supposed to have brought with her. We are talking about writing too feeble for self-respecting pornographers, here. Porn films and slasher films are a lot alike really, and this film shows that as well as any.

So, Tamara gets the principal in her room and reveals her "project": her own scantily clad body, indifferently painted with a very incomplete anatomy of the human body. McCulloch is comically affected by the sight of no more skin than he would have seen if she'd been wearing a bathing suit on the deck of the ship. After about five damn minutes of him umming and ah'ing like a fourteen year old, she finally starts grappling with him, never managing to enlist his willing involvement.

That doesn't matter to Wayne's camera, which appears in time to capture what I have a hard time believing would be effective blackmail material. Tamara's word would surely never stand against the principal considering how many people know what a terrible, conniving person Tamara is. For that reason, McCulloch's bluster as he leaves is really something more. If any of the people in the room at that moment were still alive a day or so later, Tamara and Wayne would have been toast.

Not Enough Cooks

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Sat, 02 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I believe I brought it up, but the crew of the cruise ship which serves as the setting for most of "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan" is pretty bare bones. I can run down who seems to be there pretty quickly. I already mentioned the dubiously-titled Admiral. He has his other guy on the bridge. His son Sean is not, I think, an official member of the crew. That leaves the extremely creepy and suspicious deckhand who tries to warn people about Jason.

He fills the role that Ralph did in a couple of the early films. You have to have a guy no one finds credible giving an accurate warning about what's going on, and the less he can manage to put things in a reasonable-sounding light, the better. I'm not sure what this guy's name is supposed to be- I think he's only ever called 'deckhand', but he sure is fun. He even manages a little moment when he declares to Sean that the voyage is cursed and Sean agrees for his own reasons.

I don't know really why this deckhand would be approved to work on the ship. While the suspicion that falls on him is unfounded, he does seem to spend a lot of time worried about curses and less time about his actual duties. I guess if he's getting his work done, that's fine, but still he shouldn't even be mingling with the guests on the ship. That's something I'm sure I heard from people who do that kind of work. I'll bet they don't say a bunch of stuff about killers roaming the ship.

That deckhand really is the only other member of the ship I can think of. We see no one cooking, no one overseeing the games, no one cleaning, no one operating any of the stations of the ship except the bridge. It's not an enormous ship, but I'm certain you'd have more people than three or so. That's basically a crew for something the size of the SS Minnow, and the "Lazarus", as it's called is bigger than that. I have to say I think they understaffed the thing.

The Sweet Pain Of Wayne

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Fri, 01 Aug 2014 21:45:00 +0000

As I discussed rocker JJ Jarrett from "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan", it seems right now to cover her nearest associate Wayne. We meet them both together in what is for Wayne one of several scenes. It becomes apparent that while JJ is possibly the only person in the world who likes Wayne, he pines for the terrible Tamara. Isn't that the way of people in high school? I don't know if JJ would want him that way, but we know that Tamara definitely does not.

Wayne's deal is that he's supposed to be an aspiring filmmaker. It doesn't come off as well as JJ's music, maybe because guitarists do wander around with their instrument jamming, but the only people who go nowhere and do nothing without their camera running are tourists. Even worse, Wayne's camera looks to be a huge VHS camera, but when we see his perspective through the camera, it looks like a black and white 8 millimeter film camera. It must be a custom job.

Wayne uses this camera to try and win the heart of Tamara, who in addition to trying to eliminate Rennie for seeing (and overlooking) her do cocaine, is also trying to blackmail the principal into letting her graduate without having completed her biology project (which must be a serious chunk of her grade if it can affect her walking on graduation night- a night which you'd think would precede the big senior trip).

Wayne finishes very badly. The penalty for backing the wrong horse romantically and getting involved in a poorly conceived, possibly needless blackmail scheme is accidentally killing a fellow classmate when hot steam blows your glasses off during a hunt for Jason down in the bowels of the ship. Of course, Wayne does live to discover the corpse of JJ, which I think is supposed to be him regretting his choices of late. Anyway, that's the end of Wayne, a marginalized nerd and a terrible person in his own right.

Rock Never Dies, Unlike Those Who Play It

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:45:00 +0000

This seems like as good a time as any, if I'm going to get really thorough about "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan", to discuss one of the few very sympathetic characters it has: aspiring rocker and probable Joan Jett doppelganger JJ Jarrett. She kind of looks like Jett, and her first name is Jett's initials. She's not a terrible person to imitate. She even seems like a half-way realistic person to exist as a teenager, I think.

JJ is about a million miles away from the center of the story. She has no direct connection to the male or female lead, and no direct connection to anyone with a direct connection to them. She's friends with Wayne, who you may rest assured I'll get to, but Wayne ties only to Tamara (who ties to the female lead and to McCulloch). She doesn't have time to connect to anyone else, or have many moments for herself, which is a shame.

She dies rather early, getting two scenes (or three if you want to be technical) if memory serves. She gets introduced and then is killed very quickly thereafter. Watching the movie again, I was shocked at how early she goes, since general panic doesn't ensue for a long time after that. I guess no one cares about JJ really. Even Wayne, for reasons that will become evident, doesn't seem that fond of her, but you'd think that he would take notice of her prolonged absence before stumbling upon her corpse.

JJ is about my favorite character. She has a conscience, she has a defined deal- which is to say that she loves rock music and aspires to do it professionally- and by all rights, she should stand more of a chance against Jason than she actually does. She really gets a raw deal. If it were up to me, she'd have survived a lot longer. I guess there was no chance of her making the final group, but she deserved more than she got. It's another misstep for this film.

Ladies Bulk And Skull

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 21:45:00 +0000

It seems worth discussing the two heel girls I mentioned yesterday in my ongoing coverage of "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". I think that the first time Tamara and Eva (whose names I never really knew until I looked them up for this) are seen is looking in on the boxing match through a skylight. Their characters aren't laid out incredibly badly in that introduction. We see well enough that Tamara is the alpha, more loose, and that Eva is the follower, more hung up on responsibility. It's a regrettably stereotypical setup.

Tamara expresses her eagerness to have sex with star boxer Julius, and Eva seems willing to go along with that, to say nothing of their shared interest in cocaine. I think that Tamara stands alone in her willingness to go to any lengths to mitigate the consequences of being caught doing cocaine and of, apparently, failing to complete her biology project. Tamara is a terrible, terrible person. It's hard to say that anyone on the ship outside of Jason himself is worse. The film takes the curious approach of making almost every person who gets killed exceptionally unsympathetic, but even Principal McCulloch is more likable than Tamara.

Eva's not so bad, really. She seems given to going along with things she knows are wrong in pursuit of friendship. I rather imagine that if she'd survived the bloodbath aboard the ship she'd have learned better how to find happiness. Probably in college she'd have finally found her crowd. It can be very hard to do that in high school. One hits the lottery, makes the best of a bad lot or spends that time alone. Eva made the best of things with Tamara.

Tamara dies rather spectacularly after showering, with Jason dispatching her with a shard of mirror from the bathroom in her cabin. I'd say I relished her demise on account of how unlikable she is, but like I said, most of the deaths are suffered by people who meet that description. Poor Eva, who I have nothing against, dies in a very forgettable way on the dance floor. I guess it's nice to see that location used again, but it's an undeserved end. So ends the arc of the two girl heels.

Orange You Glad You're Not Julius?

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 21:45:00 +0000

Yesterday I mentioned a few of the recreational activities available to the doomed teens about the cruise ship in "Friday The Thirteenth Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan". One of them is a boxing match between Julius, who is fairly prominent in the film, and another student who is not. It's not a terrible moment in the movie, as I said before. There's some iffy stuff to it, but as far as first act scenes in the series go, it's a pretty good one that most of the other entries would benefit from having.

It of course has the effect of investing in Julius's character. We see that he is both physically formidable and confident. Of all the characters in the film, he is the one most likely to handle himself well in a physical confrontation- more than our male lead, who is all petulant and angsty, more than our cerebral and tortured female lead and more than any other student or member of the crew. Second place would probably go to his rival in the match. He has no rival for bravado.

Neither does he have a rival when it comes to sex appeal among the male cast. The match is watched by fellow students who are in the gym as well as by a pair of young women who have their own story line as heels. Their comments while watching establish that Julius is who the women want just as Julius' victory establish that he's who the men would want to be. I don't think any other character has as good an introduction or as well-developed a character, really.

Apart from the rare display of character development for Julius and the investment in a third act payoff, the scene provides some basic good action. The second and third acts will feature plenty of kills by Jason and freakouts by his prospective victims, but the first act can be slow and dull, so it's nice to have a little action that doubles as the things that the first act should be doing, and that's just what we have here. It might be my favorite scene in the movie.

Fun For All

noreply@blogger.com (Calder Holbrook) — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 21:45:00 +0000

I could give a thumbnail sketch of every character in "Friday The Thirteenth 8: Jason Takes Manhattan", as well as the actor who plays them but I'm sure at this point that we can just take those as they come. What I'm thinking about right now are the activities we're shown to persuade us that the small, old virtually crew-less ship which hosts most of the movie is a fun, active place. I must confess that their efforts along those lines were not effective.

I think the first activity is shuffleboard. That is a staple of cruise ships, I admit it. Is is something that 18 year olds relish while at sea? I rather doubt it. I think I would have a good time playing that game, but I'm long past my teens and I don't know how long I acted as if I wasn't anyway. The point is that I see shuffleboard as an improbably magnet for hedonistic teens. Sure, it might be there, but would it draw anyone but the school's faculty? I rather doubt it.

We also see teens shooting skeet. I can certainly imagine this being very popular, but would it even be allowed on a cruise for high schoolers? even in the late 80's, before the golden age of school shootings, mightn't they have thought better of putting shotguns in the hands of even students for whom the pressures of high school are no longer a going concern? I never was around either students to be trusted with firearms nor educators who saw even the mildest risk they wanted to take.

The most likely thing I recall seeing in the movie was the dance hall. It's briefly seen doing fairly brisk business, but it sure doesn't look too good to me. The room is small, decorated in a rather indifferent, very cheap fashion, and has a terribly low ceiling. It looked like no place I'd want to dance, and I'm not entirely averse to the idea. It goes without saying that no contemporary, popular song is to be heard in the dance hall- strictly generic fare.

Then there's the gym, which makes sense. Some of the students are bound to be enthusiastic athletes. There seem to be only two, and both are boxers. Their sparring session is one of the film's first act highlights. We also see that the ship has a sauna, which it's a wonder more people don't take advantage of. I suppose they thought they'd have more time. Don't we all? As it worked out, the deaths started getting in the way of the fun. I'll see if I can't start addressing that stuff soon.