Red Right Hand: 06.2010
RECOG

CREDITS AND WORKS

©2011 Michael Patrick Sullivan

 

MASTERMIND WORLD PREMIERE at COMIC-CON

Load up on guns and bring your friends, 'cuz Mastermind: The Short-ish Film is taking over the San Diego Comic Con. The Masked Malefactor's terrific time bomb will go off on Comic-Con's opening night, July 22 at 9:45 PM in Marriott Hall 1 & 2, the home of the Comic-Con International Film Festival.

Mastermind's loyal minions, Susan Lee (director), Beth Ricketson (intrepid girl reporter Liz) and Brad Wilcox (the mad bomber himself) and me (maker of word papers) will be in attendance and doing the panel/Q & A thing as well.

It's kind of a big room place (it's no Hall H or Ballroom 20), but we want to pack the fuck out of it. So if you're going to the big shindig, then have a good meal in the gaslamp district after the close of panels and the floor, swing by us, then get your drink on.



You have been warned. You'll probably be warned again.

Permalink posted by m at 5:24:00 PM


 

MASTERMIND'S TAKE ON EDNA MODE

Permalink posted by m at 11:30:00 PM


 

SHARE AND ENJOY*



*"Share and Enjoy" is the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years.

Permalink posted by m at 3:46:00 PM


 

SPINS OFFS THAT WOULD HIT THE MARK

I was inspired by this TV Squad article which looks at a number of supporting characters form TV series that they believe deserve their own spin-offs. I have two favorites from their list.
  • Wesley Snipes from 30 Rock
    Mr. Bean that speaks.
  • Miles and Sawyer from Lost
    Miles talks to the dead and Sawyer uses his criminal mind for good.

Here's a few I think they may have overlooked:
  • Jim Sterling from Leverage
    His adventures in Interpol, frequently facing opposition from his own ego.
  • Romo Lampkin from Battlestar Galactica
    Obviously, it would have to be set before the destruction of the colonies. Kind of a House-like lawyer dealing with sci-fi cases.
  • Badger from Firefly
    A crime comedy as each week he is foiled in new and humiliating ways, but always escapes with his hide, if not dignity intact.
  • The Ring Director from Chuck
    He was just so bad ass most of the time. Maybe concoct a thing where he is caught and sentenced to work for the CIA.
Get it? Do ya?

Permalink posted by m at 12:57:00 PM


 

ROUNDTABLES

Permalink posted by m at 2:30:00 AM


 

LE SAUCE D'AWESOME

So I'm framing this toward my fellow writers, but I think it applies to anything creative. Even sauciers. Just replace script with Hollandaise. It should work.

You ever - you know - break some script (or novel or short story or hate mail) you've written, be it two weeks ago, two years ago or two gigaseconds ago, and just read it because you want to? Do you ever read your own stuff for your own entertainment? To revel in pure egocentric self admiration? Or even just to remind yourself that you don't totally suck?

Now let me be clear here. You're not reading it for purposes of revision, rewriting, editing, tweaking, punching up, spellchecking (spellcheck that Hollandaise - see it works) or vision testing. You're reading it because you want to. Though if you wind up punching something up, then fine...you're a saucier. Write.
  • If the answer is "yeah, sure" (even if you're modest enough to think there's something wrong with actually saying that answer out loud) then, cool. Go do it now. You'll be glad you did. It's a good motivational thing to get writing some more crap amazing stuff.
  • If the answer is "uh...no." Then you're doing something wrong. If you don't want to read it then how can you possibly expect anyone who's not you do the same. Either try harder or quit now.
Ultimately, it goes back to the writing of it. I was recently engaged in a screenplay and around page 45, I walked away from it. Just the fact that I was able to walk away from it indicated that it was not as awesome as it was supposed to be. If you're not driven to write whatever you're working on, stop working on it. Unless you're getting paid.

The sauce in the photo is cranberry mustard. Awesome on fries, hot dogs, turkey sandwiches, chunks of cheese, rice cakes, white bread and your index finger (middle and distal). Sometimes it's just about finding a delivery system.

Permalink posted by m at 9:09:00 AM


 

LIVE OR DIE

Pulse aired last night as part of BBC Three's drama pilots program (more about that in a mo'). It's about a hospital with weird goings-on and it's written by Paul Cornell.



It wasn't the premise that got me to watch this, it was that Paul Cornell wrote it. He didn't create it, that was Ben Teasdale (of whom I admit no knowledge), but it was enough for me to make the effort to give it a go.

Yes, the name is enough, because Paul Cornell wrote, arguably, three of the best (and unarguably most tearjerky) episodes of Doctor Who yet created (specifically "Father's Day" and the "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" two-parter). He's also got a bunch of other BBC credits I don't know as well, but notable in this instance are his episodes of Casualty (the British ER).

From the BBC:
Pulse is a tense, unnerving story focusing on Hannah, who resumes her training at one of the country's top teaching hospitals a year after her mother's death. She is soon terrified by strange visions and the threatening behaviour of her ex-boyfriend and star surgeon Nick, and wonders if she's come back too soon. Beneath the hospital's reputation of medical excellence she discovers a secret network of dangerous experiments pushing back the boundaries of science....
From the outset, it reminded me of two things. Grey's Anatomy and Garth Marenghi's Dark Place. That did not bode well for my enjoyment of this program, for while I kinda liked the later, I'm not a fan of the former.

I think Pulse leans a little too much on the hospital soap model for me and so I found myself pretty much resisting it. And the horror aspects (with things growing in people and creepy doctors and what-not) didn't do a lot for me either, which I chalk up not to being bad, but to the fact that 98% of horror doesn't do anything for me. It's really got to get at some specific aspect of me to really creep me out and the fear-of-hospital doesn't cut it. In fact, one scene in which a patient wakes up during a slightly bizarre surgery elicited more of a groan from me than shock when the observing residents were splattered with blood. I don't know why, it's just seems slightly comedic to me.

And the attack on a "possessed" patient with a bonesaw to the neck just wreaked of slasher flick to me.

And the pacing was a little slow in the first half, even with the naked and the sex. That's the only objective criticism I can make.

Here's the thing though, if it were to be picked up, I'd probably watch a few more. It could get better. It could self-adjust.

Pulse is part of a thing BBC Three does where they put up three drama pilots and the viewers decide which lives and which dies. Something I've long thought that American networks should be doing to some extent. After all, given the millions of dollars that get flushed away every year on unsold pilots, you'd think they could repurpose them somehow, especially in the day of the digital download (remember that Aquaman CW pilot (Mercy Reef) that got released on iTunes and sold like hot tuna...assuming there's a good business for such a thing, they they never did such a thing again).

Why not take the close calls that almost got ordered and put them on at some point, let them battle it out in the coliseum of public opinion and give it a mid-to-late season order of six.

It worked out well for them last year. It gave them Being Human, which then sold fairly quickly to BBC America, who are not always quick to snag things from their sister station. It's also being remade in an American version for Syfy.

BBC is a much different model than American networks, but still...something might be worth exploring.

On the subject of the BBC, let me close with this - Watch LUTHER!!!! It rawks. The sooner this gets to BBC America, the better.

Permalink posted by m at 11:20:00 AM


 

MAMET - FUNNY OR DIE

Permalink posted by m at 12:13:00 PM


 

ARMCHAIR EMMY NOMINATING

So you're an Emmy voter, the eligibility period just closed, but you just don't have the time to watch everything, you have a life and stuff, blah, blah blah.

Let me do some of the heavy lifting for you. Nominate as follows:





  • Fringe - "Peter" - Acting (John Noble)

Permalink posted by m at 12:27:00 AM