I think this one tops them all.  Reese and Malcolm want their "hoodlum" brother back and they figure fireworks are the way to do it.  But the sheer genius of the scene is in the last few seconds.  What it took for them to actually film that scene and set it up - just brilliant!!

"How will we know which one is the Komodo 3000?"

And "Totally worth it!" are two of my favorite lines ever!

I think that's another attraction to theatre for me - the fact that for about 2 hours, I don't have to be myself.

I was getting more than a few "Why do you do that?  Why do you post so much on Facebook?  Do you live your life on Facebook?  Why do you say things like that?  You shouldn't say things like that!" from several people - both family members and friends.  You know, after hearing "BAD dog!" over and over, dogs literally get depressed and/or angry.  And who can blame them?  So after being told what a bad person I am, I decided to just not use the computer to communicate for a few days.  I read what people were writing, but since what I write tends to upset family and friends, I decided to withdraw. 

There were other reasons as well - one was to see just how addicted I am to it.  Let me tell you, being able to post things any time with my new phone makes it VERY easy to do, and there were several times I wanted to post a news story, but had to stop myself.  Just to be able to say I can restrain myself, for one.

But the other was due to the Sunday after our show finally opened.  That was the day I'd had too many admonishments from people in my life and I sat in my recliner and just reflected on a few realities:

But the reality is that at my age, it's highly unlikely to happen.  This is not another pity party, it's just that I have to learn to accept that.  Some friends and family said, "You don't know if that's true and you have to be open for things if fate does send someone your way."  Well, great!  I've been waiting for fate to send someone/something my way for five years and it ain't happened yet.  Yes, I am OPEN for something.  Yes, I would like very much to share my life with someone.  But the reality is that it's not highly likely to happen, so I have to get to a place in my mind where I'm okay with that.

And to top that off, I've been watching the dynamics of friends changing over the past year.  It's another sad reality of life that everything changes.  I believe one of my High School Yearbooks even had "The only constant in life is change" on the cover (that's happy, isn't it?).

About five years ago, I was very close to moving to Portland, Oregon.  I even interviewed with the District Manager out in Vancouver, Washington who handles all of the greater Portland area.  There was a smaller company my employer owns that I could have gotten a job with in a very cool and up and coming neighborhood in Portland.  I have many cousins there who'd shown me around to their favorite places for days before my interview and told me all the reasons I'd love it there.  I had just had my relationship of 10 years end about 6 months before and didn't know too many people in Cleveland simply because I'd been working two jobs AND going to school for 7 years.  But I had also just started doing theatre.  And when I came back from Portland, a big circle of theatre friends suddenly sprouted up and I was really enjoying being here.  But like everything in life, it has started to change.  It just hasn't felt the same for some time now and I'm actually starting to wonder... "Do I have many reasons for staying here?"  "Should I move back to California to be near my mother and family?"  "Should I move to Portland and start all over?"

The sad truth is that the older you get, the harder it is to start life over.  I have read and heard many times from people who have moved far away that the older you are, the harder it is to establish a new circle of friends.  I don't know that I'd want to try and start a new life, much as I LOVE Portland.  Still, if you'd asked me when I was a kid, "Do you want your life to be that you're an alleged computer programmer living all alone in Northeast Ohio?" you can sure as hell bet I'd say, "Are you frickin' crazy????"  Yet, this is my life.  I'm obviously not going to become the singer/songwriter/novelist/writer/actor/director that would have been my ideal life - or at least what I picture to be my ideal life.  And it's time I accepted that, too.

So a week ago Sunday, ALL of this was running through my brain after being made to feel like a "BAD dog!" for a couple of weeks and I finally thought "I need a break for a while."  And that's what I did.  I think it was good.  I took a little more time to reflect on me.  And to tell you the truth, I don't really like me.  Not just the person I am, but my own physicality.  And the old saying is, "How can you love somebody else if you don't love yourself?"  Probably very true.  I'm not fishing for compliments here.  I'm just facing things in myself.  I don't like my big mouth, I hate how bloated and puffy my face has become, I hate that I can't lose the remaining fat around my middle (mainly because I'm liking alcohol a LITTLE too much lately).  And it doesn't matter what people tell me.  Yes, I have women ALL the time tell me how handsome I am.  Another one of God's "funny" moments ("I'll make him gay, but fat and unattractive by gay standards!  And on top of that, I'll have ALL the women love him!"  Ha ha.  good one.)  Doesn't matter.  If I don't love me, how's anyone else going to?  And unless I can get myself to where I like the way I look, there's no way I'm going to attract anyone.  That's something I just have to keep trying to deal with on my own. 

Because let's face it - I'm just as shallow as other gay men.  Well, I take that back - I'm not quite as shallow because many of them are just horrendous.  I tend to fall more for the Joe Average type of guy anyway.  But let's be real - there has GOT to be SOME sort of attraction for me.  Yes, physicality does matter.  Which is why I need to look more like the type of guy I'd like to attract - yet another reason to work on me.  So I am TRYING to be "open" to the possibility of meeting someone, while at the same time starting to accept the fact that it's more likely I will be alone the rest of my life.  I may not like it, but I have to start accepting it and being okay with it.

So my mind is still "wandering" and not into good places.

And that is where my mind went last week.

The nominations are announced this Tuesday, I believe, so the movies I've seen so far are the ones I'm assuming are going to be up for Best Picture.  I also don't know if they're doing 10 Best Picture contenders again this year.  I hope they do, because I like the mix when they do that.

The movies I'm thinking will be up that I've seen so far are "Inception"; "The Social Network"; "The King's Speech"; and "Black Swan". 

Saw "Inception" several months ago on an IMAX screen with sound so loud I just about hemorrhaged.  I complained several times and the theatre said they can't set the sound, that IMAX actually monitors the sound from some central location and they complain if the theatre tries to lower it on their own.  They've gotten many complaints and when IMAX techs have come out to listen to the sound, they say, "It doesn't seem that loud."  When the managers at the theatre told me this, I said, "That's because they've worked in IMAX theatres for how long and now they're all deaf!"  I got a comp ticket to come back.  Now I know the next time I go to see something on an IMAX screen, I need to bring earplugs like I would at a concert.

The movie itself was complex and brilliant - almost to a point where it could have been too hard to follow, but the flashes between one dream sequence in slow motion while a deeper dream sequence was happening were just amazing and helped to keep track of what was going on.  The script itself is one that I think will probably get Best Screenplay.  I don't think it was adapted from another source, so probably Best Original Screenplay.  At least it's my choice!  And I'd also say Oscars for Special Effects and Cinematography.  But not Best Picture.  It's a little too Science Fiction for the Academy to give it Best Picture.

The movie that I think will get Best Adapted Screenplay will be "The King's Speech".  It's also my choice (for now) for Best Picture and Best Actor.  It was a simply wonderful, glorious movie.  The movie is based on the true story of King George VI (Queen Elizabeth II's father), who reigned over England from 1936 to 1952.  He was the second oldest son of King Edward VIII, who suffered tremendously from a stammer so bad, he sometimes could not even speak. The movie details his wife trying to find various doctors to help him, none of which work, until she finds a very unorthodox gentleman, Lionel Logue played by Geoffrey Rush, an Australian who helped many people overcome stammers.  The film is beautiful to watch and delves deeply into several characters.  It is mainly about the relationship between King George and Logue, but also deals with the King's relationships with his wife, father and brother as well as Lionel's own relationships with his family.  I cannot recommend this film enough!

Next is "Black Swan", which I finally saw yesterday afternoon.  It didn't start too great, because all through the Previews before the movie, a high school aged girl and boy were talking in full voice about 7 rows directly behind me.  I turned completely around in my seat during one of the Previews and just stared at them.  She was texting on her phone and talking out loud to him.  He was doing some talking, but when he finally noticed me staring, he got them to quiet down.  But apparently, that would only last a short while, because it started up again.  When the movie started and showed a ballerina dancing, they started right in talking in full voice again.  By then, I'd had it.  I turned around and in my best stage voice, bellowed, "I didn't pay money to listen to the two of you talk.  Would you please SHUT UP!"  That did it.  Not another peep from them, but I'd missed some of the opening credits - I had NO IDEA that Winona Ryder was Beth in this movie!!!!  Did not even recognize her!  If I had seen her name in the opening credits, I would have been looking for her, but when her name came up at the end of the movie, I was floored to realize it was her playing Beth!  Not a CLUE!!  The movie is very interesting, very complex and dark.  It's also rather confusing - and hopefully not giving away any spoilers, but some questions were answered at the end of the movie, but many were left unanswered.  I read someone else's comments about this in that since the movie is about the psychotic breakdown that the main character is having, we are seeing it from her perspective and so we have no idea how much was real and what was imagined.  Makes more sense to me, but I would have liked more questions answered by the end, which is why it's not my choice for Best Picture.  Too much left undone.  However, it will probably get Set Design (or is it Decoration?) - that was one of the things I noticed about this movie.  Lots of symbolism in just the set design alone.  Thomas' office and his home were all in black and white - and that was very much his character - there was no gray, no in-between with his beliefs.  Nina's (Natalie Portman) room was all pink, but with overlays of black and white - more black than white, which showed that her darker side was emerging from the little girl she used to be.  Natalie is a good choice for Best Actress as well.  I would have said Julianne Moore from "The Kids Are All Right" would get the nod, but when Annette Bening got the Golden Globe over Julianne for the same movie, that kind of threw that up in the air for me.

Then finally, we come to "The Social Network".  I have never disliked a movie so much.  Let me take that back - I have never had a movie make me hate people so much.  I wanted to throw things at the screen.  I wanted to smack some of these people.  I especially wanted to slap Mark Zuckerberg very hard (I realize the irony of posting this in a blog that will be linked to Facebook).  How this movie is winning so many various awards for Best Picture, I don't know.  It's not that a movie has to be redeeming to win Best Picture, it just has to be good and this movie is NOT Best Picture material.  I rented this one on DVD.  I was so frustrated with it halfway through, that I stopped it and didn't watch the rest until the next night.  I have never seen a bigger bunch of assholes in my life - I'm talking about all the real life kids involved in this thing.  If Jesse Eisenberg was really on the money portraying Mark Zuckerberg, than Zuckerberg is a giant hemorrhoid of an asshole.  What a bunch of arrogant, stuck-up, condescending, vile, detestable, hideous, privileged, Entitlement-syndrome bastards!!  If there is something more to these miscreants, the movie did not attempt to even scratch below the surface of ANY of these characters and in fact, it almost tried to present them as somehow redeemable, especially with one line by Rashida Jones near the end, where they tried to make it seem like somehow Mark Zuckerberg is NOT a giant stain on humanity.  It was all trying too hard for me.  I will give the movie THIS - the score by Trent Reznor (also known as Nine Inch Nails) was so unique and unlike any movie score I've heard.  It almost made scenes intriguing by virtue of the music alone.  He DEFINITELY deserves the Best Score Oscar (although whoever scored "Inception" could be a serious contender as well).  There was also one beautifully shot sequence involving a Rowing competition in England.  The cinematography and music through this sequence is exquisite and so unlike anything I've seen in a movie.  It made me wish the entire movie had been shot that way - and that they've given us more than just a surface scratch of the characters.  I have a bad feeling this movie is going to win the Oscar for Best Picture and it really DOES NOT deserve it!

So that's just my humble opinion of the possible Best Picture contenders I've seen so far.  What about you?  Which have you seen and what are you feelings on this?

But there is one thing I have never liked - the various theories and methods of acting.  Yes, I want to learn the basics - stage directions, counter-crossing, cheating out to the audience, projection, etc.  Those are all things I learned in grade school with every school pageant/talent show/stage production.  Obviously, every performer needs that. 

But when it comes to "arriving at your character", as it were, every performer has a different way to get there.

There is an old Urban Legend.  Some people say that Dustin Hoffman made up this story during publicity for the movie "Marathon Man", others say it really did happen, but has been embellished.  And there are many different variations as to what really happened.  The version of the story I'm most familiar with, goes like this: Dustin had to film a scene in which his character had been running and running to get away from tormentors, who finally caught him, and he's been tied up somewhere for about 2 days with no shower and is about to be tortured by a character played by Sir Laurence Olivier.  Dustin is from the Stanislavski school of acting, where they believe you have to "live" as the character in order to be "true" to the character.  He did not sleep or shower for over 24 hours before the shooting of this scene and arrived on the set dirty and disheveled.  When Olivier saw his condition, he asked "Dustin, what happened to you?"

Dustin explained what he had done, and Olivier very calmly said, "My dear boy, it's called ACTING.  Why don't you try it?"

That is one of my favorite stories.  And I gotta agree.  That whole Stanislavski method - also known as Method Acting - is crap.  Pure crap.

However, if, as an actor, you feel that is what you need to do to get to your character, to truly be your character, please, go right ahead and do it.  More power to you.  I don't need that.  I just do it.  I do sometimes base my character on someone, or a combination thereof, but not always.  I do that especially when I'm worried about keeping the characterization consistent, especially if I'm doing an accent.  When I played a Spaniard in "The Odd Couple (Female Version)", I had to think about Antonio Banderas to keep that accent going.  When I was Bobby, the verging on stardom rock band member in "Say Goodnight Gracie", I based him on my cousins in L.A. who played in their own band.  When I played Brother Olf in "Incorruptible", I made him a bizarre cross of one of the Evil One's minions from "Time Bandits" (his name was Benson) and a character that Gilda Radner used to do - a little girl who didn't talk, who twisted up her face and walked into things and was pretty much a spazz (for lack of a better or classier term).  I combined Benson's voice with that little girl's mannerisms to come up with what I envisioned Olf to be.  And I had a blast doing it.

But again, I don't always base my characters on someone.  Most of the time, I just DO IT.  I don't need any theories or deep character development.  I don't do things like The Meisner Technique, where two performers will pick two lines from their dialogue, such as "You're wrong!"  "I'm wrong?", and they will repeat those lines back and forth to each other, changing up the inflection and meaning every time, until they feel they have arrived as the best interpretation of those lines.  Great.  If you need to do that, do it.  Again, just don't make me do it.

And there's nothing I detest more than a director who tries to make me be a method actor.

I was once doing a musical.  It is one of my Mom's favorite musicals, which was the main reason I was doing it.  I was cast in Ensemble.  Now, not to be a diva, but I don't do Ensemble anymore.  The only shows now for which I would do Ensemble are "Wicked" or "Ragtime", because those are great shows where the Ensemble gets to do a lot and sing a LOT of great songs.  But otherwise, if I'm going to devote my free time to doing a show, it needs to be worth my while.  But I wanted to do this particular show for my Mom and for the chance to work with what I'd heard was one of the best directors.  I played several bit characters throughout the show.  My biggest part was "Head Waiter" in three scenes in a row, all taking place in a nightclub.  We blocked those scenes rather quickly.  The director had us working with a bunch of chairs and tables that we were bringing on and setting up and moving between each scene.  We did all three scenes, then the director asked us to do it again.  So everyone is pulling the chairs and tables back offstage again to start and the director pulls me aside and says, "Eric, does your character have a name?"

"No.  The script just says 'Head Waiter'."

"Yes, but did you give him a name?"

In my head I was rolling my eyes and saying, "OH DEAR GOD.  You're one of those?"

Very quickly, I said "Pierre."

"Pierre?"

"Yes.  It's really Peter, but he changed it to Pierre because he figured he'd become Head Waiter faster."

The director stops, folds his arms and brings one hand up to his chin.  He taps his lips with one finger a couple times and finally says, "I LIKE it!"

In my head, I'm thinking, "Really?  REALLY??  That's what you need to float your boat??  Dude, it isn't going to affect a single thing I'm doing on that stage and it has NOTHING to do with the show.  But if that's what you need, I guess I better be ready to make up shit like that for you to make you happy."

To me, it was one of the stupidest things I've ever had to do acting-wise.  And I've heard this director has done much worse in getting his actors to "arrive at their characters."  And to that, I say,

"BULLSHIT."

Don't make me be your Method Bitch.  I won't do it.  I will actually rebel and give you crap because you've forced me to do some "character exercise" or some other bullshit.  If you think I can't truly be the character without pretending to be my character as an animal, or without writing an entire family tree and history of my character, without being a tree that best represents my character, then I don't want to act for you.  Because that's not acting.

Again, if as an actor you feel you need to do these things, great.  Do it on your own time.  I once worked with an actor who kept a notebook.  Not only had he written his own made-up family history, but he had lists of things that he felt were his character's favorites - favorite toothpaste, favorite food, favorite movie, favorite book, etc.  Sorry to be vulgar, but what a bunch of wanking.

I once did "Our Town" in college, way back in the 80s.  The guy playing the Stage Manager (who is the narrator of the show) was a Method Actor.  During the scene that's supposed to be at the local general store, where he leaves the young couple at the soda counter, the rest of the cast was waiting off stage right to come on in the next scene.  There were about 25 of us and we were all lined up along the wall in the stage right wing, waiting to come on.  During the part where he was supposed to be going into the storeroom of the store, instead of just waiting there for the two minutes before he came back on, like any NORMAL actor would do, he would come off and stay "in character."  He would do it standing right in front of us and facing us.  He would MIME picking imaginary items off imaginary shelves and pretending to write in the character's imaginary books, as if taking imaginary inventory.  To me, it was actor masturbation, being done to try and impress us and show us what a great actor he was.

WHAT A LOAD OF HORSE CRAP.

I don't believe he was doing that for anything other than our benefit.  Again, if an actor wants to keep their notebooks and make up their character's entire history and they're doing it all on their time away from us and without showing it off to anyone, then great.  That really works for you, so go right ahead and do it.

But please, PLEASE, do not force me to do the same crap, directors.  It's a waste of my time, your time and all the other actors' time.

In California, auditions were usually held over two consecutive nights, with the third night being callbacks - always!  You only read/auditioned one night.  Everyone auditioning sat in the front of the theatre with the director and producer and/or stage manager sitting near the back of the house.  If it was a musical, singing was usually first and done in front of everyone.  Dancing wasn't done until the callbacks, most of the time.  Then everyone would read.  At the end of that night, with everyone sitting in the theatre (or whatever room they held the auditions), the director would thank everyone for being there and then read a list of names, saying "These are the people I need at callbacks.  The rest of you, I thank you very much for your time and hope to see you at auditions for other shows in the future."

Then there was callback night.  If it was a non-musical, everyone would be in the theatre, just as before, and the callbacks would go pretty much the same as the auditions.  If it was a callback for a musical, they would usually split us into groups.  One group would learn a song from the musical and the other would learn a dance from the choreographer and usually a third group would be reading for the director.  The groups would rotate around until everyone sang the song they learned for the music director, danced for the choreographer and read for the director.  Musical or non-musical, you'd all eventually be brought back into the theatre.  The director and producer/stage manager (and music director and choreographer for musicals) would all confer briefly and quietly at the back of the house.  Then they would usually tell us to all get up on stage and the director would ask certain people to step forward.  Then they would mix and match from there: "Okay, so-and-so and so-and-so, step back.  So-and-so and so-and-so, step forward."  This would go on for a few minutes and then finally they would ask us to all go wait in the lobby or just outside the theatre.  This was the "deliberation period."  They would be finalizing the cast while we would all wait.  This would usually go on for about 30 minutes at least. 

Finally, everyone would be brought back into the house.  The director would get up on stage and give us one of those "Thank you all for being here.  We know how hard it is" speeches.  And then they would say, "Here is the cast.  When I call your name, please come up and take a script and rehearsal schedule and the first read-through will be tomorrow night and rehearsals will continue from there.  The rest of you, thank you very much for coming.  We appreciate your time and hope to see you at auditions in the future."

There was no beating around the bush.  You found out then and there and you knew who the entire cast was and I loved it that way.  Everyone was told, "Make sure you put down the roles you will accept because we don't want to cast you in something you don't want" before the auditions even started.  There was no waiting for days or even weeks to found out.  I was so used to auditions being done this way.  But who knows - maybe that style has changed since I left L.A. almost 17 years ago. 

Then I came to Cleveland.  Here, it can vary depending on director or theatre, but I have yet to have been on an audition that was done California style here in Ohio.  In every case, you have to wait for a phone call - or in some cases, an e-mail thanking you for auditioning, sorry we didn't cast you, hope to see you next time.  And sometimes, that wait is forever.  I remember one audition where I'd made it to callbacks, but didn't hear from the director for almost six weeks.  By then, I'd already assumed I wasn't cast and had auditioned and been cast in something else.  Finally, I started hearing that some people had already been cast in that production of six weeks ago and finally got an e-mail telling me "Thank you for your time."  Really?  It took you six weeks to figure out you didn't need me?  Couldn't you have given me that courtesy within a day or two?  I do realize that nowadays, actors/actresses can be in short supply for some theatres, so casting may end up being done in steps, with the director even needing to call someone because a person able to play a certain part or parts may not have shown at auditions.  But for this particular audition where I had to wait six weeks, the auditions had well over 100 people for a cast of maybe 30, so it wasn't like the director couldn't cast it right away.

Another thing I've noticed about auditions in Ohio - a lot of times you audition in a room by yourself or with maybe only one other person - depending.  For example, if it's a musical, they have you come into a room and sing by yourself for the music director and the director.  Then maybe you read later that night and/or learn some choreography.  But sometimes even the readings are done with only two or three people in the room at a time.  This is both good and bad.  For some people, it takes away some of the nerves of not only having to read for the director, but having all those competitive eyes watching can make it worse.  But at other times, I like being in the room hearing everyone read to get an idea not only of the competition, but to maybe try something a different way than everyone else has been doing. 

It's the waiting that kills me though.  I can't stand even waiting an hour after leaving an audition to find out if I'm in or not.  I like the California style - pull off that band-aid quick and get it over with.  Let me know before I even leave the theatre whether I'm in or not - let us all know!  Don't leave us hanging, wondering, waiting.  A lot of times, auditions for many shows/theatres happen all about the same time.  I would rather leave a theatre knowing whether I'm able to go audition the very next night for something else if need be.

But what are your opinions?  How do you feel about it as actors?  I know that some of you are directors, so what are your opinions from a director's point of view?  I'd love to hear what people think!
 

The next picture shows just how much dust and crap was in the air due to the renovation.  If this was "Ghost Adventures", they would tell you that every circle you see is an "orb" and that it is a "spirit" trapped in the netherworld between our world and the next.

And finally, the moon as I looked up when I got to my car on Closing Night - so eerie through the Winter trees!