THREAD

I've been accused of being a narcissist and blowhard, the same accusations thrown at @realDonaldTrump.

To prove that I'm NOT a narcissist, here's a thread about me and my thoughts about me.

Behold the trailer for the remake of Dune.

Now, that may be the best computer-generated imagery (CGI) I've ever seen.

Visually, the movie looks amazing.

And I have no interest in seeing the movie.

Why not?

I have to be blunt: It's a puddle trying to be the ocean.

The reason the first Dune left me cold was the grimness and total lack of humor.

Also, the fighting is boring.

And the alleged journey of the babyman.

None of it's for me.

One of my favorite movies is A Very Long Engagement, a film about World War One.

Her parents were killed when she was a child, and then she got polio, so she hates the world.

Manech tries to befriend her, but she ignores him.

Then one day she impulsively accepts his friendship, and the grow up together, falling deeply in love.

Before they can get married, he's drafted and sent off to war.

He's listed as missing in action.

She has to know if he's dead or alive, no matter the cost to her, so she spends years looking for him.

It's a brutal, heartbreaking, inspiring, absolutely hilarious movie.

The humor is real.

All my favorite films lack ONE quality:

Humorless self-importance.

In the comments for the Dune trailer, there's a quote from the Frank Herbert books:

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path."

"Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Not only is it gibberish, it's self-contradictory and not even true.

"I must not fear. I will face my fear."

Whuh?

There's nothing wrong with feeling fear.

The goal is to not let it control you.

The process by which I became fearless was by FEELING ALL OF IT.

I grew up with a constant sense of dread.

Chronic nightmares.

These are all atavistic fears.

I fear something unseen that I couldn't perceive.

What I feared was my own existence.

And that's why movie like Dune are boring to me.

I'm not knocking people who like these movies. All it says about you is you like a movie.

Big deal.

I'm talking about ME.

My tastes have no relevance to anybody but me.

I'm not an arbiter of anything.

To many people get big, bloated heads and start criticizing others for "doing it wrong."

Nonsense.

Criticizing people for their tastes in movies is ridiculous.

I'm just talking from the standpoint of someone who finds these movies boring because they're pretentious.

My favorite movies are about people.

If the characters are good, you don't need a "message."

Aren't you sick of being lectured?

I am.

Here's what makes me happy about the Dune trailer:

If I sell the movie rights to my memoir, the only way to tell the story is with sophisticated CGI that's isn't hackneyed or obtrusive.

I have a screenwriter picked out.

When the time is right, I'll send his agency a request to contact him.

I think I can convince him to accept.

My plan is to avoid all the usual pitfalls by recognizing that screenwriting and filmmaking are totally different from long-form writing.

A memoir can only be adapted if the screenwriter and filmmaker are given the freedom to practice their art without the writer butting in.

My hope is to create synergy, not competition.

I know everybody loves Stanley Kubrick, but I think he's wildly overrated.

He was a control freak who wasted time on things that didn't matter.

The Shining, for example.

He demanded that a woman TYPE all of this out, and he kept rejecting the whole lot together.

He made her start over from the beginning every time.

Also, the Jack Nicholson character was obviously a nutter from the beginning, unable to interact normally with his family.

This is Nicholson assuring the job interviewer that he's sane and as harmless as your dear sweet grandma.

I always found Kubrick to be ham fisted.

His movies are as subtle as a fist to the face.

But that's just my personal taste.

My life's experiences make the usual forms of entertainment totally uninteresting.

I find myself rolling my eyes a lot. And fast forwarding.

The two Jokers were boring and totally non-scary.

Anti-scary, actually.

But I love this:

That spoof made me watch part of a Christian Bale Batman movie, and he sounded just like that.

I got a copy of American Psycho, and when he started dancing, I fast-forwarded all the way to the end.

Every psycho killer has to dance in movies.

And the actors all take themselves so seriously.

I guess I don't enjoy these films because they present a totally warped view of the real thing.

None of the pathologies are realistic, and there's no imagination.

I KNOW, I KNOW:

It's just a movie.

I get it.

But I'm too close to it all.

So it's not for me.

If I'm lucky and play my cards right, you'll get to see the real thing WITHOUT gore.

Hopefully my screenwriter will see the wisdom of that.

Gore has been taken as far as it can go.

I'm aiming for the widest possible audience, my hope is that my screenwriter will create DREAD instead of TERROR.

We have to admit that jump scares are all played out.

It won't be hard.

With the right screenwriter and director.

It's all in the sales pitch and the product.

I know how to hook people with the first sentence.

Don't you hate movies that do and say nothing forever at the beginning?

Or books?

Or articles?

Pure self-indulgence.

You're creating a CONSUMER PRODUCT.

Today's "artists" think they can NAG you into buying their product.

Funny as hell.

So what does a person like me do?

I take into account the sensibilities of a mass commercial audience, I don't dumb anything down, and I write a memoir that--modestly speaking--has no antecedent.

It's a story that has to be told, but in a smart way.

An entertaining way.

With humor and humanity.

And that's my biggest gripe with modern movies.

They aren't about real humans.

They're cold.

THAT is the scary thing.

END