To celebrate the release of our new album, “Go Call the Captain,” we are going to have an AMAZING CD release show at the Folk Art Museum (www.folkartmuseum.org) on April 30th from 5:30 – 7:30 (Since this isn’t a club we will actually be starting at 5:30.)
I tend to say “you don’t want to miss this” a lot – but this time I’m going to say it in bold, caps, underlined italics with an exclamation point just so you know how serious I am: YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS!
We are going to be playing with our wonderful little drummer boy, Chris Schultz, and the amazing Dan Tirer on guitar. We are also working on getting some mandolin/lap steel action going on with the spectacularly talented Clifton Hyde – our original guitar player.
Just wanted to share a prime example of the wall slide* – against a brick wall, none the less…poor girl must have been CUT UP after attempting such a maneuver. Taylor Swift’s “white horse” video – the event takes place at 3.44 – although there’s some great schmacting going on throughout if you’re interested.
Now at first glance you may think “that doesn’t look so hard, Eleanor.” LOOK AGAIN – and notice the three different camera shots involved in that perfect slide.
Thank you, Georgia, for watching this and thinking of me.
A movieism is the use of an unrealistic cliche to compensate for bad writing/acting/directing. Yet for some reason, moveisms are featured continually and chronically in movies.
Who bothers to write these terrible tidbits into screenplays? It is a mystery.
Is there one guy who goes from studio to studio? Unfortunately, no, there is more than one person spreading this tepid crap around.
Who agrees to continue putting them in films? Lots of people who should know better.
There is such diversity and specificity in life – why continue regurgitating this nonsense?
I just don’t know.
I do know that someone needs to DO something about this – enough is enough. I’m not even a film snob – I usually can’t even be bothered with subtitles or movies made before 1980 – but I just can’t keep my mouth shut any longer.
So I will take my grievances to the blogosphere and begin my list.
1. Woman wearing man’s collared, button-up shirt after sex.
Who fucking does that? (If they do, it’s only because they saw it in a lame and unimaginative movie.)
They throw this little gem in all the time. You may think you’re watching a substantial piece of art and then BAM! – there’s some girl wearing some guy’s collared, button-up shirt after sex. LAME!
2. Very upset person sliding down wall (see diagram below)
Have you ever tried this? I have, and it is really hard – and I wasn’t even upset at the time.
Think of all the overpaid people involved in making these movies – and all the underpaid people standing in the background – and NO ONE stands up and says, “this is ridiculous.” Instead, multiple people sign off on these details, and they are ALL guilty in my book.
Sliding Down a Wall
3. Feedback whenever there is a microphone
EVERY TIME! They do it EV-ER-Y TIME! We don’t need a sound effect – this isn’t radio – its film. We can see what’s happening! We recognize the object you are speaking into as a microphone – mission accomplished, now let’s move on.
4. ‘shling’ sound when someone picks up a knife
Someone needs to stop the sound effect guys – at least supervise them somewhat. God bless them, they are really enthusiastic but tend to go a little overboard.
5. Shower scene after rape
Okay, we get it. They feel dirty and want to clean themselves but there’s not enough water in the world – COME ON! There is an endless variety of things one might be doing after experiencing an intensely traumatizing event and all they can come up with time after time is taking a shower!?!?
Even better – they slide down the shower wall – MOVEISM COMBO – BONUS POINTS!
I’ll say it again – COME. ON. What an uninspired waste of time.
6. Search Engine Montage
Okay, while searching on the internet is a pretty common occurrence in real life, the search engine montage rarely works well in film and is most likely just another lazy trick.
I have included perhaps one of the best examples of the search engine montage, from one of the worst movie franchises ever made and also one of the most popular, the one and only, ‘Twilight.” Enjoy:
7. People hanging up the phone without saying goodbye (and not because they are mad)
Do you do this? I certainly don’t. So who does? Apparently just characters in bad movies.
It’s really funny the little details that exist solely in the movie universe.
8. Crow squawking in abandoned place.
It’s not just in westerns, it’s everywhere…and it’s lame.
9. Changing facial expression suddenly when no one is looking. (ie. No one is looking so the bad guy reveals his true identity with a malicious expression.)
NEWSFLASH: The age of the silent film is over. Nowadays, movies have sound in them– changed the whole game!
Lazy writing. Lazy and condescending. Is there no legitimate way for you to convey to the audience what’s really going on? Find another job – you do not deserve to get paid for shitting on your audience.
Well, that’s all I have for now. But rest assured there is no shortage of mediocrity, so this list will be expanding in the near future. Feel free to send any moveism suggestions you may have!
The imagery and metaphor of the ocean is featured heavily in pretty much all of the songs on our upcoming album – hence the title “Go Call the Captain.” It is also featured in our spectacular album art.
I don’t know how to say this and sound normal, so I’m not even going to try: Being born into this world was like drowning (how I know this is another story – a really good one, too.) Being suddenly surrounded by this reality was jarring, to say the least, and I think I have been working through the trauma of birth since…well, since I was born, and this theme is apparent throughout the album.
Not only have I been writing about this for awhile, I have also been drawing and painting houses floating in water for a really long time.
Our EP pictures a house in the water and for our new album I wanted to keep exploring that image.
The house is our human selves, our lives, everything we know, can talk about, can think about, can begin to conceptualize. And the ocean is everything else. And we are IN it but we don’t really know it. There’s all this other stuff happening beyond the small reality we are focused in – we are floating in it, on it, we could reach out and touch it if we wanted to – but we usually just stay in our little houses.
So here’s the original painting I did. Some people (cough cough) thought it was too amateurish so we started looking for a “real” artist to better convey this concept.
I’m actually really happy that we did, because we found Vitaly Umansky, and what he came up with was really quite perfect.
