La La Land - Heart Breaking and Terrific

La La Land - An Emotional Trip

Spoiler Alert!! If you haven't seen La La Land, firstly, go and see it as soon as possible. Secondly, shame on you for not seeing it yet. :) Thirdly, what are you doing reading this? Go see it!!

Spoiler Country Ahead

So, word on the street was La La Land was good. Critics were gushing. The academy dropped a

deluge of nominations on it and I had even heard from a few friends that they enjoyed it.

"But it has dancing and singing!" I said with gentle mistrust.

You see dear reader, I had been fooled before by the critics, academy and even close friends who shall remain nameless. A couple/few years ago I followed the recommendations to the silver screen and saw the movie The Artist. To jog your memory, it is the film in black and white, without a talk track until the last moment of the film.

Don't get me wrong it wasn't terrible, but I found myself shifting in my seat and checking my phone several times to see if they had invented time travel yet so I could zip forward and hour or so. I'm being dramatic, but it was a three star film in a five star film's ball gown.

Yes, I am aware the film was nominated and won the academy award for best picture, so what the hell do I know. However, I would wager it is one of those Best Picture Winners which will fade into the past and wont have a lasting audience. Others in that category, Shakespeare in Love (Which I enjoyed), Crash, American Beauty and Napoleon Dynamite. (Just testing to see if you are paying attention)

So needless to say I was hesitant to go see La La Land. However, my wife wanted to go, and it is late January, not a hot bed for the release of great films. This is normally the time they re-boot some kind of Vin Diesel hack job or drop Resident Evil Part 76 Return of the Evil that Resides onto audiences. So, choices were scarce.

Being an above par husband, thinking of the happiness of his spouse above his own, and who wished to get lucky that night, I acquiesced my wishes and we went and saw La La Land.

And...I loved it, damn it!

Both Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are dreamers. Emma wants to be a successful actress. Ryan

wants to open a club and share his love of Jazz. A love which is infectious. They both struggle painfully, endearingly and amusingly. Lots of adverbs. They are soul mates. Both of them feeding off of each other's enthusiasm for their dreams, both supportive.

To make a long story short.  Their dreams are what brings them together. And through their relationship, both of their dreams become realities. However, in the end, they must sacrifice their relationship to reach the dream.

It is both heartbreaking and beautiful.

I have thought a lot about why I enjoyed it so thoroughly. I think its because, I was presented with a similar question once in my life. Film making or your family.

Ever since I was young I wanted to be a storyteller. I wrote stories, put on plays and made movies. The creative process gave me such unspeakable satisfaction that I was determined to be a film director. By the time I was twenty-three I felt like I was on my way. I was married, had a newborn,  and was in the process of directing/producing a documentary called Forgotten Gunfighters.

These were heady days. I was working with film professionals, had a cast of about 20 people, all working together to take the story we were wanting to tell and put it onto screen. I can remember having to be reminded to eat, which if you know me is extraordinary, during production and post production. The experience consumed me.

When the sales didn't come as we had thought, and ancillary work began to dry up, I couldn't make ends meet with my dream. I was accountable to a young wife and a baby boy, but I was unwilling to take a job stocking shelves.

"I had been in charge of a film production with a budget of close to a 100k, I'm not going to go stock shelves!"

I held out for only film work and I continued to write my screenplays. The opportunity would come, I assured myself.

Well it didn't. My refusal to compromise my dream for my family, put us into severe financial duress and we had to move back in with my parents. Soon after, my little family blew up. My wife filed for divorce and took our son out of state.

I can tell you, at that moment, my dreams didn't seem so important. All I could think of was my relationship with my wife and son.

So while watching La La Land and seeing a similar situation play out, albeit with very different circumstances, it brought back memories. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone made the decisions to follow their dreams instead of keeping their relationship. Both of them "made it." But at the end of the film, when they meet by chance five years later in Ryan's Jazz club they are both given a glimpse into what their lives might have been if they would have stayed together. It is very emotional. They would have been happy... But, in the end, even though they aren't together, they are still happy.

I believe that life can be full of silver linings if you look for them and are grateful for what you do have.

My story has a silver lining. Eventually, my wife and I reconciled and were remarried and now I have 5 kids... 1,2,3,4,5.... Okay maybe that isn't a silver lining, maybe thats a horror story. :)

How are your movie chops?

I hated tests at school, so I'm not quite sure why I am a sucker for online quizzes. However, because of online quizzes I know what my spirit animal is, I know what century I am really from, and I know I am above average in pointless geography.
So I wanted to make a movie quiz and challenge you to see how you do! No cheating! Not that I could enforce that rule, but the online quiz gods will know, and you don't want to cross them... I'm speaking from experience.
Let's see if you've got what it takes!

Loading How much do you know about movies?

Well there goes a $100

Movies and I have a special relationship. I love them, and they make me spend too much money.  I was on Thinkgeek.com the other day and I stumbled upon these treasures. Which ones are your favorites?




Back to the Future!
People in the film industry say this film's script is perfect, in fact it is studied by film students at USC and UCLA.

Batman!

Billions of dollars in merchandise sold. Batman is iconic. Plus, there are few franchises that have a better arch villain than the Joker. Perhaps Darth Vader? What's your thoughts?

Bill Murray in 3 movies!

Zombieland, Kingpin & Life Aquatic. Bill's hair in Kingpin was spectacular. He just let loose in that movie and it was so much fun.

Ghostbusters!

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man as your climactic nemesis... YES PLEASE! 

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

Thriller with Michael Jackson!

I know this dates me, but I can remember when MTV was cool and nothing was cooler than Michael Jackson's Thriller video. It was just under 14 minutes and filmed by John Landis who is the director of such movies as American Werewolf in London, Three Amigos and Coming to America.

Napoleon Dynamite!
Moon Boots and Ringer tees became cool again... sort of. What a peculiar movie, but somehow worked itself into the psyche of America. There have been lovable losers before, but none that had Napoleon's dance moves. I love Napoleon Dynamite and it's sequel Nacho Libre...

Sherlock!

Talk about sending an actor into the stratosphere. Sherlock launched Benedict Cumberbatch into stardom with his brilliant portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in our modern era. One of my favorite tv shows of all time.

SPINAL TAP!

"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
…These go to eleven." I have to be honest these three guys might be my front-runners for my first purchase of these vinyl dolls. I loved Spinal Tap... I think I might like quoting it even more than watching it. It has become a part of me.

TOM HANKS!

I actually think in order for this to work you need all three of Tom Hanks characters next to each other. I loved all three of these movies, Catch me if you can, Forrest Gump and Castaway... The Castaway doll (Action figure) is actually my favorite of the three.

Young Frankenstein!

In my top ten of funniest movies of all time. Gene Wilder and Cloris Leachman were fantastic! The whole cast was so much fun. Gene actually wrote the script and enlisted his good friend and "discoverer" Mel Brooks to direct. They created comedy gold. 

"You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump."

"What hump?"

I would eventually like to get all of these, but which ones are your favorites?

You can find even more of them here. http://vinylsugar.com/product-category/products/vinyl-idolz/

Inspiration through Music

Music - the track, hill, loop, and turn of my emotional roller coaster. I am not musically inclined, not even a little bit. The only reason why I know the difference between a c scale and a g scale is because my Mother forced me to take piano lessons for 3 years.
How did it go? Well… My Mother is an angel and will probably be whisked through the pearly gates without a second glance. With that in mind, I have only been slapped by my Mother twice in my life, even though I deserved it countless more times, and each one was at the piano. In conclusion, piano lessons didn’t go well.

Nevertheless, the enjoyment of music has played a significant role in my life since I was young. Wether it was listening to the Peer Gynt Suite No.1 over and over again while running in circles when I was six or rollerskating to Staying Alive on 70’s night at the roller rink during college. I’ve always felt connected to music as I am sure many of you do.
But for me, the love of music has gone beyond appreciation. Music is the spark that sets my imagination into motion. Every single movie, book or story I’ve ever created has been born from a song that I heard.
Many years ago, I was perusing some of my dad’s old bossa nova CDs. Why did he have bossa nova CDs? To this day it is a mystery. He isn’t Cuban, he isn’t from Miami, nor does he have an affinity for Latin dancing. But there I was, listening to the bristling brass sections of Beny More and Perez Prado when on pops ‘Patricia’, a peculiar and ridiculous song. Instantaneously my imagination was transported to a sunny retirement village where plump retirees dressed in tropical colors are playing heated croquet matches.

Mallets are swinging, croquet balls racing along the manicured grass and I think, wouldn’t be amazing and silly if there was professional croquet? (There is!) And wouldn’t be even better still if a former champion succumbed to pressure and threw a championship match. The words “Black Croquet: The Story of Herman Strazinski” formed in my head and I was off!
That idea formed into a film script that never got made, but the idea was later incorporated into my new book Fremont Rosenbloom: Party Assassin for Hire.
So when I think back to every story I’ve created I can tie it to a song that helped me take flight. I’ve created a playlist of songs that have sparked stories.

What are some of the songs that have transported your imagination away?

Here are a few of the stories I’ve created and their corresponding song.
Funk Down (Movie) - Get Down Tonight
Crossovers (Movie) - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Crossovers (Book) - Hand Covers Bruise
Fremont Rosenbloom (Book) - Patricia and Wait
My new book I am working on (Book) - A La Lumiere Des Diamants  I hope you enjoy them!

Where did Death's Academy come from?

Where did the idea of Death’s Academy come form?

So I had finished my first book Crossovers, which is twice as long as Death’s Academy and had a darker, more serious, tone overall. I am by nature, somewhat of a goofball and dork with an imagination that leans towards the bizarre side.

For example when I was in my early twenties I made an extremely independent movie called Funk Down. Funk Down is the epic story of a guy, he actually was a disco king coming back to his hometown after a long journey to find that the forces of soft rock had overtaken his city, shut down the disco dens, and sent his world into black chaos. Truly a deep, thoughtful piece of work.

Anyhow, I had finished Crossovers and I wanted to tap into my weirdness again, so I started to brainstorm on ideas. An idea about man eating venus flytraps survived for about a day or two, but thankfully I came to my senses and then I started playing around with another idea about a guy who you can hire to destroy special occasions… which may be a book I actually do in the future, but at that moment it wasn’t speaking to me. So I was despondent, I locked myself into my room, wailed into my pillow for at least a good seven or eight seconds and thought my world had ended.

So in this state of the utmost melodramatic tragedy my twelve year old son came up to me and showed me a story that he had written. I’ll be honest I don’t remember all the particulars, but I do remember that there was a cat and then a Grim reaper who was assigned to kill cats. As soon as I read that, a tsunami of ideas came to me. Well what if there were reapers for all types of animals and humans and you had to go to school to learn how to be a grim reaper. What if there entire culture and class structure was determined by the type of reaper you were, what would be the ultimate assignments to have. Then the idea of having their arch nemesis be the guardian angels jumped on board, so it started this snowball effect that I have to credit all to my son.

So in hindsight my wife was right and it was a wise move to not sell him into the circus as the boy that gets shot from the cannon… I guess.

Why are names so dang important?

Names… Why are names important? Let me propose a scenario to you. You have just inherited two million dollars from your dear great aunt. You are a responsible person, so you want to investigate ways of preserving and growing your new fortune.

So you walk into a bank and you walk over to the financial advisement center. There are two desks, at each desk sits a man. They are wearing identical suits, have their hair parted similarly, there is little to distinguish one from the other. You walk up to the desks and notice their name plates. One says Billy Bob Honeybottom and the other Theodore Williamson the third. Who’s desk do you go to for advice on investing your new fortune?

Mr. Honeybottom of course.

But everywhere you look in literature, names instill a feeling or even insinuate something about the character.

Let’s use a famous example, Harry Potter. A common name, it is unassuming, almost feels like an underdog, you want to root for him.

From the same series the villain Voldemort, which his name itself sounds dangerous, but also is a French phrase that means “Flight From Death”. For those of you that have read the series you’d agree that his name fits him well.

So names have always been important to me. When writing Death’s Academy I tried to conjure up names that would tell something about each character even before you learned more about them.

My intention was to follow a theme with the Hoodies. They are grim reapers so in my mind they would lean toward the mischievousness, toward the darkness, but not evil.

That’s why I chose names like Midnight, Mal (which is short for Malificent), Obsidian, Demien, and Pandora.

I wanted to have fun with their names and take you into their world and culture.

For the Halos, I wanted pompous, arrogant names that told you right when you met them in the story, that they thought their farts didn’t stink. Which they don’t, they are actually like a nice, mild potpourri.

Brilliance, Lightcrest and Magnificus. You can almost imagine them looing down their perfectly shaped noses at you. And let’s be honest if you ran into a girl named Brilliance, you’d be like.. oh really? Well excuse me for not laying rose petals on the ground before your feet.

That’s why I think names are so important and so much fun to come up with. As soon as I am able to lock in a name for a particular character everything else about them seems to fall into place.

Now I’d better get going, I don’t want to keep Mr. Honeybottom waiting.

Who is this Michael Bast?... Who cares?

Hi there everybody! My name is Michael Bast and I am an author.

I am from Arizona, I have five nasty kids that I kind of like, depends on the day. 

I used to collect a lot of different things. Comics, baseball cards, precious stones, toys, movies, music, stuff like that. But this is what is a little weird about me. I didn’t like to read comics, I wasn’t a big baseball fan. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a sapphire and a ruby besides that their different colors. So why did I collect them? This is a bit embarrassing, because I thought I was going to get rich, by holding on to them… guess what, it didn’t work.

Now a days I don’t do quite the same type of collecting even though I do have three huge boxes filled with action figures in my garage… do I occasionally take them out and set them up into elaborate battle scenes… that’s none of your business and I’d appreciate if you’d stop asking me such personal questions. Nosey.

I also collect music and movies. I own over a 1000 dvds. You want me to tell you the sad thing… I probably haven’t seen a third of those movies. So why do I collect them? Because one day I may be sitting in my living room and get an overwhelming urge to watch Troll 2. If it isn’t in my library what am I gonna do? Blockbuster has closed down and the nearest red box is at least a mile and a half… Do you know how expensive gas is?… I really don’t know why I collect them, maybe I am like one of those crazy end of the world nuts that stockpiles prunes and deer jerkey, but instead I am stockpiling movies. Who knows?

Before becoming an author I was a filmmaker. I made a couple of independent films and documentaries. I always believed that filmmaking was my greatest passion, but then I finally heeded my wife’s nagging and sat down to write a book. I haven’t made a movie or thought about filmmaking since. I have written three books and am in the process of writing a fourth. 

My first book is called Calypso the Wonder Dolphin, it’s the story of a magical porpoise that fights terrorists that attack Disney World. It’s actually based on historical events… That actually sounds pretty good…(Hold on I’m just jotting that down) No my first book is actually called Crossovers. It is the story of a boy who has always been able to see things and people that aren’t supposed to be there, not ghosts, but something far more dangerous. He has been kept hidden and protected his whole life, but then by an accident his existence is discovered. So the bad dudes are coming for him… Maybe it isn’t quite as spine tingling as Calypso the Wonder Dolphin, but I love it.

So anyway, I am excited for you to check out my books. I hope you like them.

Thanks guys! See you soon!