Lee Goldberg

Chiseling

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Ah1l14poin I spent the day writing yesterday…but I am being generous. I only got a few pages done and it was like chiseling at stone. Today I looked at the crap I wrote yesterday and was convinced that I’ve lost whatever minimal talent I had. My days as a writer are over. Then I read an excerpt of Walter Mosley’s book THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL in Oprah magazine…and felt much better.

If you skip a day or more between your writing sessions, your mind will drift […] You will find that you’ll have to slog back to a place that would have been easily attained if only you wrote every day.

He’s right, and of course I already knew this, but I’m a writer, so I am naturally insecure. The fact is, I didn’t write for two days because I was bogged down with catching up on my life (after four months away from home) and with FAST TRACK stuff. So when I finally sat down with the book again, I was starting from a dead stop. It should go a bit better today…then even better tomorrow.

SEA CHANGE

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I caught up with last May’s JESSE STONE: SEA CHANGE, the Tom Selleck TV movie that was loosely based on Robert B. Parker’s novel. It was definitely the weakest of the four Stone movies…then again, it was also one of the weakest of the Stone novels. The plot of the movie was actually better than the plot of the book, but that’s not saying much. The mystery was no mystery and Stone was largely ineffectual and passive throughout. But I enjoyed the movie nonetheless, largely because of Selleck’s performance and the general mood of the piece, which is greatly helped by Robert Harmon’s directing and Jeff Beal’s score. Selleck is perfect in the role and I hope he decides to keep doing the movies long after he runs out of books to base them on, especially since the last Stone novel, HIGH PROFILE, was lousy (there is still one good Stone novel, TROUBLE IN PARADISE, that hasn’t been filmed). I wonder why CBS and Selleck haven’t turned JESSE STONE into a weekly series…though now that he’s busy on NBC’s LAS VEGAS, I suppose it’s a moot point for the time being.

News on the Fast Track

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Now that FAST TRACK is finished, we are deep into post…working on the score, etc. I’ll be flying to Montreal later this month to record actor Andrew Walker’s ADR (to replace poor tracks and to record new dialogue) and to meet with potential Canadian broadcasters for the show. And then, in early September, it’s back to Berlin to record the ADR with our European cast. We’re also actively trying to find a U.S. broadcaster for the show…but more on that later. In the mean time, here are some publicity stills from the movie, taken by photographers extraordinaire Gordon Muehl and Stefan Hoederath.

Fasttrack023 Fasttrack393 Fasttrack233 Fasttrack185 _sth8516 _sth8575

A Jewcy Assignment

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While I was away, my brother Tod actually got paid to read Harry Potter fanfiction…and he lived to write about it for Jewcy.com.

I haven’t read much fan fiction over the years; saddled as I’ve been with student writing, I figure reading stories about Kirk and Spock gang-banging a Romulan cum slut or Scooby and Scrappy taking it to a whole new level with "Scooby snacks" probably won’t enrich my life much. But it’s summer, and I’ve got some time.

What he found is absolutely hilarious…

Catching up

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I finally saw LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and BOURNE ULTIMATUM.  DIE HARD was over-the-top, by-the-numbers, and dull. BOURNE ULTIMATUM was fresh, invigorating, and exciting…I loved it. I wish more movies were as smart and exciting as the BOURNE trilogy.  The geek in my can’t wait to get ULTIMATUM on DVD so I can watch all three movies back-the-back in one sitting (as if I will ever have the time for that).

I also caught up with the last five episodes of THE SOPRANOS. They were definitely a big improvement over last season’s episode, a real return to form dramatically and comedicly for the series. But like everyone else, I don’t really get the point of the abrupt ending that felt more like a technical/broadcasting error than a scripted, dramatic moment.

Next on my Tivo… JESSE STONE: SEA CHANGE and the last five episodes of the season of HEROES and LAW AND ORDER: SVU.

Some Velvet Morning

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I was saddened to learn today that Lee Hazlewood, one of my favorite singer-songwriters (and guilty pleasures), has passed away. He was famous for his work with Nancy Sinatra ("These Boots Are Made for Walking," "Summer Wine," etc.), but for me, his best stuff was the obscure albums he recorded after Nancy and during his years in Sweden. Even his bad songs were strangely interesting. I’m going to miss him.

The New York Times Publishes Morons

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Craig Mazin beat me to the punch and perfectly skewers Brooks Barnes’ inane editorial about TV & movie residuals in The New York Times. Barnes starts off by saying:

Jasper Johns isn’t paid based on the number of years his flag paintings remain popular attractions at museums. Rem Koolhaas doesn’t cash a check every time an architecture fan takes a trip to Seattle to see his space-age public library. So why should the writers, directors and actors responsible for box-office bombs like “Gigli” be able to pocket some cash every time somebody buys the DVD?

That just gives you a hint of the stupidity to come.  Barnes doesn’t seem to grasp the difference between looking and selling. If someone wants to reproduce Johns’ painting in prints or t-shirts, Johns gets a royalty.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of Barnes’ idiotic rant which Craig does a wonderful job skewering, point by point. I just hope Craig sent his post the the NY Times as well.