Hell Up In Farmland

The National Weather Service has issued a Heat Advisory. Hard to breathe, sun bearing down. Like our ice storm, only the opposite. Note that Dante's hell was cold. As Chester B. Himes said in The Heat's On, it was too evil to love.

I got an email from Mark Polonia about cutting Black Mass and he mentioned that it was "unsettling." This means something from a guy whose first movie featured a guy pooping out a knife.

I've been talking b-movies with some colleagues lately and sort of came to realize that a lot of people think that b-movie writing will always be there as a fallback for them if their sequel to The Seventh Seal falls through. Kind of like those annoying people who say they are going to take up writing or painting when they retire from their "real jobs," which to me is like saying I'll take up doctoring or lawyering after I retire from my "real job." It's not just sitting there waiting for you to do if you deign to do it. Some parts of it are craft, natch, but there is a part of it that's fire. Trying to grasp my muse again lately points that up.

I can't offer advice like the people who are great writers in the many great, great links in my sidebar, but one thing I will say is that even b-movies are work, and even b-movies cost money. That's why I think as long as you have to expend your energy writing them, you should try to make them the best you can. If one thinks that writing direct-to-video fare is so easy, I invite them to try it; then get somebody to buy the script, then get somebody to make it, which usually means somebody else invested their money, then get somebody else to put it on the shelf, then go down to your video store and look at it sitting there. Then you'll know.

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.