1:48 pm - Sat 5/7/05
Storytelling

Tues 5/3/05 (11:13 a.m.)

Watching The Shield...

As an actor, I'd be happy as a pig in slop to do something like The Shield.

And as an audience member, I love this view into a rough-and-tumble world I'd never ever want to be a part of.

Maybe it's my semi-adult viewpoint, but that's something that strikes me when I watch shows like The Shield or The Sopranos�It's fun to fantasize about getting to do work like that as an actor, and fun (In a "Wild Kingdom" kind-of-way) to see people say and do things that are way outside my day-to-day existence, but neither show makes the world they depict look particularly sexy or glamorous.

Watching The Shield, it seems like there's something in any given episode�something someone says, or something someone does�that makes me think "God�could I say, or do, that?".

I wanna think I'm fearless as an actor�much more so than I am as a person�but I'm just not sure 20 years of community theater has prepared me to say a line like this (WARNING: Profanity ahead):

"When I say �suck my dick', you say, �you want me to lick your balls, Daddy?'."

I'm not sure 20 years of community theatre has even prepared me to be the actor someone's saying that line to.

Thurs 5/5/05 (9:08 a.m.)

My friend Jason recently posted the AFI "Top 100 films" list on his blog ("+" marks the movies I've seen).

+1. "Citizen Kane," 1941
+2. "Casablanca," 1942
+3. "The Godfather," 1972
+4. "Gone With the Wind," 1939
5. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962
+6. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939
+7. "The Graduate," 1967
+8. "On the Waterfront," 1954
+9. "Schindler's List," 1993
+10. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952
+11. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946
+12. "Sunset Boulevard," 1950
13. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957
+14. "Some Like it Hot," 1959
+15. "Star Wars," 1977
+16. "All About Eve," 1950
+17. "The African Queen," 1951
+18. "Psycho," 1960
+19. "Chinatown," 1974
+20. "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975
+21. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940
22. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968
+23. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941
+24. "Raging Bull," 1980
+25. "E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial," 1982
+26. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964
+27. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967
+28. "Apocalypse Now," 1979
+29. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939
+30. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948
+31. "Annie Hall," 1977
+32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974
+33. "High Noon," 1952
+34. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962
+35. "It Happened One Night," 1934
+36. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969
37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946
+38. "Double Indemnity," 1944
39. "Doctor Zhivago," 1965
+40. "North by Northwest," 1959
+41. "West Side Story," 1961
+42. "Rear Window," 1954
+43. "King Kong," 1933
44. "The Birth of a Nation," 1915
+45. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951
+46. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971
+47. "Taxi Driver," 1976
+48. "Jaws," 1975
+49. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937
+50. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969
+51. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940
52. "From Here to Eternity," 1953
+53. "Amadeus," 1984
54. "All Quiet on the Western Front," 1930
+55. "The Sound of Music," 1965
+56. "M*A*S*H," 1970
57. "The Third Man," 1949
+58. "Fantasia," 1940
+59. "Rebel Without a Cause," 1955
+60. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981
+61. "Vertigo," 1958
+62. "Tootsie," 1982
+63. "Stagecoach," 1939
+64. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," 1977
+65. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991
+66. "Network," 1976
67. "The Manchurian Candidate," 1962
+68. "An American in Paris," 1951
+69. "Shane," 1953
+70. "The French Connection," 1971
+71. "Forrest Gump," 1994
+72. "Ben-Hur," 1959
73. "Wuthering Heights," 1939
+74. "The Gold Rush," 1925
+75. "Dances With Wolves," 1990
+76. "City Lights," 1931
+77. "American Graffiti," 1973
+78. "Rocky," 1976
+79. "The Deer Hunter," 1978
+80. "The Wild Bunch," 1969
+81. "Modern Times," 1936
+82. "Giant," 1956
+83. "Platoon," 1986
+84. "Fargo," 1996
+85. "Duck Soup," 1933
+86. "Mutiny on the Bounty," 1935
+87. "Frankenstein," 1931
+88. "Easy Rider," 1969
+89. "Patton," 1970
90. "The Jazz Singer," 1927
91. "My Fair Lady," 1964
92. "A Place in the Sun," 1951
+93. "The Apartment," 1960
+94. "Goodfellas," 1990
+95. "Pulp Fiction," 1994
+96. "The Searchers," 1956
+97. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938
+98. "Unforgiven," 1992
+99. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," 1967
100. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942

I think I counted 85 I've seen, though I'm too lazy to go back and double-check myself... (Interesting to note�Of the movies I haven't seen, nothing is more recent than 1968, while there's only one movie on the list from 1980 or beyond--"Dances With Wolves"--that I didn't originally see in the theater).

When I marked the movies I've seen on the list, I was both impressed with all the ones I'd seen�85 movies is a lot of movies-- and embarrassed about the ones I haven't seen (How can I not have seen Lawrence of Arabia, or The Third Man, or 2001, to name just a few?).

I also had the same feeling I had when I watched four episodes of The Sheild shortly after watching the DVD box set of Wonderfalls�I marvelled at all the different stories that have been told, that there are to tell, and I felt a sense of gratitude at all the great movies and tv shows (And for that matter, all the great books and music) that are out there, that are available to me.

And it made me think, once again, that somehow, some way, I'd really like to be a part of that.

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