Lately

Yesterday I was tired and spent most of the day in bed. When I wasn't sleeping I was watching movies, propped up with pillows. Shattered Glass was on so I watched that again.

As always, I'm really looking forward to Christmas and I'm hoping to start shopping the weekend after next. I've been working a lot over the past couple weeks so I'll have a good amount of money.

Do you look forward to Christmas, and what is your favorite part of it?

"Final Girl Film Club"

It's always been my dream to be a member of the Final Girl Film Club. Her's is one of the first blogs I ever read and it's still my favorite. About a year and a half ago, well before I started my own blog, I asked for her advice on what makes a good blog. I liked her advice, which for privacy's sake I won't repeat here (not that I think she'd mind; it's just that it was a private conversation (not that I think she'd even remember- it was a brief conversation)).

I wish I could write like her. Her blog is always fun to read; whether she's joking or being serious it's always a good time. It's taken me some time, but I've accepted the fact that I'm never going to write like her. So instead I'm just going to be myself, write as well as I can, and hope for the best.

The date of the next Final Girl Film Club movie is May 11, and the movie is Amityville II: The Possession, a movie which I reviewed here last year. I like the review that I wrote, still, I plan on watching the film again and writing something fresh. It's always been one of my favorite movies and it had a major effect on young RJ, so I think I have a lot to say about it. And now that I've finally written my first major movie review (Shattered Glass), I think I'm finally ready to put out a really good post on Amityville II. By the way, did you read my review of Shattered Glass? If you haven't, check it out.

Anyway, mark your calender and stop by on May 11. I'm not Final Girl, but I'll try to make it fun.

Rabbit

On the first day of each month you're supposed to say "Rabbit"* as you step out of bed- it's a good luck thing. I guess it's a kid superstition, but I never heard of it until I was a junior in high school.

Even if you didn't say "Rabbit" this morning, it's still your lucky day because last night I finally posted my review of the movie Shattered Glass and now you can read it...

So what do you think? Is it worth the wait? You have to remember: I'm not a writer. I'm trying to write better though. For you. It's all for you, Damien. I think if you go back to my first post from back in October 2008 and read everything between then and now you'll see improvement.

Anyway, I'm just glad that I finally got it over with; I feel like now I'll be able to move onto other things.


*Some people say "Rabbit, rabbit".

"Shattered Glass" review by RJ Battles

Shattered Glass (2003)

(I just want to say I love the movie poster and the way it looks like a post-Scream slasher movie.)

Shattered Glass is the story of Stephen Glass, who, in the late 1990s was a young writer at The New Republic, as well as a contibutor to Rolling Stone and George. His career was on the rise until it was revealed that he had made up a lot of his stories- completely made them up.

Hayden Christensen plays Glass. I've never seen any of Christensen's other films so I had no idea what to expect. All I can say is: he must be a really great actor because not once while I was watching did it cross my mind that he was acting. It all seemed totally real to me. The Edward Nortons and Kevin Spaceys of the world are always performing, always acting. But not this guy.

And there's the Christian Bales and Jared Letos, gaining and dropping hundreds of pounds for realism, and to show the lengths they'll go in service of their craft.

If you've ever seen a picture of Stephen Glass you know he's kind of pasty and dorky. Hayden Christensen, if you've seen him, is beyond movie star good-looking. He's closer to Greek statue good-looking. Still he doesn't go for any drastic makeover to get into character. He throws on some glasses and parts his hair on the side. WaBOOM! He's Stephen Glass! It's refreshing.

Our first introduction to Glass is a voice-over where he explains the world of journalism as well as the way he deals with people. In my words: in a world of assholes he's able to disarm people by being polite and humble.

There's a wraparound device to the story here. Glass has been invited by his former high school writing teacher to speak before her class and tell his story. This gives the movie audience some background into jounalism and The New Republic. That's fine, though it's done in a West Wing kind of way, like the September 11 episode they did where a group of students were stuck with senior staff in the mess and they lectured the kids on the roots of terrorism.

Anyway, when we get to the offices of TNR we see that Glass's co-workers are very impressed with his stories, and, if he weren't so kind and humble they'd be more jealous than they are. At the weekly meeting where they talk about the stories they're working on it's always Glass who has the best ideas.

The first sign of trouble on the horizon is when Glass's editor asks to see him about a story he's written about convention of young conservatives. The subjects are furious; they say that Glass's story is completely untrue. It comes down to a small detail- in the story "Spring Breakdown" there's a reference to a mini-bar being in the hotel room, but it turns out that the hotel in question doesn't have them in it's rooms. The editor, Michael Kelly doesn't seem particulary upset about the problem, still, right away Glass offers to resign. Kelly just wants an explanation and Glass says that the mini-bar in the room must've been rented. Later, Kelly makes a call to see if guests are able to rent mini-bars- they are- and he lets the matter drop.

Next we get to see more of Glass, both in and out of work. Despite his success in journalism, he says that his parents won't be happy with him unless he goes to law school. There's a hint that Glass might be secretly gay, and the hint comes from Glass himself. He tells a friend at work that he's worried that people mistake him for a homosexual and tells a story about a dinner meeting with a fellow writer. He says the two of them were walking down the street after dinner when, out of nowhere, the guy kissed him. It seems like an odd incident for him to bring up. After the movie came out Glass was interviewed and when asked about it he said he had "no idea" why that scene was in there and didn't give any clarification.

Michael Kelly has been having problems with the publisher of TNR and eventually he's fired and another writer, Charles Lane, is chosen to take his place. Kelly had been very protective of his staff and extremely well-liked, so there's resentment against Lane, even though he does his best to be fair with the writers.

Not long after Kelly's exit, Glass outlines plans for his next story at the weekly staff meeting. Again, he's got an interesting lead, another story that everyone else wishes they could write about. The story, which eventually becomes "Hack Heaven", is about a teenager who hacked into an internet company called Jukt Micronics. He vandalized their website and posted the salaries of the top executives, but instead of pressing charges the company offered him a job as a security consultant. The kid had a list of outrageous demands and Jukt agreed to them all during a closed-door meeting during a hacker convention at a nearby hotel.

The editor at an online magazine, Forbes Digital Tool reads "Hack Heaven" and asks one of his writers, Adam Penenberg(Steve Zahn), how he got scooped on the story and says he should look into doing a follow-up. As Penenberg investigates he finds that nothing checks out. He can't track down anyone mentioned in the story and there's no listing for a Jukt Micronics. Eventually the people at FDT come to think that Glass had been set up by a source and they get in touch with Lane.

Because Glass is not only the young star of TNR but also everyone's puppy, Charles Lane approaches the problem very gently. All he wants are the notes and contacts so he can talk to the sources himself. Glass gives him some dead-end phone numbers and homemade business cards. He also pulls up Jukt Micronics's website where they've posted a statement complaining about TNR's treatment of them.

Eventually a conference call is set up between Forbes and TNR. As the meeting goes on, it becomes clear to everyone that the sources are fake and the website is a sham, and an amateur sham at that. Glass admits that he now believes he has been "duped"

I think that up to the point of what happens next, anyone watching would be on Glass's side, hoping that he gets away with it all. If anyone in the audience was going to turn against him it would be now, because while Lane is trying to get Forbes to go easy on him and consider the damage this could do to his career, Glass is complaining to his co-workers, telling them that Lane is trying to (I'm not crazy about this phrase, but) throw him under the bus.

Lane tells Glass he wants to see the hotel where the hacker convention was held. Once there it dawns on Lane that Glass wasn't duped- nothing in the story was true.

Later, Lane is at the office, looking through back issues. He realizes that "Hack Heaven" wasn't the first time that Glass had turned in fake stories. Glass comes to talk with Lane, and, crying, he pleads with Lane to forgive him. He hints that he might kill himself, but Lane doesn't soften. This movie was generally well-recieved, but one complaint that some people had was that it didn't do enough to explain why Stephen Glass did it. Why would someone who was so talented make up stories? Why would he risk his career in such a reckless way over and over. I think the movie does answer that question, though in a subtle way .

Glass liked being defended. He was the kind of person that other people wanted to protect, and everything he did provoked that response. He was kind and smart and innocent and modest. Towards the end he wasn't looking for Charles Lane to save his career- his career over no matter what. He wanted Lane to hold him say he forgave him and everything was alright. When Lane blew off his suicide threat that was when Glass had truly lost; that was his defeat.

The movie was based on a Vanity Fair article of the same name by Buzz Bissinger and it follows the story faithfully. There's very little in the article that isn't in the movie and vice versa. It's too bad that a lot of people haven't seen this movie and probably won't because the subject matter doesn't seem like something that would intererst them. It's a good story well-told.

After the truth came out, TNR was pretty embarrassed. Though they already had high standards and whatnot, I tend to think that there's a new attitude in the offices of TNR since the Stephen Glass incident. I get the feeling that they- everyone there: writers, editors, and fact chackers- have a very strict idea of what can be considered factual writing. That would explain why they came down on David Sedaris a couple years ago in an article by Alex Heard called "This American Lie". Heard cites about a dozen weak examples of exaggeration and comes to the conclusion that Sedaris's biographical essays should be in the "Fiction" secion of the bookstore. It's clear that TNR consider themselves the guardians of what can be called factual writing. They seem to me like ex-drunks who act like anyone who drinks has a drinking problem.

P.S. Thank you for waiting so long. If they ever make a sequel I'll have my review up in a more timely manner, I promise.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

David Lynch has said that it was his intention that Twin Peaks would never reveal who killed Laura Palmer; he wanted it to stay a mystery and he knew that once the problem was solved the show would start to fade away. There was a lot of pressure from the network, though, and not long after the answer came out, the show was cancelled.

I thought it would be alittle funny if I kept on saying that my review of Shattered Glass was just around the corner and then keep pushing it back. I was gonna write it and post it eventually, but I was thinking of a few months down the road.

Now I've decided that now is the time. Not right now, probably not even today (though maybe today), but at least sometime this week.

There are still other record sleeves I wanna spotlight and write about but I'm done with that being the main focus. There are a lot more things I want to write about here at RJ Battles so I'm going to broaden the scope (or possibly narrow the scope- I'm not sure yet). The point is: you can expect some changes around here in the coming days and weeks.

Guess what I'm working on

I'm sure most of you check in every day, not just for for the record sleeves and my great writing, but, because you're hoping it will be the day when I finally post my review of the movie Shattered Glass.

I know. It's been a long time. Maybe you've given up hope.

But the wait is almost over. It'll surely be up by Easter.

Hang in there.

March

March is going to be the biggest month yet here at RJ Battles. I've got big plans.

+ For the first time I'm going to participate in the Final Girl Film Club. I've been wanting to do it for a while but it never worked out. This month it's going to be a movie called "The Beyond" and I think the date is March 30.

+ Also, I'm still waiting for questions for my advice column Ask RJ. There's gotta be something I can help you with. Write to me. Send your questions to nowtheyllsleep@hotmail.com

+ I'm gonna try to spotlight some more recent sleeve artwork plus some other designs and photos.

+ There will be some new movie reviews, inluding my review of "Shattered Glass".

+ I'm going to put up a post about editorial cartoons.

+ March is going to be Breeders Month here at RJ Battles too.

+ Plus I've got some surprises in mind. Stick around.

Something else to look forward to

Sometime this month or next I'm going to be posting my review of Shattered Glass, the 2003 movie about Stephen Glass.

In the meantime, if you get a chance to see it, check it out. It's on DVD and the Independent Film Channel plays it from time to time (that's where I saw it).

Mission Statement

It probably started earlier, but around 1997 I noticed that every business or group, no matter how small, had to have a mission statement- a few sentences or one long sentence that stated that group's goals.

To me it always seemed too formal, too "7 Habits" (someday soon I'm going to finally read that book, the original). Still I'm going to try to outline, briefly, the purpose of this blog.

I think it was sometime last year, Final Girl put up a link to Entertainment Weekly's list of 10 Greatest Horror Movies. She mentioned the same thing that I liked about there list: Along with each movie they put up a picture from the film, and in just about every case they used an image that wasn't the usual movie still that you might expect.

I like that.

And that's what I try to do here.

You might notice for the Aimee Mann post last month I used a picture that was a composite of the Smilers artwork and for the Body of Evidence review I used a "Dita" photo from the "Erotica" video.

I'm trying to show, not just my favorite images, but some rarely-seen pictures that you might not normally come across.

I have some more that I'll be rolling out over the next month. Stay tuned (Shattered Glass review coming soon too).

Big Weekend

There's a lot to look forward to over the next few days, especially this coming weekend.

My friend is working Friday, so Saturday we're gonna try to do a double feature: My Bloody Valentine 3-D and Friday the 13th.

Plus I have a few more Season 4 episodes of The West Wing to watch- then there'll be my definitive WW post.

Tomorrow I'm going to start working on a series of new oil paintings. I'm very excited and still I'm dreading the clean-up. It's such a pain and I don't think I have any paint thinner.

Any day now my review of Shattered Glass will be up. I've been promising that for a while. The wait is almost over.

Plus, don't forget: I can solve all your problems. Ask RJ. Come to RJ, let me make everything all better.

The Wicked Wing of the West

My boss gave me the season four DVD of The West Wing after I mentioned how much I like the show. I'm thinking of popping it in this weekend and having a marathon.

Someday, probably someday very soon, I'm going to have to do an in-depth post about The West Wing (only seasons 1-4; everything after Aaron Sorkin left sucks), and talk about Sorkin in general.

By the way, last month before my wireless G died I caught Shattered Glass again on IFC. Keep an eye out for my review.

Sunday marks 3 months of RJ Battles

The next few days are going to be huge here at RJ Battles. Sunday, January 11, 2009 marks three months of RJ Battles. Three Months.

Monday, January 12, 2009, I'll be joining in the Final Girl Film Club; the film is going to be Grindhouse. I can't wait to see it. Plus, I've been wanting to join the FGFC for some time now. Final Girl is my favorite blog, the blog that I try to emulate, the blog that I'll never come close to matching. I'd link to FG on the side of the page but I have no idea how to do that.

Also, as you already know, January is going to be Belly Star month ( and February will be Belly King month ).

And of course, after all the demands I've been receiving I can't put it off any longer. My eagerly-awaited review of the movie Shattered Glass will finally be available this weekend. You'll get to read my comments first. In a few months my words will be added as a postscript to the deluxe DVD edition; Hayden Christiansen will read an excerpt after the picture fades to black, before the end credits appear.

Plus, to kick off Month Four of RJ Battles I'll be talking about Aimee Mann.

Sixty posts

I've written 60 posts for this blog; we're also nearing RJ Battles 3 month anniversary.

So far I'm pretty satisfied with the blog. It isn't yet what I wanted when I started it. My goal was and is to have a page that appeals to all interests but specializes in graphic art and record sleeves in particular.

What I really want is to share my enthusiasm for sleeve design. That's the hard part. I can post pictures that I like but I'm not good at sharing the enjoyment that I get from looking at them.

Anyway_ _ _

I'm planning on dedicating January 2009 to the Belly LP Star and its related singles and EPs.

And for February- Belly released their second album on Valentines Day 1995 ( Throwing Muses released University the same day )- I'm going to spotlight King along with "Now They'll Sleep" and "Seal My Fate".

Also_ _ _

Soon I'm going to post my review of Shattered Glass. The wait is almost over.