Entertain Me!

A little Bora Bora to get things rolling tonight...

OK, first things first. Improv! We had an "all improv" night in acting class tonight...

Gads, I hate improv. I am sooo bad at it, it's painful. Let me qualify that... when it's not my turn, and I'm watching other people do improv from the comfort and safety of my own seat, I can think of all kinds of awesome, clever and/or funny things I'd do and say if I were up there at the moment. But as soon as I get to (have to?) get up in front of the class, I get brain freeze, sweat like a pig, and painfully bumble my way through the exercise, and then retreat to my seat with tail between legs... it's humiliating.

I guess it's a pride thing... I want to be good at it. I am not. From what I understand, the purpose of doing improv is to teach us to listen to the other actors we have scenes with, and to be "in the moment", etc. Yeah, I get that. I just wish there was a different way to learn those skills. I'm wondering how long I can continue to try and improve on a skill I really dislike. Love acting; starting to hate improv. Robin Williams I am not.

Anyway, that's that.

One of the improv exercises we had to do was "Sit, Stand, Bend"... here are some pro's doing it right...



Our attempts were nowhere near as good. Ouch.

Next, I found a new TV program to watch called "Justified"... perhaps you've heard of it? Anyway, I haven't enjoyed a show this much since my "Lie To Me" binge last year. Man, what a great show. The main character is a US Marshall named Raylon Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), and the dude is all man... capital M! I admit I kind of have a man-crush on him... wish I was that cool. Anyway, here, check out the trailer for Season One...



Trust me... top notch writing, acting and storytelling. Great characters. I especially like Walton Groggins as Boyd Crowder and Jeremy Davies as Dickie Bennett. If you've seen Saving Private Ryan, you know Jeremy Davies as Corporal Upham, and he was also on LOST as Daniel Faraday. His performance in Justified is awesome.

Anyway, check it out, if you want. If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch four full seasons.

Speaking of great things I've seen lately, I saw Star Trek Into Darkness earlier this week (on Labor Day, actually), and was blown away by how great it was. I mean, 10 out of 10. The third 10/10 I've awarded a movie in the past decade (besides Batman Begins and Inception). Love the multi-layered villain Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), and loved the dialog, but I was most amazed by the way it was shot. Each scene was staged and framed so incredibly well. Major props to JJ Abrams. I don't recall another action/adventure film I've seen that was crafted as well as that one. I can't wait to see what he does with the next Star Wars movie...

What else? Well, my reading has tapered off. Still inching my way through Unfettered (a collection of short stories in the fantasy vein, by various heavy hitters in the genre). So far, I'm grossly underwhelmed. I won't name names, since I've been stung by that before.

Hey, Christmas approaches. Time for the church holiday drama to begin! And by that, I mean the Christmas play we do each year (not the *other* type of annual drama, lol). For those that may recall, we had to pull the plug on last year's attempt, due to my inability to keep a cast together (in the midst of some other church drama going on, unfortunately), so it was the first time since 1996 that we didn't do a play of some kind. The plan was to regroup and attempt the same script again this year, but I think it will be harder to get a cast of 14 together this year than it was last year (unless I bring in some ringers from my acting class, or hold open auditions).

So I decided to dig out a script from my archive that I wrote a bunch of years back that we never performed. It has a cast of three. It's about the wisemen. I dug it out and re-read it recently.... at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn here, I really like it. It's good! But the three roles have a lot of lines... it will take three serious actors... fingers crossed. I have some ideas. We'll see...

Hey, if you want to read the script, let me know and I'll email it to you...

Met with a new local MEET-UP group called "Collaborative Film Projects", whereby people with moviemaking/acting skills gather to get projects going. Writers, actors, directors, editors, sound/lighting people, musicians... it's pretty exciting, actually. We all pitched ideas this time, and one was picked, and now it's underway... the script is ready, but everything else needs to be done. Should be fun to get some actual work in front of camera done. I'll let you know how things proceed.

Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. Going to go watch some more Justified and then hit the sack.

Adios for now,

Dave the Entertained