the awesome/terrifying freedom

...the worst movie ever.

i'm not going to write her name, because she certainly googles herself, and if she found what i'm about to rant, well, she'd probably explode. but this movie i've been cast in is a well intentioned travesty. if she find this and fires me, great. if i end up shooting my one scene and get into imdb for it, great. i'm not going to pretend it's something it's not.

she cast the entire film based only on headshots. so she was surprised to discover that several of her leads could barely read, and/or did not look like their pictures.

all of us got our scripts for the first time. it was a cold reading. none of us knew the story, none of us knew what our characters were supposed to be doing.

she wrote herself a nice part, starring in the film. she wrote lines for other people to say to her, lines like:

"you are such a talented writer!"
"you are so beautiful!"
"you should star in a movie!"

she gave line readings and told a hispanic woman that her accent didn't sound natural, and that her lines sounded forced (never mind it was the first time the non-native speaker, and all the rest of us, had ever seen the script).

the script begins with a lengthy dedication to a woman who died of aids, helping many gay men who also died of the disease. she says that the script is a tribute to her and to those men.

well it makes for quite an interesting tribute. all the gay characters are shallow bitchy queens who harbor an inexplicable loathing for women. - a loathing that only someone with a peripheral, stereotypical understanding of gay men would ever write about. she paints them as vengeful, tortured people, then gives her character a weepy eleventh-hour monologue about how we must 'accept them for what they are.'

it got me angry listening as her 'plot' unfolded. and the script is filled with careless racial stereotypes as well as sexual ones - using broad strokes can be fine, if done right, but the problem is that her usage does not comment, it's just thrown in. she thinks she's commenting, but she's not. 'harold and kumar' make ample use of stereotypes to hilarious effect because of the savviness of the script, cast, writer, and director. no savvy here. there is a joke about a hindu taxi driver being a terrorist. there is an asian reporter named 'sum yung gai.' thank god i wasn't cast in that role, i really would not have accepted it. i feel bad enough playing the 'hispanic' security guard who makes some comment about going to a hospital where they treat jews.

ah, her blog has just been updated, and apparently others in the cast have expressed my same feelings to her. perhaps i will write her a letter after all.