Hollywoodaholic

https://www-comingsoon-net.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.comingsoon.net/movies/trailers/1151987-dead-reckoning-trailer-k-j-apa-leads-indie-action-thriller/amp

So they renamed my film “Altar Rock” to “Dead Reckoning.” There are only about 60 other film and TV projects named “Dead Reckoning,” but what are you gonna do? The distributors, Shout Factory, obviously decided that was a more commercial title and it’s their product now. The original title was very closely involved with the story and location and tied to key elements, but they figured it might be confusing to millennials, I guess. Good luck with “Chinatown,” another thriller confusingly named after a location tied to the story in the film.

The good news is that it will be available on Amazon and On Demand November 13. So look for it under this title and be merciful that these things get out of the control of the original writers and take on a life of their own, so hopefully you will enjoy the final product, which very much preserves the original premise, story, and sequence of events. Post your reviews here, but only if they’re positive, ha ha.

I swore I would stick to cultural topics and not discuss anything political in this blog, but since I can’t offend anyone who isn’t reading, and this topic stuck in my head like a brain barnacle, here goes …

Exhibit A: The last five Republican* presidents … Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Trump:  None of them with an IQ higher than their body temperature.  Trump has obviously never read a book or used a vocabulary over 100 words (tremendous, beautiful, nasty). Gerald Ford could trip over his own thought balloon. Ronald Reagan never had a thought that wasn’t scripted by someone else (or he didn’t mistake from a movie). George W., well, we need not even go there, but suffice it to say that he was Pinky, and Dick Cheney or Karl Rove were “The Brain.” And George H. Bush? Well, this is what the last smart GOP president had to say about him on his oval office tape recordings when Bush Sr. was ambassador of the U.N.  … “Loyal, but no brains.” And remember … he is considered the SMART one of those four.

The fact that Richard Nixon was the last smart Republican says everything. He was deeply paranoid to the point of creating a foaming-at-the-mouth enemies list, and then surreptitiously ordering a break-in to the files of the Democratic National Headquarters, which eventually got him impeached. Even Republicans never trusted him and haven’t been the same ever since.

Exhibit B: The last three Democratic presidents … Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. All of them with measured IQ’s above the genius level (150). Jimmy Carter was a nuclear physicist, for crying out loud (and a preacher). Bill Clinton had a 180 IQ and could eloquently and informatively talk about every topic on the planet from stem cell research to Keynesian economics. And Barack, well, come on, he’s a black man named Hussein who convinced a good majority (10 million more than his opponent) Americans to vote for him. Just overcoming the ‘black’ part required a communication and intelligence skill set that would set back most Harvard graduates.

So this isn’t a discussion of the actual merits or policies of the candidate, but just the fact that Republicans or conservatives have no problem voting for someone they’d like to have a beer with, but not someone who they perceive is smarter than they are. I don’t get this. Why wouldn’t we want the smartest man possible for the job? Why wouldn’t we want someone as president who makes our entire country look smart to the rest of the world?

This leads me to inevitably conclude that what makes someone either conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, ultimately has nothing to do with politics, but is more about how people are hard-wired either emotionally or genetically.

For example, you will rarely find a writer in the arts (or should I say a good writer; Tom Clancy doesn’t count) alive who is a Republican. There’s a very simple explanation for this. Anyone hard-wired for empathy, who by their very emotional skill set and craft has the ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and walk a mile to either create or fill that character … is just not going to think like Republican.

George Carlin articulated it best when he said the Republicans are all about property rights (or as I like to characterize it … “I got mine, screw everybody else”), and Democrats are all about human rights (or, “Even when I GET mine, I’m not going to feel as good about it unless someone else has a chance at it.”)

So if you’re genetically hard wired against empathy, chances are you are a Republican. (Sorry, Jesus, you don’t qualify).

I would also suggest a couple other genetic traits that might put you in that camp are fear of change (hello, reactionaries), and paranoia about those things or people you don’t understand. Government is just some monstrous entity that’s going to come and take away your guns. Gays are going to convert your children into homosexuals and devalue your marriage (but a cheating, thrice-married President won’t). Hispanics are going to ruin the value of your neighborhood and force you to speak Spanish to order a cheeseburger. Anything a Republican, reactionary, conservative is not overly familiar with, somehow poses a threat. It doesn’t make them curious – no, never any genuine outside interest or curiosity; just a threat. This wouldn’t be the case if the knee-jerk reaction to anything they don’t understand was to pause for a reflective moment trying to understand, instead of just being angry or afraid (again, the empathy vacuum).

Conservatives like to say that a liberal is a conservative who’s never been mugged. This just proves my theory about being hard-wired for paranoia. They’re always basing their mindset on a negative event in the future. But a liberal always thinks deeper than that, to what actually helped create the mindset for the mugger in the first place (walk in their shoes, remember?).  Somehow, they didn’t get theirs, and now they want YOURS. A liberal doesn’t put the mugger into a ‘ME versus THEM’ category, but at some level understands that … “There, but for the Grace of God, (and some really nasty crystal meth), go I.” There are more forces creating this scenario than just … he’s a bad man who wants my stuff. I mean, c’mon, it’s ONLY stuff.

What person in their right mind wouldn’t want to know for sure that, if they or one of their loved ones suffer a catastrophic illness, they wouldn’t be financially ruined? We are the only civilized nation in the world where you can go bankrupt simply by the cost of your health, or lack of it. That’s insane. Worse; it’s morally bankrupt. Anyone with empathy, again, has no problem understanding this.  Republicans say, “I got my insurance, what’s the problem?” Again, without projecting out of their own experience to sympathize with others, how could they understand? Because, if you’ve EVER spent a long portion of your life, perhaps as a free lance artist or just an unemployed, walking on a tinderbox being uninsured, you WOULD understand…completely.

Smart, empathetic leaders do. That’s why most of us voted for one last time.

The Jesus who preached at the Sermon on the Mount was definitely hard-wired for empathy. In fact, the only people he couldn’t empathize with or tolerate were, well, greedy bastards who said, ‘I got mine, screw everybody else.’

So, let’s review. If you’re hard wired to be paranoid of things you don’t understand, then of course you’re going to feel threatened by a leader who is smarter than you because … well, they’re obviously going to try and trick you out of your money or your stuff.

And it’s your stuff, goddamit, screw everybody else.

*(Republican here being defined as any conservative who voted for George W. Bush twice, or who thinks Fox News is real news)

Which is all to say, Joe Biden, no genius, is going to grab Republican as well as all empathetic Democrat votes and win by a landslide this November.

***

This one’s for my dad … the smartest man I ever knew, a WWII veteran, and a true Democrat who would have gotten a smile out of this.
(April 22, 1921-December 22, 2001)

— A. Wayne Carter

The indie feature “Altar Rock” originally had a budget of around $2 million and was scheduled for a 21-day shoot in Plymouth, Massachusetts subbing for Nantucket. I was in Plymouth a week before the shoot to make last minute revisions to the script. And I was there for the first week of shooting. But the first day of shooting there were two huge semi-trailer trucks, several make-up trailers, a crew of 65, and 30 extras… for a brief scene at a bar that has no dialogue and features the main villain watching a news bulletin on the bar television. My first reaction was… there’s no way this is a $2 million film; the director might as well think he is making a $20 million film. And, sure enough, the budget eventually bloated to over $3 million and I was given a call toward the end of the production with the instruction, “We have to cut several days from the shoot,” and whatever pages of the script that might entail.

The director, Andrzej Bartowiak, who had been the cinematographer on many major films, including “Terms of Endearment,” “Falling Down,” and “Speed” had me cut the original script from 112 pages down to 88. Much of the character development portions of the script were excised, while the action sequences were expanded during the production. So a one-page fight description in the script turned into a 5-minute drag-out brawl in the film. It became obvious the director, relishing the power above previously just being the cameraman, thought he was making an action film like “Speed,” and not the more nuanced romantic thriller as originally intended. I was okay with that as long as it was a good film, which, though compromised, I think it turned out to be.

The other location shoot I was present for was when lead character Tillie discusses her new boyfriend with her best friend Felicity on the beach near her aunt’s house, where she is living. This went smoothly, and I was able to have the production photographer get a shot of me and Kristin with the two actresses; India Eisley and Sydney Park. Lead actor KJ Apa wasn’t present for this scene, and I didn’t get a shot with him, unfortunately.

The production did have to be cut short because of budgetary reasons, and I was tasked with excising several elements and pages of the script at the last moment. This was my opportunity to remove all of the cops and FBI that the director had somehow wanted to insert toward the finale that also bolstered the impression the film was a cop drama. The finale, as Kristin and I had intended, was always supposed to be showdown alone between Tillie and her new boyfriend, Niko, on the boat. Now, without a bunch of cops running around, I was able to restore that focus.

The crux of the picture was always, who would Niko be loyal to – his brother and family blood, which required he go through with a terrorist bombing revenge act – or his new love; Tillie. The finale would find Tillie confronting him on this conflict, and ultimately discovering his true choice. If the story had developed properly, this would be all the conflict and suspense needed to make the finale powerful, even without the baggage of FBI or police running around with walkie-talkies. Ultimately, the audience will decide if we were successful in that intention.

And, hopefully, the film will make back some of the $3 million it ultimately cost.

Just prior to the production of the independent film “Altar Rock” there is a script reading with the main cast. Okay, where is everybody? Well, no video or camera shots or selfies are allowed during this process. But this is the room where it took place and where I was sitting. Just across from me were KJ Apa and Scott Atkins, who portray brothers Niko and Marco. Next to them was Sydney Park, who played the main character’s best friend, Felicia. And immediately to my right was lead actress India Eisley portraying Tillie.

KJ Apa plays Archie Andrews in the popular CW series, “Riverdale,” and recently starred in the feature film, “I Still Believe.” His father is a maori chief in his native country, New Zealand. He was up every morning at 5 a.m. doing wind sprints up a hill to stay fit. It worked, as he displays his physique in just about every episode of “Riverdale.”

I explained to India that this script gave her the ability to play just about every emotion imaginable for an actress: intense grief at the loss of her parents; drunken despair; joyous discovery of newfound love; fear; betrayal; anger; the works. She explained that, during a read-through, she holds back and just does the reading somewhat expressionless. Well, okay, but as long as you put it out during the actual shoot. She is beautiful, as expected, and is the daughter of Olivia Hussey, who played the original Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet.” India also played opposite Chris Pines recently in the limited Noir series, “I Am the Night.”

Scott Atkins is a popular international Martial Arts film star, more known in the far East and Europe. He’s playing the older brother, Marco, from Albania, who is trying to recruit his younger brother into a terrorist act to revenge their father killed by the FBI. He learned the dialogue and read it with a style or dialect as someone using English as a second language would speak. The director suddenly wanted him to speak perfect English as if he were trained at Oxford. The executive producer (and co-writer) of the film and I were aghast at this proposal. There needed to be a foreign quality about his presentation. The executive producer spoke with Scott on the sly and he assured her that he wasn’t about to change his reading at this point, as he had practiced and learned all his lines the original way. Crisis averted.

Sydney Park is known for her continuing role in AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” and probably headed toward bigger and better things. Watch her star rise. She has the potty mouth in the film and wears a drop dead bikini at one point. But her Asian father was with her the entire shoot and didn’t seem to object, but it made me feel a bit awkward. Not at the reading was James Remar, who plays the investigating FBI agent in the film. Viewers know him from dozens of appearances on television in series such as Showtime’s “Dexter,” where he played the father of the title character.

The reading went off smoothly, and I took notes, noting how certain lines of dialogue were delivered, and if they came off awkwardly and needed to be finessed. The only other persons at the reading were the director, script supervisor, and Kristin Alexandre, the executive producer and person who first had the idea for the story based upon her fears that her own daughter could have unwittingly have dated the younger, cute, and more personable brother of the Boston Bombers (she didn’t, but it was as good a ‘what if’ as any to launch a romantic thriller feature premise on).

India Eisley and KJ Apa as Tillie and Niko.

KJ Apa plays Archie Andrews in the number one CW show, Riverdale, and India Eisley just starred in the TNT miniseries I Am the Night with co-star Chris Pine.

“Altar Rock” is in final editing stages, and here is the first trailer for the film, due to be released late this year.

https://vimeo.com/217417158

James Remar as FBI Agent Cantrell.

Who knew a film could have so many more obstacles to overcome once it’s already been filmed, but the good news is that “Altar Rock” is finally being edited for a release later this summer or fall. And further good news is that co-star KJ Apa is a rapidly rising star appearing as Archie Andrews in the second season of “Riverdale,” the Number One show on the CW Network. Plus, he plays a high school student on that show, and in our movie he’s an older cab driver on Nantucket, so the delay will not affect the story.