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Post by alextheman on Jun 18, 2022 19:05:20 GMT -7
The Giver is a project I’ve thought about for a while. It’s a book that I loved as a kid reading in school. The book appealed to me in a way most sci fi novels don’t. It was emotional and relatable. Too many sci fi novels I feel are talked about more for the I went to see the film in August 2014 as a 12 year old and sad to see a bland, lackluster film.
It had none of the passion of the book. Of course it’s a film adaptation and people see different things in books but the stuff about Jonas’ coming of age that I loved was missing.
Flash forward years later I’m talking to Admin and talking about a Giver adaptation and he said that if you make it different enough he will green light it.
When I started writing I took the parts of the book that stuck with and threw out the rest. My film is about Jonas’ sexual awakening which is hinted in the novel but not fully explored. I knew if I focused on this then it will be greenlit.
Of course the film is about more than that. It’s about feelings and the elimination of pain but also sexual feeling and emotion.
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Post by alextheman on Aug 1, 2023 4:10:12 GMT -7
Haven't updated my blog for a while but i figured it I'd do it in celebration of the critical acclaim and box office success of The Hippie Preacher. The Hippie Preacher was a movie that I came up with when I heard about Lonnie Frisbee and the Jesus movement which was young hippies discovering Christ and then I read Chuck Smith who was vehemently anti gay and socially conservative. I was fascinated by how a movement like the hippie movement which was anti-establishment by its nature be sucked into this movement and who was this Lonnie Frisbee.
Then I watched The Hippie Preacher which was a documentary about him(The film is not based on that documentary. The title of the film was suggested by Admin because the original title Frisbee was too uncommercial) and read more about the Jesus movement and then started writing the first scene on a plane ride. After Chicago 7 I was having writers block. I had what many writers have which is you test out ideas and then you write them and they don't work for one reason or another but i decided to give this one a shot. I became completely engulfed in writing it. I wrote it around Christmas time and during family functions my mind was fully on this story and it became hard to be completely social. During the month of December my life was about watching movies and writing The Hippie Preacher nothing else.
I decided to make it have two distinct parts which one took place in the 60s and the other took place in the 90s. I heard about Lonnie Frisbee having AIDS and i thought about the idea of Lonnie Frisbee interacting with the people we meet in the first half of the film and how they reacted to the news. I thought him trying to rebuild friendships would be a great climax to the movie.
The contradictions were what made the story fascinating to me. How is Calvary Chapel or Greg Laurie's church Harvest any different from any other socially conservative church in America. Calvary didn't change its theology after Lonnie was involved. They just changed their image. A socially conservative church is still a socially conservative church regardless of the long haired preachers and rock and roll bands playing.
This project is really special to me and i learned a lot writing this film. I think where this movie went right and Chicago 7 went wrong is I admired the Chicago 7 too much while I never admired anyone in the film but they just fascinated me. I finished the story in early January after an all nighter and I made some minor revisions with some studio notes from Admin.
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Post by THE REAL LON CHARLES on Aug 1, 2023 11:41:59 GMT -7
Haven't updated my blog for a while but i figured it I'd do it in celebration of the critical acclaim and box office success of The Hippie Preacher. The Hippie Preacher was a movie that I came up with when I heard about Lonnie Frisbee and the Jesus movement which was young hippies discovering Christ and then I read Chuck Smith who was vehemently anti gay and socially conservative. I was fascinated by how a movement like the hippie movement which was anti-establishment by its nature be sucked into this movement and who was this Lonnie Frisbee. Then I watched The Hippie Preacher which was a documentary about him(The film is not based on that documentary. The title of the film was suggested by Admin because the original title Frisbee was too uncommercial) and read more about the Jesus movement and then started writing the first scene on a plane ride. After Chicago 7 I was having writers block. I had what many writers have which is you test out ideas and then you write them and they don't work for one reason or another but i decided to give this one a shot. I became completely engulfed in writing it. I wrote it around Christmas time and during family functions my mind was fully on this story and it became hard to be completely social. During the month of December my life was about watching movies and writing The Hippie Preacher nothing else. I decided to make it have two distinct parts which one took place in the 60s and the other took place in the 90s. I heard about Lonnie Frisbee having AIDS and i thought about the idea of Lonnie Frisbee interacting with the people we meet in the first half of the film and how they reacted to the news. I thought him trying to rebuild friendships would be a great climax to the movie. The contradictions were what made the story fascinating to me. How is Calvary Chapel or Greg Laurie's church Harvest any different from any other socially conservative church in America. Calvary didn't change its theology after Lonnie was involved. They just changed their image. A socially conservative church is still a socially conservative church regardless of the long haired preachers and rock and roll bands playing. This project is really special to me and i learned a lot writing this film. I think where this movie went right and Chicago 7 went wrong is I admired the Chicago 7 too much while I never admired anyone in the film but they just fascinated me. I finished the story in early January after an all nighter and I made some minor revisions with some studio notes from Admin.
Regarding The Hippie Preacher, why did you choose to ignore the fact that Lonnie Frisbee has a wife for years? It seems like it would have benefited the film to show Frisbee's conflicted sexuality rather than just conversations about being "gay".
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Post by alextheman on Aug 1, 2023 16:18:45 GMT -7
That’s a valid critique. There’s a few reasons why I didn’t go that way(Compression of time, focusing on other relationships(With Greg Laurie, Chuck Smith and the fictional James Durban). And also the movie is already really long.
But I get the critique.
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Post by alextheman on Jun 20, 2024 10:13:49 GMT -7
Slowly Dying came about from an idea I had for a comedy about a dopey delusional philosophy professor going on a road trip to meet his unattainable crush who admires his writing.
I thought that idea was really funny and it was in the back of my mind. Then October 7th which was a horrible tragedy but after the Israeli government started using the attacks to just kill Palestinians. it seemed if you questioned the Israeli government you were called anti semitic and yelled at. There was no room for debate I felt. People were getting fired(look at what happened with Jenna Ortega and Melissa Berrera with Scream)
For some reason my brain connected October 7th and the early ceasefire protests to this story about a philosophy professor trying to go on a road trip to go to Los Angeles.
For the protests I went to a protests and a lot of the protests are based on what I heard and saw at the protest.
The film though I don’t believe is about Gaza it’s about paranoia. The paranoia that happens when you share unpopular views.
Paul Giamatti was the original choice for the lead but I questioned it a bit. But then when I saw Sideways and The Holdovers I knew Giamatti was the guy.
It also confirmed to me that Alexander Payne was the right guy to direct. I love his film Election and thought he could handle the satirical elements well. But as soon as I saw Sideways and Holdovers I knew he could do the emotional too.
While writing I immediately thought that the idea of the crush working for an organization that was once leftist but then turned more centrist. I based it on The Young Turks. This led to the inner conflict of the main character who is committed to his leftist principles but crushing on someone who many people believe betrayed their principles.
Enter the character of Jessica kinda based on girls I went to college with who were very activist y and she doesn’t have any cynicism. She is headstrong with her beliefs and that gets her in trouble sometimes.
The character that Giamatti plays named John Baron is a guy I always envisioned who’s been an activist for a long time. He’s a bit cynical but he’s attracted to the idea of a new life. As he heads to Los Angeles.
I really hope you enjoy/enjoyed the film.
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Post by alextheman on Sept 1, 2024 14:11:11 GMT -7
Not coming out to season 32 but just finished the first draft of a film version of A tale of love and darkness. I really worked the hardest on that film than anything ever for LRF. Also proud of Anarchy. It is like I said about a high school and about a misunderstood young man but I think it’s more structured and different than the other films I’ve made in that sub genre.
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