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February 27, 2005
Working Overtime
The skills you learn along the way will always come in handy, even though it may be years in between times you need them.
On Thursday night, for example, I had the pleasure of chatting with Brad Meltzer about his favorite moments in Identity Crisis for the forthcoming hardcover collection. Since Brad wanted to do this by phone and evening worked best for him I settled at my home office desk and pulled out a tape recorder and phone tap, the same equipment I used to conduct countless interviews for Starlog and other publications. We chatted and I got to ask questions and steer the end of the conversation.
On Friday, I used my other tool, the ear piece similar to those worn by people at the UN, and transcribed the tape. Sadly, despite testing it out in advance, there was a bad hum on the line, ruining some of Brad’s comments. Fortunately, he’ll be editing the document and can put back in all the pithy comments we missed.
Saturday morning, at 9 a.m., I was back at the desk, this time entering a chat room with Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb. 6 a.m. California time was what worked best for both of them since it was the weekend and each had errands to attend to. Still, the weekend was when both had time free to chat. It was Jim’s idea we hold the conversation in the chat room so they could be a little silly, the conversation could flow and then I could cut, paste and edit the transcript into something readable. Sure enough, they were both a little slow to get into the flow of the conversation but we were at it for 1:40 and in the end, we covered everything we needed to. I worked until noon editing and reshaping the conversation since Jeph tended to write one line, hit send, write another and Jim seemed to be about a question behind as he carefully considered each point raised. The edited conversation flows well and should make for fine reading when this sees print.
Having worked all morning, and missing out on joining Deb and Rob on his first college visit, I treated myself and went to see Closer. Despite the nominations and buzz, Deb wasn’t interested in this bleak drama about relationships. I liked it a lot, fascinated that director Mike Nichols could entertain me in two entirely different ways in the same week (after all, he also directed Spamalot which I just saw the other day). It felt like a stage play brought to the screen and it’s interesting that you really don’t get to see any character on their own. This works when examining their different relationships with one another but fails to make any one character stand tall. Julia Roberts’ Anna has one failed marriage as the film opens and I’m left wondering was it her or the first husband, what makes her tick, what draws her to such different men in Jude Law and Clive Owen. It’s one of the first times I’ve seen Roberts in something where I said, “she’s playing an adult woman, not a romantic girl.” Some of that is of course in contrast with Natalie Portman since there’s some 15 years between them.
I was much more satisfied with the equally serious Million Dollar Baby which Deb and I saw Friday night. The story has well defined characters, that which is left unexplained isn’t necessary to fully appreciating the film and is filled with lovely human touches. I can see why all three leads got nominated.
Posted by Bob Greenberger at February 27, 2005 06:30 PM
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