John August

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My NY Times profile, Rashomon-style

News

This past May, the New York Times had a very nice profile piece on me in the Arts and Leisure section, written by Bob Baker. I liked it. Many people called to say they’d seen it. And that was that.

It was only as I was sifting through the referrer logs on Friday that I noticed Bob Baker has his own website, and that he’d written a detailed explanation of all the editing that went into that story, complete with three different versions of the article. It’s sort of like a DVD extra, print-style.

My undergraduate degree was in journalism, so I’m used to stories being heavily rewritten. But as the subject of the article, it’s weird to see a lot of the quotes that got dropped. I remember saying them, but since they didn’t show up in the “official” article, they don’t feel quite real. They never made it to ink.

You can see all the versions of the article here.

Corpse Bride has risen

Corpse Bride, Projects

Corpse Bride Corpse Bride is in theaters starting today — if you live in Los Angeles, New York or Toronto. For the rest of North America, and other parts of the world, you can begin seeing it next week, September 23rd.

Last night, I spoke at USC’s 466 class, which screens a different film each week. At the Q & A afterwards, host Leonard Maltin talks with someone involved with the picture, often an alumni. I used to be in the class, so it’s bewildering to realize this was my sixth 466 (after Go, Charlie’s Angels, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Big Fish, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

In many ways, this was the easiest of all the classes I’ve spoken at, because with this film I don’t have as much of that please-please like it I beg you instinct. I feel much less ownership of Corpse Bride than the others. Don’t get me wrong — I’m proud of it — but working in animation is inherently much more collaborative in terms of story. For starters, I was the third writer to work on it, after Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler. Then there’s a whole department called “Story,” whose job it is to figure out how to convert the screenplay into storyboards, and along the way, a lot gets changed and rearranged. Altogether, it’s much less “my” movie than the others.

But it was a lot of work.

Often, I’d get storyboards from London for scenes that were about to shoot, and would have a day or less to tweak the dialogue before an actor would record the needed lines. Whenever I visited the stages outside London, most of my time was spent watching the scenes already shot, and discussing with the rest of the team how to handle this moment or that. At absolutely no point could I get precious about things needing to stick closer to how they were written. I was there to help, so I helped where I could. I felt like a craftsman rather than artist, and that’s fine.

Reviews so far have been really good, so here’s hoping it gets a good reception. A lot of people ask me, “Isn’t it too scary for kids?” Not really. If your kids like Halloween, they’ll be fine. It’s never gory, and the Land of the Dead stuff is pretty light and breezy.

Corpse Bride article in Script magazine
New, longer Corpse Bride trailer up

The Constant Gardener, infant edition

First Person

Constant Gardener
Yesterday, I saw The Constant Gardener.

My quick review: I respected the filmmaking, but I can’t say I loved the movie. Throughout the entire film, I was so far ahead of the Ralph Fiennes character that I found myself thinking more about African theatre, diplomatic passports and shallow-focus lenses than what exactly had happened to poor Ralph’s wife. However, I’ll probably see every movie Fernando Meirelles makes. He’s terrifically talented.

More interesting than the movie itself was the film-going experience: it was my first outing to a Monday Morning Mommy Movie at The Grove.

The whole Mommy Movie concept is pretty basic. Every Monday morning, the theatre shows one of the new releases. Generally, it’s not a kid’s movie — last week, it was The 40-Year Old Virgin. Parents are allowed — encouraged — to bring infants. The theatre lights aren’t turned down all the way, and there’s table set up for changing diapers. There’s also a stroller-parking area outside the theatre.

Depending on whether or not you have a baby, this is either the best thing that ever happened, or a quick descent into Hell. I don’t think anyone accidentally bought a ticket for the Mommy movie, but if they did, I’m sure they quickly got their money back.

At first, I thought I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the movie over the constant din of fussy infants, but it’s amazing how quickly you tune it out. It’s all a matter of expectation. If you expect a quiet movie theatre, one crying baby will ruin it. If you expect noise, it doesn’t bother you a bit.

One phenomenon I hadn’t expected was the seven-minute rule. I don’t know if it’s really seven minutes, but next time you’re at a dinner party, pay attention to the ebb and flow of conversation. About once every seven minutes, it gets really quiet for some reason. Then in starts up again.

It turns out, the same thing happens with babies. One minute, the auditorium will be filled with cries, then it will suddenly get quiet. It’s spooky. And welcome.

The whole think struck me as a particularly ripe arena for a Wedding Crashers-style comedy about guys looking to pick up MILFs, since it would be so easy to strike up a loaded conversation about onesies, breasts, and butt paste.

For the record, “Mommy Movies” is pretty heterosexist, but I’m not getting up on my soapbox. There were only a handful of dads in the audience. Most weeks, I’ll be one of them.

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger: Marry Me

Rant

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger Arnold,

I want to get married.

ArnoldNot to you, since you already have a wonderful wife and family — and I’m not the home-wrecking sort, unlike other celebrities I could name. No, I want to marry my partner of five years. That’s why I’m writing. I need your help.

Right now, we can’t get married. Unlike movies you may have seen, the obstacle in our case is not a generations-old family feud, nor a mystical curse, nor a war that has torn this great country apart. What stands between us and the altar is bureaucracy.

I know you love freedom and hate bureaucracy, so I thought you’d want to know.

Some backstory, since we’ve never met. Like you, I come from the film industry. I’m a screenwriter. I wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, along with some other movies you unfortunately didn’t star in. (This can be rectified.) My partner Mike is an MBA. He’s clever. He balances the checkbook. Like you and Maria, we complement each other.

Right now, we’re registered domestic partners. California currently has pretty good domestic partnership laws. You signed them, so thanks for that. As Californians, Mike and I have benefits basic human rights that we wouldn’t have in any state other than Massachusetts. We’ve also spent a couple of thousand dollars to draft up wills, trusts and powers-of-attorney to get us a little closer to marriage-equivalence.

But we’re not married.

Do you remember when Britney Spears married that guy in Vegas earlier this year, only to have it quickly annulled? Well, for that day or two, she and whatever-his-name had vastly more rights than Mike or I have ever had. They could file joint taxes. They could adopt children. They could inherit each other’s property. (Probably a better deal for him.) In the eyes of the law, they were more legitimate than Mike and I could ever be.

And the Britney coincidences continue: she’s about to have a baby; we just had one. Her new husband, Kevin Federline, was an unwed father; I am an unwed father.

That’s the uncomfortable truth, Governor, that has me writing to you today. I’m an unwed father. And I don’t want to be.

Sometimes, being unmarried is merely aggravating. For instance, I recently got into heated words with a representative from my health insurance company, who told me I would have to adopt my own daughter. Never mind that my name is on her birth certificate. “With gay people,” she explained, “we have to have official adoption papers.” (Fortunately, her supervisor corrected the misinformation.)

Sometimes, being unmarried is more troubling. It’s no shock that there are some places in this great country we probably don’t want to travel as a family, and that’s not going to magically change overnight. But even in Los Angeles, everyday life is subtly different for us. To wit: when your kids were little, did you carry copies of their birth certificate in the diaper bag, just in case some overzealous official questioned whether these were “really” your kids?

Look, I’m a realist. Letting Mike and I get married won’t suddenly make everything better. There will still be bigots and assholes, and women who cluck their disapproval at the grocery store. However, affirming the right for us to marry would take away one official sanction against gay people. People will still discriminate, but they won’t feel like they have the state backing them up.

And here’s where you come in.

By the narrowest of margins, the California legislature has just passed AB 849, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act. It says civil marriage is defined as the union of two people, without specifying gender. Now it’s up to the Governor to decide whether to sign it into law, or veto it.

That’s you, Governor Schwarzenegger. And that’s why I’m writing.

In your movies, you always play the hero. Do it again. Sign the bill.

I know you’re worried about the political implications. Personally, I think you’d get a big boost for standing up for what you believe, damn the conventional wisdom. But in case you need to fall back on your Hollywood career, know that I’m offering to write Terminator 4 for you. Hell, I’ll write Jingle All the Way 2. That’s how important this is.

I’m also urging all my friends and readers who live in California to take two minutes and call the Governor’s office: (916) 445-2841. I did. It’s absolutely painless, like voting for American Idol. And there are local numbers, too, for much of the state:

Fresno: 559-445-5295

Los Angeles: 213-897-0322

Riverside: 951-680-6860

San Diego: 619-525-4641

San Francisco: 415-703-2218

Your spokespeople have said that you prefer to leave the decision up to the courts. I doubt it. You’re a man of action. Take action. Sign the bill and marry me.

Sincerely,

— John August

Update: (9/30/05)

Governor Vetoes Gay Marriage Bill. Arnold, you broke my heart. But at least you stood up for the current domestic partnership laws, and promised to fight any backsliding.