Glenn, live on BreeFM @11pm EST, Wednesday.
This is the week that everyone in the USA does not go to work. Glenn does not like the 4th of July. Growing up, Glenn lived next to where the city of Petaluma does their fireworks and a lot of people would over run the neighborhood. It feels like a very "forced" holiday. Last year Glenn was in pre-production for Redearth88. It was do or die time for the production.
Glenn watched a movie the other night. It was one he had thought about watching for a long time. How scary could it be? Even the Wikipedia entry freaked Glenn out. Glenn had been reading about a French film called "Inside" which has just come out on DVD and it got him thinking. Fearnet did not have "Inside" but it did have "Rosemary's Baby"! Glenn knew the twists and turns so he knew what to expect. He knew the big scene was coming but he was still freaked out. You can read about something but it does not prepare you. The movie then resets it's tone and then continues on but bringing back in the creepy factor until it reaches a crescendo at the end.
It is a 40 year old movie. Up until the era of "Silence Of The Lambs', Rosemary's baby was one of the 3 horror movies everyone had seen ("Psycho" and "The Exorcist' being the others). It is a very layered film. The stylistic approach and the pacing was very interesting. Based on the big scene you know what is going on in the movie. It lays all the cards on the table. The rest of the movie you spend with the character of Rosemary realizing that something is up.
It was made in 1968. Rosemary is talking to the doctor and suspecting things. If this movie were made today they would save the big scene for the 3rd act. Modern cinema tends to have a really good twist ending. "Primal Fear" would be an example. If Glenn got the gig to remake "Rosemary's Baby" today he would be tempted to move the twist to the end. Even "Psycho" has a twist ending. Perhaps because Rosemary's Baby was based on a novel they felt they could not do it as a twist ending.
Glenn always wondered how Mia Farrow was able to coast for so long in her career. She did a great job in Rosemary's Baby.
They make it pretty clear that the big scene really happened and she was not just hallucinating. There might not even be a single jump scare but the movie will still freak you out. It is brightly light. The tone is really what sets it apart.
It ranks in Glenn's top 50 movies if not top 20.
Now, Glenn will have to sit down and watch Chinatown. Glenn has also not seen "Terms Of Endearment", "The Big Chill", "Right Stuff" and "Sophie's Choice". Glenn likes movies with mythology. He has no interest in seeing "Hostile" for example.
Glenn was reading about J.J. Fad's song "Supersonic" and it mentioned Fergalicious. Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter makes Glenn laugh. For a song that you cant understand 90 percent it is pretty powerful. It conveys emotion. Glenn has been playing some stuff he has wanted to play for a while. A couple of years ago there was a feud between LL Cool J and Canibus. Lazydork really likes Canibus, but Glenn thinks a lot of his songs are not that interesting. His rap songs are mostly showing off. One rap followed the sonet format. Technically it was impressive but it was not a good song. Glenn has a mix that documents the feud and it includes some of their most solid work.
There is a rumor that Eminem ghost wrote a rap for LL Cool J. Glenn then played: LL Cool J - LL Cool J vs. Canibus
From Wikipedia
Phenomenon and Beef with Canibus (1997)
After the double platinum success of "Mr. Smith", LL began work on his next album. In 1997, he released the album Phenomenon. The first single, "Phenomenon" as well as the autobiographical "Father" were minor hits. The official second single from Phenomenon was "4, 3, 2, 1," which featured Method Man, Redman and introducing DMX and Canibus. In the original version of the song, Canibus rapped "Yo L, is that a mic on your arm? Lemme borrow that", referring to LL's tattoo of a microphone on his arm. LL heard the verse, interpreted it as a diss, and responded to it with his own verse. This essentially created a battle between two MCs in the same song. In an attempt to calm tension, LL later called Canibus to say he saw the line as disrespect, and asked him to change it, to which Canibus complied. LL did not remove his verse, believing that with Canibus' verse gone no one would know who he was referring to in his verse. However, the original version of the song was leaked to the public. This would set up a rivalry. Canibus released his single "Second Round K.O.", containing lyrics dissing LL, who later responded with "Ripper Strikes Back." In this song he not only dissed Wyclef, Canibus' producer, but went on to berate ex-friend Mike Tyson for appearing on "Second Round K.O." LL did another diss, with "Back Where I Belong" featuring Ja Rule. Canibus replied to both tracks with his "Rip the Jacker" using LL's "I'm Bad" backing track.
Glenn then played
Eminem - "Quitter" and talked about similarities to LL Cool J.
Glenn followed this by Robert Evans - Rosemary's Baby which was quite fascinating. He then recommended a documentary based on the DVD collection of "
The Kid Stays in the Picture". Rober Evans was the head of production at Paramount Pictures. You need a certain amount of chaos/conflict to produce something really good. It usually means that people are really passionate about what they are working on.
LG422 payed a visit to chat and Glenn talked about some old memories from OpAphid. There were always some concerns about the distinction between fiction and reality. One of Glenn's favorite moments was when LG422 showed up in
chat with Bree. LG422 offered legitimate advice. Behind the scenes you have a guide for how you want interactivity to go. For example with Brother then were 2-3 possible outcomes. With the LG15 chat there was one real objective: to get Bree to decide to go to Jonas. LG422 gave them hard core advice that totally made sense. Bree was talking to Gemma and Jonas about feelings and LG422 was like bam bam bam about what they should do. Everyone else was just saying who they should trust. LG422 was telling them exactly what to do. He made so much sense that it could not be ignored. Finally Jonas had to say thats a good idea.
Bree was talking in an abstract sense. LG422 came as close to derailing the on rails process as you can get because his interaction was compelling. It proves the point that a game is only on rails if you let it be on rails. You can explore the parameters of interactivity. Even with the OpAphid phone calls Glenn just wanted things to move along. The good phone calls were where people took a proactive stance. Glenn would write down little sayings when he got angry. He wanted it to be cool. It was right after the first drop. If someone got really hostile Glenn would say "You listen to me if anything happens to my partner..........if any of you pagans.............." Glenn would have 7 things written down for each call. The phone calls took place over 4-5 days. Glenn would choose anyone who was not overtly hostile because he did not know what to expect. He did not want to get on the phone with LG422 for example. Glenn also needed the people to be online. If they were in the right mindset it made Glenn more comfortable talking to them.
Miles has an awesome way of talking. They were talking about the bounty hunter story arc and how to introduce the bounty hunter. People were starting to complain that there was not enough interaction. Glenn suggested introducing the bounty hunter in a cross over with LG422's videos. Perhaps LG422 could be killed off and it would create a back story. Miles said he thought LG422 might be crazy.
Pizza and ice cream was fantastic. Tachyon could not hint people on anything Tachyon related. OpAphid could. In theory Tachyon and Brother were just doing their thing. The hints had to make sense in terms of the story. There were time deadlines. Glenn had to get OpAphid to motivate people to solve the puzzle. The solution was GPS. The password they needed was GPS. Glenn spent an evening in character as OpAphid. People were thinking they needed to wait. OpAphid tried to encourage people to turn in for the night in order to get people to keep working on the puzzle. This was all impromtu. OpAphid said they could go on a field trip the next day and get some pizza and ice cream and visit LG422. OpAphid told players in confidence that they could not have people figure out the 3 letter password. It was a reverse back handed hint. It was both challenging and time consuming. You just don't know what people will get stuck on. You make incorrect assumptions about the train of thought people will follow.
Some puzzles take a lot of time to put together. The only thing that gives you more time is when people get stuck on a puzzle. If people power through a puzzle you might not have anything ready. You want to keep people busy, but you don't want just "filler".
Glenn paid tribute to LG422 for picking up the ball and taking it in the right direction. He did things in such a way that he was not contradicted by anything in Lonelygirl15 or OpAphid. The problem with Cassieiswatching is that things could be contradicted. LG422 had his own character/story with tangential points of connection. LG422 was able to interact without any behind the scenes help. He inserted his series and his character well and kept up with things.
Here is the archive of of stories from LG15 TODAY concerning Glenn's radio show on BreeFM.
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