If you like music and movies...

Composer Jim Steinman loves to refer to his best-known work, Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell, as a "cinematic" album. And he's right. There's a reason that the 1960s, 70s, and 80s are often credited with some of the best music of the century: because that's freaking true. The Beatles' The White Album, the Who's Quadrophenia, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, the Clash's Sandinista!, and of course Bat out of Hell - these are not only some of the greatest albums of all time, but they're also known as concept albums, meaning that unlike 90% of the popular albums released today, they're built around a unifying theme or, in the case of Quadrophenia, the whole album is meant to tell a single story. And I mean, call me a nerd, but holy cow wouldn't that be great for a movie.

No, really, hear me out. We've made movies out of books, comics, TV shows and amusement park rides (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?), and as of lately, a new trend has popped up: making films out of video games. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but you know what's happened a couple of times but never really became a thing, the way making movies out of video games became a thing? Making movies out of concept albums. Oh, sure, it's been done. But it usually was borne out of a desire to create a franchise (think the Monkees TV show or, like, pretty much every single Beatles film ever made). I can only think of a few albums that were ever genuinely turned into a film for the sake of turning an album into a film. And some of them, like Quadrophenia, weren't even direct adaptations, more like dramas loosely based on the original music.

So these are the albums I'd most like to turn into a film if I could. Some of them are Greats. Some of them are...well, not. But they're all close to my heart and if I ever got the chance to make any of them into a movie, you bet I'd take it.

Avery's Top 5 Rock Music Films:

5. The Christmas Attic (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

I saw this show performed last year at the Palace of Auburn Hills and...holy shit. I love artists like TSO because it's almost like they set themselves up for this kind of thing. Their albums are mostly rock operas, and The Christmas Attic is no exception. The album tells the story of a little girl who goes up into the attic and finds a box of letters that tell a love story with a sad ending. Now, this might sound entirely cliche, but if you've seen their live show, you know it's anything but. And if I were to make this album into a movie, I'd try to channel that same intensity (though given that it's a movie, maybe I'd dispense with the laser show) and I'd try to include as many members of TSO in cameo roles (or, heck, if they're up for it, major parts) as possible.

4. Rock Spectacle (Barenaked Ladies)

Rock Spectacle is the first live performance album from the Barenaked Ladies and it contains some of their finest songs: "When I Fall," "Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," "Brian Wilson," and of course the famous "If I Had $1,000,000." This was one of the defining albums of my childhood. When I was a kid my dad would put this on and we'd dance to it - sometimes there'd even be stretches where I made him play it every night. I always felt like there was a story to the music, even when I was little and could understand literally none of the lyrics. Well, now I'm older and (theoretically) wiser, and I feel it now more than ever. This is also probably the album with the most room for fun, because I swear if I made this into a movie, it would have the biggest ensemble cast ever - and, as an added bonus, this band loves to sneak little bits of humor into their music, even some of their less-upbeat songs, which leaves plenty of room for comedic interpretation.

3. Bat out of Hell (Meat Loaf)
There's been a movie (or TV special) or two about the making of this album, but I don't want to do a biopic or documentary. I want to do the story of Bat out of Hell. I want to take the stories that Jim Steinman told in his lyrics, and bring them to life. I mean LOOK AT THE COVER ART for heaven's sake and tell me that's not one of the most cinematic things you've ever seen. Imagine that on a movie theater screen. Of course it would be violent--with a title track about a motorcycle crash, how could it not be?--but the more "fun" songs, like "All Revved Up" and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" would usher in the chance to show off Steinman's infamous sense of humor, and that would be the major hook for an audience.

2. Don't You Fake It (Red Jumpsuit Apparatus)

It's not exactly a concept album in the vein of Bat out of Hell or Quadrophenia, but you can't deny there's a cohesive sound in Don't You Fake It. It's one of the most underrated albums of all time, and undoubtedly RJA's best. And if you listen to the lyrics, the songs really are mini-stories of their own. Watch Ronnie Winter's Half of Us interview and the inspiration for those stories becomes painfully clear. And that would be the storyline for the movie: the story of the formation of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, with the real-life events behind each individual song getting a spotlight. And it probably wouldn't be as fun as some of the others (let's be honest though, none of the ones I've thrown out there so far would be straight comedy, except maybe the Rock Spectacle movie), given that it's based in real life as opposed to, say the theatricality of Bat out of Hell, but it's because it's so heavily based in reality that I feel like it's a story that really, really needs to be told.

1. Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen)

WHY HAS NO ONE DONE THIS YET!?!? Springsteen once said that he could see every song on Born to Run taking place at the same time, over the course of the same summer night in different places. There's your film plot, right there. And of course "Jungleland," the operatic epic about the Magic Rat and his involvement in an unfortunate street war on Flamingo Lane (my God, Springsteen should've been a novelist), would be the entire third act. The whole thing would, of course, take place in 1970s New Jersey, a shout-out to Springsteen's hometown. The film practically writes itself. If only Clarence Clemons could be here to see it...

In the end, I know the odds of actually making any of these films are so impossibly low that it's almost laughable. But that's part of the fun of filmmaking: having an idea that's so out there it'll never happen...and knowing that someday, somehow, if you try, you just might have a chance.

Avery Tries to be a (Retro!) Critic: A Nightmare on Elm Street

I recently wrote about my slow evolution from professional chicken to cautious horror-lover. At the end of the post, I mentioned that I planned to see A Nightmare on Elm Street this Halloween. Well, Ian came over to keep me company last night while my parents were on a weekend getaway, and guess what he brought with him? I'd planned to watch it, I was excited to watch it, but at the sight of the DVD cover (which, trust me, isn't pretty) I nearly backed out. I'm not that brave yet, I wanted to tell Ian. I can't do it. Halloween shops scare me; what effect do you think this will have? Can't we watch Beetle Juice instead?

"I'm not sure about this one," I told him.

"Give it a chance," he insisted. "You'll love it. If you don't, we'll turn it off."

And still I resisted. "If I say turn it down, turn it down," I warned him. "If I say shut it off, shut it off. If I say I need a break, pause it immediately. If I tell you to fast-forward, do it. And if I watch the whole thing and can't sleep tonight, you're staying up with me. But I like Wes Craven. So I'll give it a try." So Ian gave me the remote so I could lower volume/pause/stop/fast-forward as needed, turned on all the lights in the TV room, and settled my puppies on my lap for an extra layer of protection. And then we started the movie.

I'd like to say I forgot why I was afraid to watch it in the first place. I can't. But that, in this case, is a good thing, because it means that Craven did his job, and did it very, very well. My precautions did turn out to be unnecessary; aside from a bathroom break or two (turns out drinking half a gallon of tea before settling down to watch a movie is a bad idea...who knew, right?) we didn't need to pause or stop the film. And no way in hell was I going to fast-forward once I saw how beautiful the movie's aesthetics were. I didn't want to turn away, or turn it off, because not only was it beautiful, it was exciting. It was like a Hitchcock film: I never knew what was going to happen next, but I definitely wanted to find out.

I like Wes Craven a lot. I loved Red Eye and was pleasantly surprised by Scream, and Nightmare on Elm Street is in the same vein as both: a little humor, a lot of great aesthetic effects, a hell of a lot of suspense, and all the trope-subversion in the world. Craven loved to play around with audience expectations, and my God was he ever good at it. That's what makes Nightmare so wonderful and so terrifying. Craven uses his jump scares where they count. And he makes sure to place them where you least expect them to be. Oh, and as if that's not enough, he uses just enough body horror, and just enough psychological freak-outs, to make sure you never forget what you've just seen.

For the millionth time I'll say, I'm picky about horror. I like my horror like I like my period pieces: classy, and with as little gore as possible. (Which is why I will never understand what my dad sees in shows like Hell On Wheels because what even is that thing.) But Wes Craven knew what a lot of modern horror directors do not: how to make even the goriest slasher film a work of art. Because whoa, there is a lot of gore in Nightmare on Elm Street. There are literally fountains of blood in that film. Fountains. I'm not kidding. There are maggots, there's writhing intestines, at one point Freddy Kruger's face is torn off revealing a bloody, fleshy skull underneath. ("I told you to warn me if something like that was going to happen!" I protested to Ian when that scene came around. It was...oh, I don't know...about fifteen minutes into the film.) But even throughout all of that, the aesthetic is so beautiful you don't really know what to make of it.

And then there's the music. It's eerie. It starts off soft and builds to a crescendo, which is cool enough, but the brilliant part is that throughout most of the "normal" scenes. i.e. when Nancy and her friends are awake, the music is almost classical--piano, chimes, and simple repeating note patterns. Then when we enter dream-world and Freddy makes his appearance, BOOM--in come the drums and the synthesizers we associate with the 1980s. Again, very well-played, because even though the music varies, the score feels cohesive.

And then there's the characters, and there's Nancy, oh my God can we just talk about Nancy for a minute? People may hail Joss Whedon as the champion of Strong Female Characters, but the man has nothing on Wes Craven. I've yet to see a Craven film where women are firmly placed in the role of "victims" and the men are in the role of "saviors." It's always a toss-up. And this is what I mean about Craven majorly screwing with the tropes. For instance, we expect that Tina is definitely going to die first because she has sex. Well, spoiler alert, she does...but guess what? Her boyfriend is punished too. This is huge because #1, this movie came out in the 1980s, and I don't think I need to remind anyone how conservative America was in the 1980s...and #2, even today in a lot of our media, we fall into the trap of shaming girls and glorifying boys who have sex. Not so in Nightmare on Elm Street. Everybody's fair game: girls, boys, virgins, non-virgins, dorks, jocks...Freddy Kruger doesn't care about your sex life. He just wants to slit your throat.

But the reason Nancy survives is not because she's a virgin--in fact, it's implied that she isn't--but because she figures out how to empower herself against Kruger. The bathtub scene, where his clawed hand comes up between her legs, implies rape, as does a later scene when he attacks her in her bedroom. But she defeats him not just with physical force, but emotional: she gets to look him in the eyes and say "You can't hurt me. F**k off. I own my own mind and my own body, and if you don't like it, tough." And even without the rape/assault survivor analogies, can we just acknowledge that this girl has the biggest, brassiest set of metaphorical balls ever? She Home Alone-ifies her house, makes sure her mom is out of the way (or tries to, anyway), tells the authorities what's up and won't take no for an answer, and then walks right into the path of a serial killer. She knows she has to be the one to take him down and instead of hiding away, she rises to meet the challenge. And when he attacks her friends and her mother, she doesn't run away in fear. She gets mad. It just got personal, Kruger. You messed with her mom, and now she's going to mess with your already-none-too-handsome face.

The scene where Nancy tells Kruger, once and for all, that he has no power over her reminds me of a scene in Divergent. Inside a fear-driven simulation, heroine Tris's boyfriend, Four, tries to force himself on her sexually, even though in real life he promised he'd go slow. Tris stops him, kicks him off with a decisive "NO!" and wakes from the simulation to find everyone applauding her and telling her she's an example. Not only does she fight off a rapist, but she is congratulated for it. Her empowerment is treated as something to be rewarded, rather than a given. Instead of hearing "Well, you go alone with a guy in his room, what do you expect?" the message is "Whoa! You fought that guy off! Way to go!"

Same for Nancy. While no one is there to give her a high-five after she strips Kruger of his power by refusing to believe in him, Craven makes it clear that Nancy's success against him is real. She couldn't do it just by booby-trapping him, she had to confront him, and then she had to stop giving him the power to hurt her. Again, it's huge, considering the era in which this film was made. Craven's message might've been clouded by the unhappy ending (which, for the record, he didn't want there in the first place), but his original intent is clear. You have the power. You might be afraid, but that doesn't mean you can't be brave.

And last night after watching this thing, I slept well with my pups curled up at my feet and the window wide open. Ian told me he was proud of me for getting through the whole movie, but he can't possibly be as proud of me as I was of myself. Because here's the thing that I've slowly started to discover about horror films: done right, they can be as empowering as they are terrifying. And let me tell you, Craven knew how to do it right.

But purely from a filmmaker's perspective, the best thing about horror films, especially ones like Nightmare on Elm Street, isn't their empowerment factor. It's that when they're over, when you come back to reality and remember that it's just a movie and it wasn't real, it hits you that hey, this film, this really cool piece of visual storytelling, came out of someone's imagination. And then comes the very best part of all: going and writing your own film, and seeing what kind of things can come out of your imagination.

Theory: Your Scathing Condemnation of Fan Theories is Mean

I love fan theories, or headcanons, as some like to call them. I love them. I really do. I love the silly ones. I love the sad ones. I love the ones that could be true. I love the ones that are so insane they're perfect. I love them all.

Apparently, IndieWIRE critic Sam Adams does not agree with me.

Okay, I can see how fan theories might annoy some people. They're pervasive. They're divisive. They start fandom wars. They confuse the living hell out of non-fandom members when they come up in a random Google search. I get it, you don't like it, you wish people would just chill out or keep it to themselves.

Well, I have bad news for you, sir. That's not going to happen. Fan theories, whether you like it or not, are here to stay. I'm not going to even try to explain all the ins and outs of fandom culture. I'd need an entire blog for that. But I will tell you a story. Just bear with me for a minute here and I promise I'll explain myself.

My boyfriend is a huge dork. Not, like, smartest-kid-in-the-school, pocket-protector-wearing, makes-a-nuclear-reactor-out-of-paper-towel-rolls kind of dork, but, like, a pop culture addict kind of dork. And what a lucky girl am I, because guess what? Me too. We're total nerds together. It's kind of amazing. So, we went to Comic-Con together in May. He went to meet Roddy Piper. I went to meet Robbie Thompson. And I went in costume as Castiel, because to me, that was just the height of cool: going and meeting the TV writer who writes episodes based around your favorite character, dressed as that character? Once-in-a-lifetime experience, right there.

Now, in the weeks leading up to the con, we showed each other the movies/TV shows/wrestling matches starring our favorite people, just so we could understand why each of us wanted to meet those celebrities. He showed me Piper's best matches. I showed him my favorite episodes of Supernatural. But before I did, months before, when I was first planning my costume, I tried to explain to him the nature of Dean and Castiel and their relationship. "Well, Dean's a human, and Cas is an angel..." I began, about to do my usual lead-up of now this is just speculation it's not been confirmed yet but it's a very widely accepted fan theory...and then I realized, wait, Ian has never seen Supernatural. He doesn't know who Dean and Castiel are. He has no idea. I don't have to apologize for my views on this. I can just flat-out tell him.

"About half the fandom takes Dean and Cas's relationship at face-value, and believe they're just very good friends. But the other half - and I'm in this sector - interpret their relationship as romantic," I told him matter-of-factly. "We pick up on clues that the showrunners may or may not have intended to leave. It's not confirmed by the show yet whether their relationship is canon or not. It's just a very, very popular, intensely-believed fan interpretation."

"Oh, I see," was Ian's reply. And then we moved on to discuss costumes. I only brought it up because I wanted to warn him not to wear anything remotely Dean Winchester-like at the con, unless he was up for some serious teasing. When I showed him an episode of Supernatural, I made sure to choose one wherein Castiel interacted with both Dean and Meg, just to show him both sides of the debate. And that was that.

But when I hung out post-Comic-Con with him and his friends, one of them was very vocal about his opinion that the Dean/Castiel romance "is a load of bullshit." At one point I made a comment about how I preferred more subtle hints of their romance, because it let the fans truly interpret it for themselves, and I disliked more heavy-handed or obnoxious references and lines like "You know, the angel in the dirty trenchcoat who's in love with you." Before I'd even finished this sentence, the guy jumped in to insist "that's because they're trying to make fun of the idea that this relationship could EVER be romantic." "So basically, they're making fun of people like me," I translated. The guy shrugged it off. "Yeah, pretty much." And then the subject was dropped.

I hate incidents like that. Ian and his friend, without even meaning to, pretty much demonstrated the absolute best way to respond to a fan theory, and the absolute worst way to respond to a fan theory. The best way, even if you think the fan theory is ridiculous, is to just go with it. Let that fan, be it a super-fan or a casual fan, ramble about their interpretation of the story, and then let it go. If you agree with it, great. If not - let it go.

But when his friend insisted that the showrunners of Supernatural actively go out of their way to make fun of the fans who believe in the Destiel theory, it was more than just annoying. It hurt. I wanted to ask, "And what harm, exactly, is this fan theory doing to you? Like are you really so afraid that it might actually be true, that you can't even entertain the thought for five seconds?" It wasn't that he disagreed with me. He was entitled to his opinion. But the way he reacted with eye-rolling contempt, as if believing in the Destiel theory immediately demoted me to "mindless fangirl" status? That really stung.

People who forcibly oppose fan theories remind me of politicians. They really do. They will never be convinced that the fan who came up with the theory has a leg to stand on. They will not only go out of their way to let the whole world know that the theory is WRONG, but they will also go out of their way to discredit the fan who came up with the theory. I've seen comments on those Pixar movie posts ranging from "meh, nice, but it's too out there to be true" (reasonable enough) to "oh my god you are insane get a life you dumbass" (not so reasonable). I don't mind being disagreed with. And I'm sure no one else who supports a fan theory minds, either. What we do mind is being told that we are "crazy" or "stupid" or "fake fans" for coming up with the idea in the first place.

And that was the problem I had with Adams' indieWIRE piece. Is the guy entitled to his opinion? Sure. Fan theories aren't canon. They don't have to be accepted as fact - and they shouldn't be. It's a matter of interpretation. But guess what? You don't have to believe in a fan theory to respect the fan who came up with it. And slamming someone else's interpretation, or personally attacking someone for coming up with a theory you don't agree with, is mean.  The fastest way to kill someone's passion for something is to make fun of them. Snorting, rolling your eyes, and calling someone a "fake fan" (or, to use Adams' phrasing, a "so-called fan") because they dared to interpret something differently than you did is a douche move. It's a surefire way to make sure that person never speaks up again. And I know, because I've been there.

So, to all the people who agreed with Adams' take on fan theories: shut up. We get it. You are allowed to think that it's ludicrous to believe that every Pixar movie takes place in the same universe. You are not, however, allowed to say that someone is not a "real fan" because they do believe that.

And to all the people who come up with these fan theories: keep it up. But I beg you, don't waste your breath trying to convince the haters that it's true. They'll just blow you off. But don't let that stop you from putting yourself out there in the first place, because you know what? I met a Supernatural writer. I told him, "I believe in Destiel." I told him that while I was standing there, in front of him, dressed like Castiel. And you know what he said?

He told me, "You go right ahead. If that's how you see the show, you go right ahead and believe that. We put the show out there, that's our job. How you interpret it, that's up to you."

How you interpret it, that's up to you. Words to live by.

The genre judgement conundrum part II: learning to love horror

August 2006. 13-year-old Avery sees a Blockbuster VHS case (my God, those are archaic words, right there) in her dad's hand. "What's that?" she asks.

Dad holds it up so she can see the title. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. "What's that?" she asks again, because up to this point, her only exposure to this cult classic has been the Kidz Bop cover of "Time Warp," which she hasn't listened to in forever because, at this point, she has clearly outgrown Kidz Bop. (But, being the child-at-heart she is, if she still listens to those old CDs time to time...well, who's going to know, really?)

"It's an old musical. From the 1970s." Her mom and dad exchange a look. Is their child old enough to see this? After all, their objective thus far has not been to censor her viewing material (she's been allowed to watch Big Trouble and My Cousin Vinny and The Replacements--movies that most of her friends would have had to see behind their parents' backs) but this is considered widely to be the most raunchy musical of all time. Can they really...?

Finally, assuming (and rightly so) that most of the jokes will go over her head, her mom casually says, "You should watch it with us. It's got Meat Loaf and Tim Curry in it. You'll like it."

And for the first forty-five minutes or so, she does. She giggles at "Dammit, Janet," gets up and dances to the Time Warp, and squeals in delight at her first sighting of Dr. Frank-N-Furter. "That is Tim Curry?" she gasps, not recognizing the man who co-starred in Pirates of the Plain and Home Alone 2--some of her favorite movies of the day. She's a little nervous when Rocky is born, but when she sees not a hideous Frankenstein monster but a muscle-bound jock running around in shiny gold underpants, she starts laughing again. So far, as her parents predicted, she loves it. Sure, a lot of the sexual references are lost on her, and she's a little confused as to why Frank-N-Furter seems to be gay or at least bi (since she knows, from years of watching Eddie Izzard, that "most transvestites actually fancy women"), but those are minor things and overall she's happy.

And then comes Meat Loaf's entrance. And, with it, his gruesome death at Frank-n-Furter's hands. That's when she starts to cry. That's when her parents start to think, oops, might've introduced this one a bit too soon. They let her watch for a bit longer, right up through "Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me," which they hope she will find sufficiently funny to erase the memory of Meat Loaf's untimely demise, but they're careful to shut off the movie before Eddie the Delivery Boy's final...uh...resting place is revealed. Because if she can't handle an ice pick and some blood, they know she won't be able to handle that.

One year from now this movie will be one of her favorites, and she will go to see the play live, dressed as Magenta and singing to every song, squirt gun in hand and a smile on her face. But you couldn't convince her of that now. Not for all the money in the world.

~

So fast-forward now to Halloween 2012. After a lifetime of actively avoiding horror movies, I was facing a conundrum because, you see, my teacher had put The Exorcist on his syllabus, as it's one of the most famous (and, admittedly, one of the most groundbreaking) horror films of all time. Most of my classmates are psyched. It's a great horror film, they insist, and it's just perfect that we're watching it on Halloween night. I'm sure they're right, but I have a problem. I hate horror. I really, truly hate it. There are few times that I've seen a horror film and not hated it: The Blair Witch Project, Let the Right One In, Psycho, and of course Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. That's it. The number of horror movies that haven't terrified me into oblivion can actually be counted on one hand.

My mother always said that my problem with movies--and she still says this, now, in 2015, when I'm a college graduate who consistently sleeps with the lights off--was that I had a hard time telling fantasy and reality apart. Maybe that's true. All I know is that up to my college days I could not watch a horror movie without my parents holding my hands. In fact, during a Genres class at Interlochen, we watched Diary of the Dead to study "documented" horror, and I was so shaken I had to leave halfway through the screening and, afterwards, spent the night at a hotel with my parents because I was too afraid to sleep alone in the dorms. I believe by now I have hammered the point home: horror and Avery did not mix. Just couldn't happen.

But on Halloween night, 2012, I caved for the sake of my grade. My teacher was very nice about it, but he would not let me get out of seeing the film. He let me bring my girlfriend and looked the other way when I buried my face in her shoulder during the worst parts, but still I had to sit there, without sneaking out of the room, and watch the movie. And I hated it. Take away the terror factor and I still doubt I'd have liked it; I can see why it's hailed as a masterpiece, but The Exorcist just isn't my taste. But I could handle it. I hated it, but I watched it. The whole thing. Levitation, head-twisting and all.

And I cannot stress how big a deal it is that I stayed for the whole thing. Up to that point I'd even avoided horror films that were part of a class (see: Diary of the Dead incident) and skipped out on Halloween parties because my friends always wanted to watch, well, the Halloween movies and I couldn't do that. I still covered my eyes during certain parts of Lord of the Rings, for crying out loud. I went out of my way to avoid anything scary, much to the frustration of just about any teacher who had me in their class wherein a horror movie was present. This same teacher, the one who gently refused to put up with my B.S. where The Exorcist was concerned, had already had to convince me the previous semester that Planet of the Apes was really worth a second look and that Alien was not, in fact, more terrifying than Paranormal Activity.

So willingly going and not only seeing The Exorcist, but taking notes on it and calmly discussing it in class the following Monday, proved something to me: whether I loved or hated them, I could watch horror movies. I could handle it. I would not collapse into a panic-stricken jelly lump just because a movie had some scary scenes in it. I could do it.

I started pushing my boundaries that very night. I let my girlfriend talk me into seeing Scream - my very first Wes Craven movie - and discovered a simple fact about me and horror films: if it could be defeated, I wasn't afraid of it. A flesh-and-blood killer was something I could deal with. I didn't like gore and I didn't much care for the supernatural (hence my disdain of films like Saw, The Evil Dead, and The Exorcist), but as long as there was a way to defeat the villain I could not only watch a horror film, but find some enjoyment in it. I didn't love Scream, but there were a lot of parts that made me laugh and, unlike Diary of the Dead, I didn't regret going to see it.

More incidents like that one followed. I went to see Warm Bodies, the first - and, to this day, the only - zombie film that I absolutely loved. I started watching Supernatural, a show that I'd avoided for years because I thought it would be too scary, and delighted in watching the villain get defeated in every single episode. Ditto for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I realized that I'd been scorning horror for years, without realizing that there was so much that I already liked (Tim Burton, Alfred Hitchcock, German expressionist films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - heck, Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers had captivated me long before Twilight Fever rocked my high school), and I had been limiting myself out of fear. I resolved not to do that anymore.

When I transferred to Oakland University, my World Cinema teacher showed us Somos Lo Que Hay (translation: We Are What We Are) the same week that I re-watched Let the Right One In for the first time in years. I fell in love with foreign horror - especially of the European variety. I came to the realization that what I really loved, not just tolerated for a grade's sake but loved, was psychological horror. I watched The Sixth Sense and loved it. I watched The Shining all the way through for the first time, and loved it. I watched Silence of the Lambs, I watched all the Hannibal Lecter movies, and I loved them. That fall I saw Peeping Tom in a film theory class and absolutely adored it. My love of psychological horror stemmed from my love of Tim Burton, of Loki the God of Mischief, of the Goblin King and Alex DeLarge and all my other "favorite villains" - the idea that everything isn't what it seems. I realized that without pre-conceived assumptions and fear getting in the way, I could see whatever the hell I wanted to.

I also began to understand my own rules. I needed to have some degree of control over the movie. I needed to be able to pause it and walk away if I had to. I needed to have someone with me, or at least near me, to remind me that it was only a movie. With those few guidelines in place, what couldn't I watch?

I still have moments of doubt, believe me. No power on this earth can make me sit through the Evil Dead or Saw canon. And good luck convincing me to ever, for any reason, sit through an episode of The Walking Dead. I won't go through haunted houses or haunted mazes (acting in one my senior year of high school was more than enough, believe me) and I will never, ever go to an amusement park "fright night" again. I didn't suddenly morph into a horror-lover. I have my limits. If I see a movie that I might like, but looks like it's a scary one, I'll wait for the DVD, thankyouverymuch, and there are plenty of deal-breakers for me. Zombies are a red flag. Cannibalism is pushing it. Possession is a hard limit. And God forbid I ever see anything with the word "exorcism" in the title again.

But this Halloween I will watch Nightmare on Elm Street with Ian. I've always wanted to see it, but dodged it based on the assumption that it would be too scary for me. But it's a fantastic movie, or so I've always heard, and it's one of the defining horror classics, and it's got all the elements I love: a villain with a dark past who attacks his victims on a psychological level, highly stylized aesthetics, and the headship of a kick-ass director. (No one can see Red Eye and not believe Wes Craven was a genius. I'm 100% sure of that.) Maybe I'll have a sleepless night or two over it. But I'm not worried.

After all, I've already handled Pazuzu. After that, how bad can Freddy Kruger really be?

Hannah Montana, Harry Potter, and the Hollywood habit of blaming everyone but yourself

So, fun fact: before I wanted to be a filmmaker, I wanted to be Hilary Duff when I grew up. Well, not necessarily Hilary Duff. Maybe JoJo, or Ashley Olson, or Selena Gomez or Emma Roberts or, of course, Miley Cyrus. Didn't matter who I patterned myself on, the point is that I wanted to be a Disney Girl. I'd never say as much out loud; I'd phrase it as "I want to be an actress," but I wanted the whole package. I wanted the Tiger Beat photospread, the sold-out pop concerts, the chain store clothing line. I wanted to be Starlet Avery, instead of being the ordinary twelve-year-old girl I really was.

And hey, I could have been, if my parents had thought it was really what I wanted. Had I lived in Burbank, CA instead of middle-of-damn-nowhere Michigan, I could have had a shot at being Hannah Montana. Why not? I was a cute, sassy preteen girl with a giant ham for a dad and mad piano skills. I could dance. I could model, I could pose. I had braces, but sometimes girls need someone who's a little "ordinary" to look up to, isn't that the Disney press-conference line? I could have been, if it had been serious, if it had ever been more than a fantasy.

But thank God I realized that wasn't what I wanted. Acting was fun, but creation was more fun. It was better, I eventually realized, to be Woody Allen than Ashley Olson. Better to be a jack-of-all-trades who could write, shoot, edit, and star in your own movie, rather than someone who said other people's lines both on and off the camera and was literally paid to be cute because, as Mara Wilson so accurately pointed out, when the cuteness goes away, so does your career.

I'm not perfect now, but I'm relatively happy. A few days ago I got into a lecture/argument with my mom, who basically reminded me to shut up, stop complaining that I don't have my dream job (I'm only 22; what the hell did I expect?) and count my f'ing blessings, already. I have a fantastic boyfriend who has gone above and beyond to make me feel loved and supported, and parents who have sacrificed for me and gone to bat for me and cheered me on since the day I was born. I live in a house with a swimming pool in the backyard, my parents let me drive the car pretty much whenever I want, I'm educated and not in debt. I'm working on my next movie, and I'm positive this one will be in more festivals than the last. I'm damn lucky. I'm no popstar, but I'm damn lucky.

Now, does someone want to give Miley Cyrus that talk that my mom gave me? Because I think she needs it.

Look, I clearly can't comment on how it feels to be a child star, because I never was. And I'm not stupid, I know that most people who were raised in the spotlight turn out to be addicts or worse...but wait, is that really true? What about Mara Wilson, Cole Sprouse, Emma Watson, Dakota Fanning, Hilary Duff, or Daniel Radcliffe--people who went to college, got married, had families, found new jobs and new lives apart from show business, or else went on to be successful in their careers despite being the dreaded "child stars?"

We look at entitled dumbasses like Justin Bieber, or lost souls like Lindsay Lohan, and assume that must be where children who are raised in Hollywood end up. It's inevitable. There's no escaping it. It's why Miley Cyrus dirty-danced with a married man at the VMAs. It's why she got naked in her music videos. It's why she smoked salvia and runs around in onesies and curses like a sailor. She's just trying to show that she's grown up, give her some space, dammit; she was a child star, she is to be pitied.

Except I don't feel sorry for her. Not one little bit.

And let me be clear, I have no comment--actually, one sort-of comment, but that's it--on Cyrus' revelations about her gender identity and sexuality. Good for you, Miley. If you're down to date any consenting person regardless of the plumbing God gave them, more power to you. If you identify as androgynous, no problem. Hell, if you come out as trans I wouldn't bat an eyelash; it's your body and your life and you can do whatever you need to do with it.

My problems with Miley Cyrus have nothing to do with where she falls on the LGBT spectrum. I do, however, have a problem with her apparent belief that having any kind of negative experiences in her Disney career somehow gives her a get-out-of-jail free card.

In an interview with Marie Claire, Cyrus claimed that being on Hannah Montana caused her to develop body dysmorphia. Furthermore, she claimed that working 12-hour days gave her anxiety attacks and prevented her from having a normal childhood. Now, all of this may well be true, or it may be exaggerated; I don't know. I do know that the entertainment industry has a long history of high standards and impossible demands when it comes to women's bodies (and, honestly, male bodies too, in most cases) and that teenagers are particularly susceptible to the effects of said impossible standards set by that industry. But...hold up...wouldn't you know that, if you've ever watched, say, one hour of TV in your life? Look at Pretty Little Liars for crying out loud, you've got 28-year-olds playing 16-year-olds; do you really think normal high school girls look or dress like that? Even at age twelve, I knew that being Hollywood-standard pretty came with a price; being unwilling to pay that price was part of what drove me into filmmaking instead of acting.

And to the other point, Miley, you were a twelve-year-old with a six-figure job. Did you think that would be easy? Again, this isn't a case of hindsight. Even when I was ten years old, reading Disney Adventures because I was too young for Popstar, I'd come across articles interviewing the Harry Potter kids (more on them later), all of whom gave full, detailed descriptions of what it was like to be a kid on a movie set. Long hours. Tutoring instead of going to school. Uncomfortable costumes. Demanding directors. Unpleasant shooting conditions. I refuse to believe that if I, at age ten, could read an interview in Disney Adventures and think, huh, this acting stuff isn't really that glamorous, is it, that Miley Cyrus couldn't have come to the same conclusion before landing the role of Hannah Montana.

Furthermore, Cyrus claiming that the show was the sole reason for her body issues or anxiety issues is kind of like me exclusively blaming Interlochen, my former boarding school, for giving me an eating disorder. I was sixteen, living away from home for the first time, and naturally it was a hell of a stressful time. Certainly that stress may have contributed to the situation--but there were so many other factors, and I firmly believe that if I hadn't gone to Interlochen, it would've happened when I went away to college. Or if I'd lived at home for college, I'd have developed that same disorder when I moved out into my first apartment. You get the picture. My circumstances may have exacerbated my issues, but they didn't create those issues.  It's not my dorm counselor's fault that I couldn't handle being on my own, nor is it her fault that I didn't ask for help before the problem got out of control.

I'm not saying that Miley Cyrus is a bad person. I am saying that I would have a hell of a lot more respect for her if she would take responsibility for herself and her actions. And as a recent college graduate who is currently working in a fast-food restaurant, allow me to tell you, Miley, that there are much worse jobs you could've had. You could have worked at McDonald's or a super-store like Target, to put yourself through college. You could have lived with your parents until you were 25. You could've been a single mother, or gone to community college because you couldn't afford a 4-year degree, or did what my mom did and wait until you were married with a kid to get your master's degree. My mom has given me a lot to live up to. But I don't mind. And you can bet that if I had gone the Hollywood-starlet route, she wouldn't have let me get away with whining to a magazine that my job just sucked and gave me all kinds of mental issues...but only after it made me a multibillion-dollar household name.

Daniel Radcliffe once said that in the early days of his career, when he was a little kid on the Harry Potter set, he would occasionally whine to his father about how hard his job was. To which his father would reply, "Well, at least you're not down a coal mine." Radcliffe later admitted that fear of failure, and the pressure of fame, led him to drink while on-set of the final Harry Potter film and occasionally turn up hungover for filming, until he recognized his behavior as "unhealthy and damaging" - his words - and went sober in 2010. Notice, however, that while he acknowledges the role that fame played in his troubles, he does not blame his drinking on 12-hour workdays or unwanted beautification; he acknowledges that it was his own fear and insecurity that got him into trouble. And he is quick to credit the Harry Potter franchise for kick-starting his acting career and providing him with experiences that he otherwise never would have had.

I tend to go looking for information on the way the film industry affects people who are so deeply involved in it because, obviously, that is where I want to be. And when my time comes - and I am still optimistic that it will - I don't want to be like Miley Cyrus. I don't want to use my fame to my advantage, and then denounce the very thing that made me successful. I want to be Daniel. I want to be that grounded, and that self-aware. I want to be able to look back at the work that made me who I am, and be proud of it, and think to myself yep, that's it, that was the way to do it.

My work: 'The Auteur at Work,' 'Moving Along,' and 'Professors'

My senior year of college was spent doing more writing, studying and researching than filming. I wasn't too happy with that. But I did manage to make three short films during that time, one of which I submitted for my senior capstone.

First, there was The Auteur at Work. I teamed up with Morgan, my Michigan-based partner-in-crime, to make a mockery of Auteur Theory, which we'd been learning about in our hard-as-hell film theory class, for our final project. Rounding out our team we had Ian (who is a fairly good actor, and don't let him tell you otherwise), Morgan's brother Collin, and her BFF Cody. Morgan, Ian and I nailed down the concept, I wrote us a script, Morgan took the helm as director, and we convinced Cody and Collin to act for us. Let the games begin!

Since most of us had worked together on Morgan's final project for production class, Death Lets it Go, we were pretty well gelled as a team already. The trick was pulling off a short film in less than three weeks, which as I mentioned when talking about Auto-Incorrect is no small task. The script was completed in two drafts. We didn't have time for storyboards or a beat breakdown. Casting came down to "wanna be in it? cool." Ian and I had to round out the cast, since we only had two real actors and the script called for at least four characters. To top it all off, we had technical difficulties as well: the day-of, we had to call in our production teacher to help with an audio issue, intermittent sunlight made setting up a shot nearly impossible, and we had to location scout on the fly. Then, once we had the damn thing shot, Ian had to work through a cold the last week of class to get it edited, and I was left to help choose the music and take care of post-production effects. Sleep? What's that?

But we pulled it off, and The Auteur at Work turned out to be the most fun I'd had on a film set in a long time. Watch it HERE.



I like making narrative films. I love to watch documentaries, but I don't consider making them to be my strong suit...so how the hell is it that I've ended up making so many of them?!? I've made three for various classes, two for good-cause events at my school, and two just because I felt like it. Huh. That's...a lot, now that I think about it.

Had I stayed at McDaniel, my first college, my senior-year project would have been a narrative. But I transferred to Oakland University, where I had to take a film-exhibition class for my capstone credits, and he wouldn't let me make a narrative film. So I made a documentary on the changing film exhibition industry, with special focus on why Blockbuster went out of business and the ways that theater and other video-store owners are staying in business despite the rise of Netflix and other on-demand services. If that sounds like a lot to pack into a five-minute capstone video, believe me, it was. But the end result was worth it.

The interviews were the easy part...but even the "easy" part involved traveling to Ann Arbor and Bloomfield Hills, coordinating with my mother when and where I could take the car, borrowing equipment from my production teacher, and printing and filing a handful of release forms for all the interviewees to sign. The hard part was finding B-roll and archive footage, as I didn't have any old photos or videos from Blockbuster that I could conveniently slip into the final cut. I ended up taking to the Internet for archive photos, hunting YouTube for old Blockbuster commercials, and asking Ian if I could film inside Disc Replay. And the hardest part of all was editing several hours' worth of material into a five-minute video that told a story without presenting too much of a bias. But all the work paid off when I saw the final cut--and when I saw my grade.

I never pictured myself making a documentary for my last-ever college project--but I'm so glad I did. Check it out HERE.



After all the hard work of my last semester of college, it almost felt like a relief to make another comedy short with Morgan. We were a "production team" for OU's end-of-year showcase, and our task was simple: create content. Make it OU-related. And above all make it good. This is for the school, after all.

Faced with this task, Morgan and I started out making a documentary, which turned into a loosely-scripted mockumentary about our favorite professors. For each of the four teachers we profiled we chose a well-known quirk and blew it way, way out of proportion. Our theory teacher, for example, was known for choosing a wide, often disjointed selection of films for his various classes. We filmed him choosing movies out of a hat and putting them into his class syllabus.

How Well Do You Know Your Professors was probably one of the easiest films I've ever made. The difficult part was finding the time to finish it; at the time that we were making the film, Morgan was writing a 90-page script for her class and I was shooting Moving Along for my capstone assignment. But we were lucky, because our professors cooperated every step of the way. And the reaction we got when we premiered it at the OU end-of-year cinema department showcase? Priceless.

Watch our dorky mockumentary HERE.

Avery Tries to be a Critic: 'Inside Out'

I saw Inside Out yesterday and all I have to say is: wow. Just. Wow. That movie. In the immortal words of white girls everywhere, I can’t even. Once again, Pete Docter does his absolute best to reduce the entire audience to tears. Grown men included. I move that from here on out, every Pixar movie should be screened for an audience entirely comprised of the most macho pro wrestlers, marines, and bikers they can find. If they all cry, your movie is TOO FREAKING SAD and needs to be modified before wide release. No, really. This is a safeguard that needs to happen, because I swear there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater yesterday.

Let me back up here and admit that, yes, I am a member of the Pixar Generation. As in, the kids who were born in the early 90s, around the time of the first Jurassic Park movie, for instance, and never had any idea what a world without CGI would look like. The kids who got first crack at falling in love with Buzz and Woody, never feared monsters in the closet again after meeting Mike and Sulley, squealed in delight when they found the light-up Squirt toy in their happy meals, and crawled around their living rooms pretending they were ants for days after seeing A Bug's Life. I’m one of those kids.

I actually don’t remember seeing Toy Story for the first time, but I know I did because I remember how thrilled I was when Dad picked up the VHS for Toy Story 2 on his way home from work one day. I remember eating a peanut-butter-and-cereal sandwich as I watched Rex trying to take down Zurg. I remember laughing hysterically at the “outtakes” at the end. I remember telling my dad that I wanted to be Jessie the Cowgirl. But above all I remember just plain loving every minute of it. There wasn’t one part of that movie that made me reach for the fast-forward button. As a kid growing up afraid of my own shadow, those kinds of movies were rare for me.

Over the years there have been Pixar movies that I loved (Wall-E, A Bug's Life, Up) and movies that I didn’t like (Cars, The Incredibles, Monsters University) and ones that I just plain never got tired of (Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo and, of course, the Toy Story series). Throughout it all, I never missed a chance to see a Pixar movie, even if I didn’t like the concept or the first trailers. When I got older and actually started going to theaters, I’d make Pixar movies my priority.

Okay, I’ve convinced you that I’m a complete sucker for a good Pixar film. So of course I went to see Inside Out and of course that movie made me cry like a small child. I don’t think there are enough words in the English language to express my love for Pete Docter. The guy gets it. He knows--not just tries hard enough, he knows--what it’s like to be a kid. He knows how it feels to be afraid of a monster in your closet. He understands the power that a persistent, innocent child can have over a grown-up. And after seeing Inside Out I am convinced that he knows better than any other grown-up on the face of the earth what it feels like for a kid to be uprooted and moved to a new place just as their childhood is winding down.

I think the reason that Inside Out hit me so hard was because I had a very similar childhood to Riley’s: I grew up an only child, very close to my parents, in a house in a neighborhood that I absolutely loved. But when I was about Riley’s age, my parents moved into a new house about an hour’s drive from our old one, in a very different area, and I absolutely hated it. I never ran away from home, or tried to, but there were days that I seriously considered it. And of course this completely baffled my parents, who assumed that because I’d liked making the drive from our old house to check on the progress of the new one I would like living in the new one. I couldn’t understand it either. I understand now that what I liked was having the time in the backseat to listen to music, getting to record and play with the camera while we were on-site, and getting to spend time with my parents. Whereas when we actually moved into the new house, there was a sense of finality. I hated it. I wanted to go home. Some days, I still do.

Recently I went back to St. Clair Shores, my childhood hometown, and saw everything through the eyes of a grown-up. (Or, okay, as close to grown-up as a 22-year-old can really be.) It’s a little run-down there now. The movie theater where I first saw The Santa Clause 2 and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has long since closed down. There are cigarette butts all over my favorite park. A lot of businesses have changed hands or simply closed due to lack of income. In my old backyard, the tree that once held my swing has been cut down. But for all the changes, it is still my hometown, and I still love it. I always will.

So, yes, Inside Out really hit home, pun not intended. I was watching with my dad and I kept promising myself, no, I will not cry, I will not cry dammit, I’m a grown woman here and I will keep it together, Dad doesn’t need to see me cry (my dad hates it when I cry, even if it’s just over a movie), so I’m not going to cry--only to look over and discover that my dad had tears in his eyes too. That, my friends, is the power of Pixar. All the way back to the car he raved about what a great movie it was, and I have to agree.

What I love most about Inside Out is that it so perfectly captures how it feels to grow up. Just like Toy Story 3, which also reduced me to tears as I watched it right before going into my senior year of high school (can you say right in the feels?) and still had all of my American Girl Dolls and stuffed animals right there in my bedroom when I got back from the theater. I love the way Pixar can do that. I love that a team of animators, most of them grown men and women with kids of their own, can look around them and find inspiration for a film that hits kids and their parents alike right where it hurts in the best way possible. I love watching a film that makes me turn around and hug my mom and dad as soon as it’s over. I love that I can pop Toy Story 2 into the DVD player and still love it just as much as I did when I saw it back in 2002. I love that someday, I will show these movies to my kids, and see the looks on their faces when they reach the outtake reels at the end of the films. I love that.

So thank you, Pixar, for giving me something to love, something to look forward to, and something to aspire to. Because you can bet that as soon as I got home from the movie theater yesterday, I started working on my own script (more about that later) and contacting as many filmmaking friends as I could about getting this thing into pre-production. Oh…didn’t I mention my favorite thing about a Pixar film? No? Oops.

Well, here it is, then: every time I watch a Pixar movie, it makes me love cinema as a whole all the more. And every time I turn off the TV or walk out of the theater after watching a Pixar film, all I want to do is go and make something that makes someone else feel the way my favorite Pixar movie makes me feel.