Robin Hood—The Assassin

AKA "Tattoo? What Tattoo?"

Flashback--the Crusades. The king is under attack. Robin tangles with a Saracen, whom he wounds, slicing across a tattoo on the man's arm.

In Sherwood Forest, the Present (not our present--1192), Gisborne is having a celebration at Locksley for the king's birthday. Robin decides to crash the party.

Guy announces his engagement to Marian. He's particularly hot with his leather-clad self. Robin and his pals burst in and take everybody's jewelry, including the ring Guy just gave Marian. Guy and Robin tussle, and Robin slices open Guy's sleeve, revealing the tattoo from the flashback, along with a scar matching the flashback wound. Pissed about the ring, Guy goes after Robin. Their ensuing confrontation explains our flashback--Guy was a hired assassin sent to kill King Richard. In a patriotic dudgeon, or maybe just jealous about Marian, Robin nearly slits Guy's throat, but the merry men intervene.

Djaq is apprehended. She escapes the castle jail using some chemicals she has with her. She doesn't make it far, though. The sheriff is intrigued by her "magic" and wants Djaq her be his alchemist. The old alchemist is still there--he's a skull. No Bob inside, though. Just an inkwell. Djaq stalls. The sheriff gives her two hours to mix the stuff up.

Robin ties Guy up and hangs him bound and gagged from a tree. Hm. Didn't know Robin was into that kind of thing. Robin's pretty focused on Guy's status as a traitor and killing him for his slight against the king of England. The others, however, are more focused on rescuing Djaq, which Robin refuses to do. Finally the others tie Robin up so they can head for Nottingham. Robin doesn't think any of his crew would understand the politics behind what Guy has done, because they're all too "simple." I'm having very little sympathy for Robin here. Yes, Guy is technically a traitor to the crown, but Djaq is arguably the most vulnerable of the Merry Men because of her secret girl-ness. Robin's stubborn refusal to rescue her because of his beef with Guy ingratiates him to me about as much as his comment about the Merry Men being "simple" ingratiated him to Much. Which is to say not at all.

Robin plans torture to get Guy to talk, in spite of Much's protests. In the end, though, Robin lets Guy go. Guy has a point about his beef with the king--Richard basically abandoned his country to run off to the Crusades, and the results weren't that great. Otherwise we wouldn't have a Robin Hood story in the first place. Anyway, Robin and Guy go at it hand to hand and knock the crap out of each other. Guy continues to mock Robin about his loss of Locksley Hall and Marian. Much returns with Marian just as Robin knocks Guy cold. Marian confronts Robin. I'm not convinced that Robin's high dudgeon isn't so much political as it is personal. Nobody else seems to be, either.

With Robin all wrapped up in his own agenda, Allan, Will and Little John sneak into the castle. When the sheriff returns for Djaq, she demonstrates, creating a smokescreen that allows her to escape from the lab. Will, Allan and Little John run into trouble with the guards. Djaq joins the fray and they escape through a privy. So... guys come in to rescue girl, don't hae a plan, end up in the sewage system. Sound familiar? Anyway, the boys escape but Djaq stays behind and the sheriff grabs her again. The boys conclude that they're not so good at infiltrating the castle, and they need Robin.

The boys come back to get Robin. When Robin still refuses, Will blurts out that he thinks he loves Djaq. This takes everyone by surprise. Maybe even Will. Marian suggests trading Guy for Djaq, but Robin says no. Little John clubs him unconscious.

Back at the castle, Djaq's torture is about to get underway when Marian barges in, telling the sheriff about the proposed trade. The sheriff doesn't seem all that keen on the idea of getting Guy back, but finally agrees on the trade. They're all to meet in the mine. On the way, he finally notices Djaq is a girl. Robin confronts the sheriff about Guy. The sheriff burns off Guy's tattoo with the acid, eliminating Robin's "proof." Robin, et al, do some derring-do and escape from the trap the sheriff has set in the mine.

This episode was an interesting turnaround, at least for me. My feelings toward Robin went from finding him annoying to really disliking him, while my feelings for Guy went from finding him despicable to sympathizing with him. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out through the last few episodes of the season.

On the Lot: Interview with Patricia Byther-Hardy

If you've been watching Fox at all, you've probably seen trailers for a new reality show, On the Lot, premiering May 22. It's a competition for filmmakers, produced by Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg. Participants are vying for a $1 million development deal at DreamWorks.

As it turns out, a friend of mine is participating in the competition, with a fun comedic piece called "Just Another Day," chronicling her trials and tribulations as a Los Angeles courier. I've known Patti for a long time, and was excited to find out she was involved in this show. So I had to snag her for an interview.

So read on, get to know a little about Patti and her film, and when you're done jump over to the On the Lot website and take a look at her film. It's a fun five minutes, and when you're done you can rate the movie and comment, if you like.

Thanks much to Patti for her time, and best of luck in the competition!


View "Just Another Day" here.

Tell us a bit about yourself and how you found your way to On the Lot.

My "official" name is Patricia Byther-Hardy, but I'm just Patti to most everyone. I am a middle-aged mom and grandmom, and my current "day job" is escorting oversize loads. I've always loved film, and when I lost my then-job in the spring of 1997, I decided I needed to find a new career that wasn't in an office or go mad! (Ah, Mid-Life Crises, aren't they swell?) I returned to school at my local community college, intending to become a pre-school teacher, but instead found the Broadcasting Arts Department and jumped in, taking recommended stage and camera acting and directing classes along the way. I soon decided to keep going for my BA and transferred to San Francisco State where I was accepted to the Film Department, and in my senior year, one of 15 chosen (out of about 200) for the producer/director's track, which is a year-long program wherein we get to make a 10 minute film (SF is a fairly poor school, and has just so much, very old equipment to go around). I graduated in 2002, returned to L.A. a few months later (I'm originally from here), but could never get anything going--it's tough in Hollywood when you aren't a USC or UCLA grad, and being from SF State, I had no contacts, plus SF State is more about indie work, rather than the typical Hollywood studio structure. I edited one documentary film, but even that went nowhere. I finally had to get some income coming in, so I went to work as a courier (thankfully, I no longer do that!) and the rest is history, sort of.

A friend told me about On the Lot and the notion of "auditioning" a film for Steven Spielberg was just too good to pass up! None of my student work was suitable, so I decided to create something new--something I have not actually done since leaving school. It felt good! Oh and I suppose I should mention, because it isn't obvious or anything, I'm a big James Marsters and Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan! Heh. (Actually, I meant to take the picture and VampireFish down, but forgot!)

How long did it take you to make your short film?

Filming and editing "Just Another Day" actually took about 2 months--but only because I found out about the contest in late October, and it was well into the holidays by the time I had everything set. It would likely have taken about 2 weeks if I had had nothing else going on.

Have you made other films? If so, how did the making of "Just Another Day" compare to previous productions?

I've only made student films, so I had the college and their equipment and the student body to cull people, places and equipment from, none of which I had for this one! However, making a film is pretty much a set process, just longer and more complicated, the longer and more complicated the script is. So in many ways, it was no different than anything else I've done, just with less support structure behind me. Really, it was just more things to have to think about logistically, but otherwise, pretty routine. On the other side of the coin, I hadn't done a video film in a long time (SF State insists on teaching film over video--mostly 16 MM filmmaking--VERY expensive! but worthwhile). and while I love the look of film more, it was heavenly to have the "film" cost so little and be able to use up as much as I wanted on endless takes (read on).

Any particular challenges?

Always! As I mentioned, I did this over the holidays (complete with out-of-town guests) so I was unable to get anyone to commit to the film, and I wound up having to act as well as direct--so NOT my intent! I also wound up having to film parts in L.A. and the rest in San Francisco--where my production partners live--as well as edit there, a 400+ mile trip each time, each way. And since I had to pay for this film--I budgeted myself about $1000 (and the airport alone cost $100 to use!)--I also had to continue my RL job, where I'm on-call 24/7, without a fixed schedule! So, I had to be very flexible to make all these things gel, as did my partners (thank you Julie Cramer and Peter DeCristofaro!). Directing and acting is a HUGE challenge. I can't see what I look like and going back to replay was too much trouble, so I had to rely on my partners to get what I needed and hope it came out like I envisioned. For the most part it worked, but I would NOT want to do that again!

One of the sillier challenges--I have the worst, most uncontrollable hair on earth! How was I going to make it work over the month of weekends we were filming? The whole "baseball fan" thing was an overlay I added (not in the script) because I bought a baseball cap to resolve (read: cover!) the "issue" and it grew from there!

Anyway, yes, there were many challenges, as in all films, but you just work your way through them.

Any challenges particular to the requirements of On the Lot?

Oh man, were there ever! The parameters of On the Lot are that the film be no longer than 5 minutes and had to have a definite plot (beginning, middle, end), with an introduction at least 30 seconds, but no more than 45 seconds. Do you know how HARD it is to tell a story in 5 minutes? Or maybe that's just me. In case it hasn't become obvious by now, I tend to be a bit loquacious. Heh. The first day we went into editing, the film came up to 8:30 and I wasn't even halfway through the story! And as we went along we discovered a few bits that needed clearing up, so we added more footage! Although I had intended to put the driving scenes in fast-motion, we had to speed it up first to 1200X (the highest the system goes) then that one to 500X! Plus the going up and down stairs had to be sped up, something I hadn't intended originally, but felt worked--the mundane constants in a courier's life! Finally, after several days, we got down to 5:30 and had a really tight, but still too long, film. We had to go in and take a frame or two here, and 5 or 6 frames there--just shaving what amounts to fractions of a second all over the film (30 frames per second, so some cuts were maybe 1/15th of a second) over and over. When we hit 4:57 we just stopped and yelled "We're done!" LOL!

I found the intro to be a real challenge, as well; I wanted to do it as one take (no edits)...and I kept messing up, especially my name, of all things (since I virtually only use it for official things, I guess)! It was really difficult to spit out everything I needed to say in 45 seconds cleanly--I took up 20+ minutes of tape!

Have all the things in "Just Another Day" actually happened to you?

As the sub-title says, "A (mostly) true story." In varying degrees and ways, yes, pretty much all of them--except delivering to the airport--that was always a pick up (and just try parking, going into a terminal, and getting out of parking at LAX in under 9 minutes, so you don't have to pay parking! I managed it only once in 1 ½ years!). Couriers make minimum wage (or a percent of the package price paid by the customer, depending on the company) and $0.25 a mile (this was 2 years ago, but I doubt it's gone up much). Virtually no one thinks to tip them--I got 3 tips in all that time, though one was $20--whoo hoo, made my whole week! And there is also a time limit to every package--most are 2-hour turnaround (from first call-in by the customer, to delivery!).

Rudeness, yes. Bathrooms not available to couriers, oh, yes. The 5 security guards at one building--including two in the 100-foot driveway and Mr. You-Can't-be-Seen-in-the-Lobby-Guy, oh yeah. The magazine, though...

See, there was a boutique in Culver City, and invariably I would have to pick up their package late in the day--often a couple of times a week and ALWAYS at the height of rush hour--and take it to a house in South Pasadena--about 35 miles--WAY at the top of this long hill--around and around and around! (I actually went back there and came down that same hill as the first part of the drive in my film!) I never snooped in my packages, but one day they were late getting it ready and I just had to verify that, yes, that was one (count them-1) current issue of People (or some such commonly found) Magazine, stapled into a shopping bag that I was killing myself--and my personal life--to deliver! GRRRR ARGGH. Finally, one day, one of the residents told me why--they managed the website for the boutique and they had to get the marked pages into the site before the magazine hit the stands so people could log on and buy what Angelina and Jen were wearing this week! Sheesh!

Oh and yes, I got MANY parking tickets! It's almost impossible not to. If it wasn't the delay in the building causing the meter to run out, it was the 5 conflicting parking signs, only 3 of which I had time to read!

If you could make your dream film, what would it be?

MacBeth starring James Marsters--absolutely! I also have a couple films of my own I would like to do, one a Sci Fi film from a short story I wrote many years ago (or it would be a great TV show, too!) :) and the other, a film about my mother's life in German-occupied Holland. Another idea I've toyed with is a modern retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Has participating in "On the Lot" opened any doors for you as of yet?

Sadly, no. But I have no intention of quitting. I hadn't realized how much I miss the process of creating films, and I got all fired up at a recent Science Fiction convention to create more films for alternate outlets like the Internet and direct-to-DVD. And hey, I'm looking for scripts!

I've also been working on collecting footage for several planned documentaries as I travel around the country, and hope to edit soon. Besides, I'm an eternal optimist, and I have not given up hope! You never know who might look at "Just Another Day" up there on the website and say, "Hey, that's just what I'm looking for!"

Lost—Catch-22

Some mixed feelings this week. I didn't think this episode was as strong as the last couple have been.

Charlie and Hurley debate the results of a smackdown between Superman and the Flash while they trudge through the woods with Jin and Desmond. Charlie is shot through the throat with an arrow when he triggers a trap. Of course, this is one of Desmond's forward flashy things, and none of it has happened. Yet.

Backstory:
Desmond is in a monastery. He takes his shirt off. Is it wrong to say he's hot when he's changing into his monk garb? Brother Desmond is peacefully putting labels on wine bottles when a stranger comes into the winery and slugs him in the face. That's not very monastery-appropriate. This guy turns out to be the brother of a woman Desmond left at the altar. A not-Penelope sort of woman, whom he left because he felt he was called to the monastery. The experience he relates here is a bit odd--I wonder if it was an early manifestation of the flash-forward phenomenon.

Later, Desmond gets toasted on expensive monastery wine. And gets thrown out of the monastery so he can go find out what he's really meant to do. He heads into the town with a shipment of wine. Turns out the person buying the wine is Penelope's father--and this is how they meet.

This backstory bit bothered me. It didn't seem to dovetail as well with the main story as they usually do, plus Desmond as a monk didn't seem to me to fit his character. The only thing that seemed to tie in was the name of the wine, Mariah, and its relationship to Desmond's statement later that maybe he's being tested. And that was a bit of an anvil and didn't work all that well for me. The interweaving between Desmond meeting Penelope and his rescuing the dangling body in the jungle was very nicely done, though, and set us up for the twist when the dangling body's face was revealed.

And Desmond took his shirt off, so it's all good.

Beach Story:
Sawyer walks in on Kate in her underwear. I mean Kate is wearing underwear and Sawyer walks in, not that Sawyer is wearing Kate's underwear when he walks in on her. She tells Sawyer that Jack saw them doing the deed on the cameras. He uses this as an excuse to come on to her. He asks if she wants a mix tape. He should chat with Dean Winchester about that. I bet Dean makes good mix tapes.

Later, Kate has oatmeal with Jack. They're eating oatmeal at night. I do that, but I still think it's kind of weird. Then Jack goes to have oatmeal with Juliet, and Kate is not happy about this. She goes to see Sawyer. Oh, wait. She goes to do Sawyer. Kind of an extreme reaction to oatmeal, if you ask me. In the morning, Sawyer challenges Jack to ping pong.

Sawyer begins to put the pieces together. Sawyer gives Kate a mix tape. It's the best of Phil Collins, and he lifted it from Bernard. He asks Kate if she jumped him because of Jack and Juliet. He seems to be not all that unhappy about this. After all, he got laid, so he's happy. But he didn't take his shirt off. He should take lessons from Desmond.

Front Story:
Desmond works to recreate the series of events he saw leading to Charlie's death. Apparently this also led to him hooking back up with Penelope. Desmond tries to trace back the series of events he saw that led to Charlie's death, but which also led to his reunion with Penny. He goes to gather Charlie for the trek, and Charlie realizes Desmond has had a vision. They all set out. Someone is coming to the island, Desmond says. On the beach that night, Charlie plays his guitar while Jin tels scary stories in Korean. They hear a helicopter, which doesn't sound at all well, and crashes into the ocean, but not before someone bails out of it.

In the morning, they head into the jungle. Charlie finds a hula doll and Desmond finds a backpack in a tree. The backpack has a satellite phone in it, but it's dead. There's also a copy of Catch-22, in another language. Inside is the picture of Desmond and Penelope. Charlie works out what's going on--that Desmond thinks Penelope was in the helicopter. Charlie says they're perfectly happy to help get Penny back, and why would they want to change anything? This is, of course, fraught with dramatic irony. As they continue, the Flash/Superman conversation gets underway. When Charlie springs the trap, Desmond pushes him out of the way of the arrow. The group splits, Charlie and Desmond going one way, Hurley and Jin the other.

Charlie confronts Desmond, accusing him of being willing to sacrifice Charlie for Penelope. Obviously, Desmond wasn't, Charlie, or you'd be writhing on the ground hacking up blood. But Charlie doesn't know that. Desmond says maybe he's not supposed to keep rescuing Charlie, that maybe it's a test, thus creating that flimsy callback to the flashback bit. Jin finds the parachute and a person hanging from a tree. Desmond climbs up to bring her down. She's still alive. But it's not Penny. Not-Penny says Desmond's name and promptly expires. So if Desmond hadn't saved Charlie, would Penny have been in the tree? Given what show we're watching, possibly... However, Desmond's reunion with Penny wasn't shown explicitly, so maybe Desmond was taking disparate chunks of his vision and sticking them together incorrectly.

Overall, fairly entertaining but it didn't do much for me. Desmond's "gift" didn't seem to fit into the show very well when it was introduced, and it still doesn't. Unless there's some sort of logical explanation further down the road, it's going to continue to feel like an awkward digression to me.

Lost at iTunes:

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Supernatural—Hollywood Babylon

There's no point trying to recap this episode, because everything that made it great just falls flat in recap format. Ben Edlund was in fine form, providing a script that skewered his own industry every bit as thoroughly as he did with "Smile Time" (Angel), and all the while maintaining a relevant story and some great character moments for the Hotties Winchester. The episode wasn't so much sprinkled as flooded with inside jokes, some of which would probably go over the heads of all but the most devoted Supernatural fans, but many that were readily accessible to most viewers, making the humor rewarding for anybody who might tune in.

The basic story--Sam and Dean visit a reportedly haunted movie set and tackle ghosts who are murdering folks involved with the production. The twist--the ghosts are being controlled by the movie's original scriptwriter, whose screenplay is being progressively massacred by the suits, who know nothing about storytelling. (And every screenwriter in Hollywood says, "Amen.")

The inside jokes fly fast and furious, from Sam's being frightened off the bus by the specter of The Gilmore Girls (Jared Padalecki was a Gilmore boy for several seasons) to comments that the weather in LA is "practically Canadian" (they film, of course, in Vancouver). I know at least some of the notes mentioned by Brad (Gary Cole) were based on actual notes provided to Supernatural's creators (the comment about the show being too dark is one of them). The movie's director is McG--one of Supernatural's executive producers. In the middle of the episode, we're treated to a fake trailer for the movie-in-the-show, HellHazers II, The Reckoning, from the director of Charlie's Angels (McG, of course). (This film is not yet rated.) Erik Kripke's not-so-stellar horror movie, Boogeyman, is skewered right along with the network suits, so the satire is equal opportunity. And non-stop. And hysterical.

Joining its predecessors, "Hell House" and "Tall Tales," "Hollywood Babylon" provides a brilliantly comedic break from the intensity of last week's "Heart," leading into what promises to be an angst-fest as the season wraps up. I'm glad this show's creators have the inclination and the courage to take these forays into pure comedy from time to time--another aspect of this show that begs comparison with The X-Files. It works every bit as well for this show as it did for that one.

Supernatural on iTunes: