Worked on World's Astonishing News! again last weekend.  They are pretty fun.  My favorite direction:  "Make it really big, this is Japanese TV!" 

I played a doctor again, this time trying to save a kid infected with a killer amoeba after playing in a contaminated lake.  We shot in a real surgery and patient rooms at the San Mateo Medical Center.  I used a fake scalpel to pretend to cut on the kid's head to relieve fluid buildup.  Then, later, I gave him a shot in the arm with a fake hypodermic.  Tongue depressors, stethoscopes, you name it, I got to use lots of doctor props.

I love hearing a loud "Arigato!" instead of "Cut."  Just seems more polite.

The Wire, Season 4.  Um, wow.  Can't believe how much I love all the good TV in the universe.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.  Brilliant.  Same writer and same director as The West Wing.  Phenomenal cast and compelling look life in the world of live sketch comedy television ala SNL.

While I couldn't get into the first couple episodes I rented on disc, I've now been watching Heroes on Netflix's "watch instantly" streaming web service.  I get the idiom now and am starting to enjoy it.  It's sort of like Veronica Mars meets the Tic.  Sort of.

Superbad was really pretty funny. 

Medium Cool, a look at the unrest in 1968 Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, helmed by old-school master Haskel Wexler, is totally far out.  I was less than a year old and living there during the period of the film, so it has a strange resonance of home and national history and personal first impressions of earth all at the same time.

Saw Walk Hard in the theatre over the holiday.  John C. Reilly remains one of my favorite actors.  I love that guy's work and the trajectory of his career.  This lampoons the various musician biopics that have come out over the last several years.  Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson, Jim Morrison, and many others all receive a serious skewering and JC does a great job on vocals.  Jenna Fischer kicks ass in this, as well, as the June Carter-Cash character.  This film pushes some stereotypes into a zone of absurdity.  Check it out.  I laughed.

I had heard that Chris Isaak had a show, but didn't realize that he was a local or that the show was shot here.  There were people buzzing about how this meant the show was being resurrected, as it's been out of production.

I'd never seen it and was mainly familiar with him from "Wicked Game," and some of his acting roles.  The shoot was next to the duck pond at the Palace of Fine Arts.  Easy drive.  Ancient Presidio parking wisdom.  Thought I was going to be background but was one of several  person-on-the-street interviews he did, asking what the show should be called and what it should avoid and feature. We were coached by a guy briefly to just be natural, no acting, don't try to be funny or witty.  So the spark began to glow inside me. 

I did manage to avoid coming up with any crazy jokey material before the interview.  I did think of my name for the show, "The Life and Times of Chris Isaak," beforehand, but I made sure to offer it up on camera as a serious suggestion for a real classic kind of show title.  He took it into a red furniture kind of direction, and I was supportive.

Then he asked me what they should not do on the show.  In all honesty, the first thing, not having seen the show, was that I just wanted to make sure there would be no bug or animal parts eating on the show.  Yuck, right?  So, I don't know if they'll have interpreted that as me being actorly or trying to be funny.  I wasn't being goofy.  I really meant it. I think he kind of took it in stride.  When asked what the show should feature, I said lots of dogs.  They had already shot stuff with tons of dogs in it, so he was stoked and said we were definitely covered.  After cut (I shook hands goodbye and walked out of frame), I called out about the animal parts thing, and I was all, you know, Fear Factor and stuff, it just grosses me out, and he was all, yeah, totally, or something to that effect.  But, naturally, the camera had been turned off.  Nice guy.  Tall.  Tastefully proportioned and chosen entourage.  Mellow resonant glow.

Don't know whether, how much, or where the footage might be used.  Teaser?  First new episode?  We'll see.  Kudos to Meghan, Sarah, and Joe for keeping us organized, looking good, comfortable, and paid.  A beautiful three mile commute, free parking nearby, upgrade over background expectations to speaking bit with star, on set for only an hour-and-a-half, paid same day, now that's what I'm talking about. 

Also, there was a spectator dog being walked by her owner.  Gentle Domino was seventeen years old and on her last legs, but still moving with a floating grace, her coat still lustrous and healthy, a beautiful black and white Aussie Shepherd mix.  Good times.

Seriously, people, when the notion of some modicum of career success stateside ever starts to seem surreal, get yourself in a Pacific Rim mindset.  Sure, our economy may collapse, but the rest of the world will want to see the plight of America depicted over and over again.  It's been a long-standing dream to have some kind of a Japanese audience and now, millions.

Monday night, I played a doctor in two different documentary reenactment pieces for Nippon TV's "World's Astonishing News."  The show has had something like six big seasons and shows in a primetime slot back in Japan.  I hear that it sometimes contains gameshow elements.  I showed up at a medical center in Daly City, and soon the lobby was filled with maybe 25 actors and crew.  We made our way up to a women's clinic and turned the extremely large waiting room into a sort of green room.  The crew repeatedly referred to this as “the base,” as in, “Okay, we are done with this shot.  You can go back to the base.”

Most of my scenes shot right away.  The crew was fast.  We sat down in position and our lines were related to us verbally.  Then one quick rehearsal and boom, takes.  It is to be dubbed in to Japanese.  Energizing and fun to work on these little pop-quiz bite-size pieces of action.  Sometimes, for something that would take a very little time to say in English, we were instructed to draw it out because they knew that the Japanese translation would take longer to say in overdub.

The director (Tommy baseball jersey, jeans, stubble) spoke only Japanese and relied on his 1st (track jacket, jeans, adidas, blue-tinted, black-rimmed glasses) to relay his instructions.  The 1st AD spoke beautiful English, very mellow, exacting guy.  The cameraman, wiry, wry, backwards cap, did some crazy swish pans between doctor and patient using a stool as a human tripod head between us.  The grip’s (jeans, baseball cap, cardigan, Chucks) white-stripe-on-black-leather belt was too loose so I loaned her my Swiss Army knife with the leather punch.  The remaining crew guy’s role was uncertain, but he was similarly styley.  Mostly 30’s, maybe director in 40’s.  They just worked together beautifully.  Kathy, the production manager, producer, representative of Duo (the local production company), something, very good communicator, kind, direct, effective.  She brought it all together.  Never did get the names of the crew.  [Raised Kathy on her cell today and she gave me the director's name:  Yuji Matsuno.  Thanks, Kathy!]

At one point, the director and AD had become separated while shooting a scene in a big file room set up like library stacks.  Unable to instruct me verbally about where he wanted me to go during the scene, the director just grabbed me and moved me around like a game piece.  Several times between takes, the director would come in (small clinic, he’s usually watching on a monitor from an adjacent room or hall), and talk to the actor directly for, say, 20 seconds.  Then the 1st would say one or two sentences in concise English.  We wrapped the location in five hours.

I hope I get to work with these people again.  I had a great time and really fed off the fast-paced verité shooting style.  No sound also makes shooting a completely different experience.  Gone are anxieties about airplanes.  No more screaming “Quiet!”  No room tone.  No slates.  No endless lavalier wrangling.  The only yelling to be had on the set was when the director called out “Arigato” (“thank you”) instead of “cut” to end each shot.  Very pleasant atmosphere. 

 

 

I totally fooled you.  No, I am not on CSI: Miami.  But I did work on a scene from recent audition sides in Nancy Berwid's First Take class tonight.  A window opened into a possible world where I get trustworthy guy who turns out to be twisted and villainous niche casting action.  Challenging class.  Very exacting and specific work.  Lots of ground to cover. 

It was dead still at Fort Mason tonight.  Unusual as there's often wind.

Still catching up to current on a lot of shows.  Stoked to continue on with the saga.  To bridge these gaps will likely require some sort of satellite cable dvr surround sound plasma on demand technology.  Until then, it's onward with the discs.

Sopranos season 6 part 2 with James Gandolfini and Edie Falco in the mail to me.  Yes! 

When will they release Battlestar Galactica season 3 on DVD?  Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Katee Sackoff, Grace Park, Jamie Bamber, Tricia Helfer and James Callis are incredible.  The cast is deeper and deeper.  Release it, already.  I was skeptical at first.  I mean, yeah, I liked the kids' version with Lorne Greene, Dirk Benedict, and Richard Hatch, but wasn't really up for a remake of that at this later stage in the game.  That's not what it is.  This one is for grown-ups.  A full-blown space opera that unifies all the powerful human questions in one revolutionary show.  It is coming across that I like it?

Just finishing the last disc of the one-season creeper cult high school hit, Freaks & Geeks with Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley. 

Veronica Mars with Kristen Bell and Percy Daggs III is a very cool high school investigator girl show.  Not my usual cup of tea (though I've seen and liked some Buffy, I've never sought it out on my own), this nails the genre, redefines it.  Stick to The Shield for realism.

Couldn't so much get into Heroes or The 4400.  Good elements to both, but we just didn't hit it off.

Definitely check out some Little Britain with Matt Lucas and David Walliams [sic].

 Looking forward to Flight of the Conchords with Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie.  Crazy New Zealand folk-comedy two-man band tries to make it in New York.  Previews had me impaired.

Very much enjoyed the miniseries The Grid with Dylan McDermott and Juliana Margulies, but couldn't commit to Sleeper Cell. 

The Shield with Michael Chiklis and such a deep, deep cast remains an all-time favorite.  Top notch cop show.

Season 4 of The Wire with Dominic West and Wendell Pierce comes in December.  Best of the east coast cop shows.

Bochco and Gerolmo's Over There with Josh Henderson, Luke MacFarlane, Erik Palladino, Keith Robinson, Sticky Fingaz,  Omid Abtahi , and many more was a masterful, heavy one-season show about soldiers in Iraq. 

Six Feet Under with Frances Conroy, Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Lauren Ambrose and Rachel Griffiths:  genius.  Warming up to Dexter (MCH's next). 

Deadwood with Ian McShane and Timothy Olyphant was the new Shakespeare.  So much good to say about that one, can't wait for the follow-up movie(s). 

Waiting for more Weeds with Mary-Louise Parker.  What genre is this show?!   Crime drama?  Sitcom?  Romantic comedy?  Yes.

I've seen some isolated episodes of Big Love with Bill Paxton and Chloe Sevigny and like it but also find it creepier than Dexter. 

Rescue Me with Denis Leary so horrific and funny:  irresistible. 

Entourage a great watch, always blaze through the discs, Jeremy Piven kills me, and Adrian Grenier and the boys are so good together.  

Don't forget some Brit cop goodness from a few years back:  Prime Suspect with Helen Mirren, and Second Sight with Clive Owen.