'Burning Passion' lights up the big screen tonight.

This is just a reminder that tonight at 7:00 –– less than 2 1/2 hours from now –– 'Burning Passion' is going to screen at the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon.

If you happen to be around and haven't been totally inundated by films about guys who ejaculate fire, stop by.

And please introduce yourself. Even if you don't like the film. Really.

My 2 1/2 year old could write better dialogue than some of the crap you hear in huge-budget movies.

The other night I was giving my daughter a bath.

She has foam letters that she plays with in the tub, so when she asked me to hand her one I decided to turn bath time into lesson time. Here's how the conversation went:

Ophelia: I need the purple one.

Me: This one?

Ophelia: Yeah.

Me: You know what this is?

Ophelia: Yeah.

Me: What is it?

Ophelia: I don't know.

Me: It's a letter.

Ophelia: Yeah.

Me: Do you know which letter it is?

Ophelia: Yeah.

Me: Which letter is it?

Ophelia: The purple one.

Putting my money where my mouth is.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Brian, you sure talk big. But what if, say, Nora Ephron wants to take a crack at your work? Huh? HUH!?!"

Well, Nora, I'll tell you what. Tuesday, January 19th, you be at the Bagdad Theater in Portland, Oregon, and you can do just that. Because at 7:00 that night, 'Burning Passion' is going to screen as part of the Northwest Filmmakers Night.

'Burning Passion', for those of you who haven't seen it, has a lot in common with 'Julie and Julia'. For one thing, the director (me) also wrote the screenplay. The movie was shot on 35mm film. And fire features prominently as a dramatic device (it's the heartwarming story about a guy who ejaculates fire).

Beyond that, I'll let Nora –– or you –– decide how it stacks up.

There's a competitive part to the Northwest Filmmakers Night, which involves both audience members and judges voting for the best film. Whoever wins gets $200 and I'm not saying this so you'll come out and vote for me, but if I do win, I plan to use all $200 to buy beers for the nice people who support me and all the other Portland knuckleheads who think it's a good idea to make movies.

Want more information? Great. Go to http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=9&id=1117&eventid=75217

And Nora, if you're reading this, I'm serious. I'd love to see you there.

I don't hate women. Just one in particular.

I'm not a film critic. I don't want to be a film critic. But every once in a while, I'll see a film that pisses me off so much, I can't help but use it as an example of what not to do.

The other night, in a moment of weakness, I had the great misfortune to let my wife talk me into watching 'Julie and Julia'.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy anything about it. Meryl Streep is –– as usual –– delightful. It's so nice to see an actor considered "serious" having such serious fun with a character. And the historical tidbits about Julia Child were pretty neat and nicely presented. I'd heard she was a spy, but I didn't know anything else about the path that took her from the OSS to cooking icon.

So it's not Meryl Streep I hate.

Amy Adams walks a really delicate line. There's nothing redeeming about her character –– she's a self-absorbed foodie who, in an effort to prove a point to herself and her shallow friends, neglects her husband and her job. But she manages to infuse the role with a significant amount of sympathy.

It's not Amy Adams I hate.

That leaves Nora Ephron.

"Hate" is a strong word. Especially for someone who I've just gone and indirectly complimented for doing a more than adequate job in a couple of the more important capacities of a director. So what gives?

In a word: Story. Or, to be more specific, lack thereof.

Distilled to its essence, 'Julie and Julia' is about a woman who gives herself an assignment and a deadline, then meets the assignment within the deadline. Period. There's no adversity, no conflict, no potential loss. The protagonist, Julie, has nothing at stake.

'Julie and Julia' is about as compelling as watching someone shop for groceries. First she chooses some nice artichokes, then she picks up a pound of butter... It's not a film. It's a reenactment.

Sure, Julie has minor setbacks. She oversleeps and her boef bourguignon is ruined. The reporter from the Christian Science monitor cancels dinner. So fucking what? Within a couple of screen minutes she's cooked another boef bourguignon and thanks to an article in the New York Times, she comes home to 63 messages from agents, reporters, managers, and editors on her answering machine.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Okay, fine, Brian. You don't like the story. But why such vitriol?"

Because 'Julie and Julia' is a missed opportunity. It could have been a good film. Hell, it could have been a great film. There's no reason that Julie's character couldn't have struggled against seemingly overwhelming odds, overcoming adversity on her way to completing her self-assigned task, except that Nora Ephron either couldn't or wouldn't be bothered to write her character that way.

That's where I get incensed. I know Nora Ephron doesn't need to make good films, but she doesn't need to take potentially good films and make them crappy, either. She's both the writer and director here, and as Tobey Maguire says in Spiderman', "With great power comes great responsibility."

Clear your mind of what you know and ask yourself which project holds more potential for telling an interesting story, a) a movie based on a 43-year-old ride at an amusement park or b) a movie about a woman who idolizes a chef and uses that chef to inspire her to become not just a better cook, but a better person?

Gore Verbinski (with 'Pirates of the Carribbean') created an amazing story out of almost nothing. Nora Ephron, on the other hand, was handed –– forgive the food metaphor –– a beautiful dry-aged steak and decided to grind it into hamburger, smother it with Accent™, and boil it.

Now do you see why I'm so incensed?

(By the way, lest you think I'm just being misogynistic, I should point out that I consider 'Big', directed by Penny Marshall and written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, one of Hollywood's great films of –– well –– ever, and no, I don't think Gary Ross deserves a disproportionate amount of the credit.)

Nora Ephron will never read this blog, of course. She doesn't need to. And frankly, if I were her, I wouldn't change the formula that's been working since 1993, when she did 'Sleepless in Seattle', which by the way I hated for other reasons.

But please, if my wife ever comes home with another Nora Ephron movie, remind me that I would have a much more rewarding experience replacing the wax rings under our toilets.

Production design is simple. At least when it's good.

Look around your place. Be honest. Are there things that don't fit?

You bet there are. Even in my place there are, and my wife and I both have pretty distinctive, pretty consistent taste.

There's a painting, for instance, that I hate. My wife likes it. So it's up. If you're married, you understand this kind of compromise.

It's not distinct enough from the other art we have to draw attention to itself. But it doesn't quite fit. So what does it say about us that it's on the wall?

If we were characters in a film, it would say that we don't have a really clear sense of what we like.

We're not characters in a film, which is why it's not a big deal. But in a film, it would be death. It's not consistent enough with the other art to define our taste, but not inconsistent enough to raise a question.

Communication depends on clarity.

If your character is neat, a little mess is not okay. If your character loves music, there's no reason for him to have a collection of shot glasses. Unless there's a reason for him to have a collection of shot glasses, in which case he needs to have them.

Let me hasten to explain that I'm not saying every environment in a film needs to be neat and orderly with only meaningful objects in it. What I'm saying is that you, Aspiring Director, don't have the luxury of developing subtle nuances of character in the same way that, say, a novelist does. A novelist can tell you about the shot glasses, then explain why they're there. Why they're perhaps ironic. Or a holdover from a time when the character felt a need to collect something. Or maybe a meaningful reminder to help a recovering alcoholic from falling off the wagon.

A novelist can even go on for pages about shot glasses that aren't there, that were there once, maybe, but had been tossed into a dumpster in a fit of rage by an ex-lover years ago and missed ever since. Shot glasses that might have precipitated the very breakup of the character and his lover from which he is only now, years later, beginning to recover.

You can't.

There are only two ways to communicate character in film: what people see and what people hear. And as Steven Spielberg can attest, you can never be too heavy-handed with what people see.

Keep it simple.

Is that clear? I know, I know. Clearer than my own living room.

Yep, I'm actually going to use a Christmas carol to make a point about directing.

By this time every year, I'm totally, completely sick of holiday music. Call me a grinch, but the next tinny speaker that tries to get me in a holiday mood by spewing 'Little Drummer Boy' or 'Run, Run Rudolph' into the air anywhere near me is going to find itself decorated for the holidays with a dent that matches the size and shape of the heel of my shoe.

But there's one song I never seem to get tired of. 'Baby It's Cold Outside'.

Okay, it's not really a Christmas carol. But for a song that was written in 1944, it gets played a lot during the holidays –– and almost never during the rest of the year.

I know what you're thinking. You're wondering what 'Baby It's Cold Outside' has to do with directing. Well, let's start with the film 'Elf', which featured the song, sung by Zooey Deschanel –– whose voice has a syrupy, 1940s quality –– and Leon Redbone –– an inspired choice to dub for Will Ferrell.

Before that, it was actually used in the musical 'Neptune's Daughter'. Twice. Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams sang it once. Red Skelton and Betty Garrett sang it the other time. And it won Frank Loesser the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Enough history. It's a great song. But the question is, why?

In a word, subtext.

And that, dear Aspiring Director, is relevant to making a quality film in a way that a little gold statue may or may not be.

Listen to the lyrics. 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is a seduction, set to music.

Here's a really fun exercise: Translate the words to the song into what you know they mean. What you end up with is something about seven seconds long and boring.

Here's my version:

"I want to have sex with you."

"I want to have sex with you, too, but I don't think I should."

"I want to have sex with you."

"Okay."

When you translate the song into plain English, it sounds like the dialogue from a typical Hollywood action film. It's the subtext that makes it interesting. Sure, we know it's cold outside. That much is obvious from the title. But as the song progresses, we get to know who these people are, what they've been doing, how they think, and what their circumstances are. Or, to put it into film talk, character, backstory, motivation, and conflict. We even know exactly what's about to happen next.

Subtext isn't easy. You have to write around something instead of saying it directly, and believe me, it's hard enough to say something directly. But when it works, you end up with something really interesting. Something people –– people like me, anyway –– want to hear over and over again, even when it happens to be 65 years old.

Happy holidays. Now get back to work.

The 60 Second Director will return shortly.

Hi.

This is just a quick note to say, no, I'm not dead, and no, I haven't run out of things to blog about. The IRS has given me until the 14th to get my paperwork in order for the audit and in the meantime, I have a commercial to shoot on the 8th. So I'm busy. Swamped.

So I'm going dark for a little while. But I'll be back and when I am, boy, will I have stories!

Thanks for all the notes and emails and stuff. The support is truly appreciated.