Second Thoughts

Man, I a moody sonofabitch. Now I'm starting to have doubts about my film. I'm think of all the little annoying things that might have gone wrong. Of lines that will bomb, this is a comedy and if it's not funny, you're dead.

I mean some of it I know is funny. A decent sized portion. I dunno, I dunno. I wish I could find out if Sundance wants it either way sooner. This waiting till December crap is hell.

I know the odds are I won't, but I still hate waiting. And plenty of successful films didn't get to Sundance. Guess we will just have to wait and see for the cast and crew screening. I'll be sitting in the back, out of the line of fire, judging the audience reaction.

We shall see, we shall see.

V For Vendetta And Victory

Well, finally got a copy of the entire film in a rough edit last night. Stayed up till 3 o'clock in the A.M. watching it.

Man, overall it turned out pretty well. I was amazed. The ending in particular I felt I nailed pretty close to my original vision. I sent out a DVD copy to Sundance early this morning, literally one day before the deadline. I'm also entering in two other Sundance knockoffs Slamdance and Tromadance.

It's a longshot getting into any of them with all the fierce dripping fang competition. But I honestly feel I've gotta shot. I actually feel kinda, good. Amazingly. Did I finally not screw something up in my life?

I won't get my hopes up too much. But overall the results are decent so far. I think I've made what could be called a three star film. Three stars out of four on the critic's rating scale. We find out in December who the entrants to the three forementioned film festivals.

Zach Braff's awesome film Garden State is the kind of first time auteur's delight a lot of young filmmakers wish they could make. Mine is different from that and not nearly as high a budget. But I hope it'll be special in it's own way.

A film that will stand out among a sea of indie films. This is also gives me an excuse to celebrate with an Office Burger and amber ale at Father's Office. Cheers to all you dreamers out there.

It's Getting Better, Man!

Will have a rough cut to send to Sundance and Slamdance this Thursday. Which is cutting it real close for Sundance. But it should be okay.

I hope I get into both. One would be cool. Sundance would be the creme de la creme though of indie film festivals. First time director getting into Sundance on their first try.

The film is funny. Genuinely funny. Not funny in the lame kinda way a lot of indie films who pass them off as comedies are. I'm just worried if it will be consistently funny enough for Sundance. But hell, I'll be more than happy with Slamdance.

I've been putting off becoming a filmmaker for too dang long. But fear held me back. Like it always has. Well, no more. See you on the dark side of the moon, sunshine.

Stanley Kubrick

Just some random thoughts about The Master, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

Some other films I wish he'd directed:

The Bonfire of the Vanities (Tom Wolfe's, supposedly, great book. Hey I love Brian DePalma, but what the hell was he thinking with that casting? Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis? Bruce Willis' character was British in the original novel, Tom Hanks' character was blonde and blue eyed, a Robert Redford type would have been a better choice. And Gary Oldman should have replaced Willis.)

Kings of Silicon Valley (This idea is based on the lackluster TV movie called Pirates of Silicon Valley, a great concept and story for a film. Tom Cruise should have been cast as Steve Jobs in Kubrick's version. Anthony Michael Hall should have been cast as Bill Gates again in Kubrick's version too. AMH had a chance to work with Kubrick in Full Metal Jacket and the jackass screwed up his chance to work with him!)

American Psycho (The movie version of this book I enjoyed, but it wasn't epic enough for me, Stanley could have done it justice. I still find it amazing that two women directed and wrote this movie. Strange. Guinevere Turner wrote the screenplay and acted in it. I saw the lovely Ms. T. at a Thai restaurant in Hollywood about a year ago. I was munching some Thai lemon chicken dish thingee with a pretty young Latina I'd met online. I never had Thai but she wanted to go so we did. Saw Ms. T. walk in with a soft butch lesbian friend possibly lover and two portly and pleasant looking Latin gay men chatting on their cell phones they way Hollywood folks do.)

A Clockwork Orange is still my favorite film of his. And my favorite film period. Some parts are dated, like the obvious ugly 1970's clothes. But overall it's still terrific and packs a punch to this day.

Rough Cut

Well, I saw a rough cut of the first 50 scenes of my film. It turned out better overall than I though. Overall it is pretty funny and the production values are good. So it should be an impressive first film from a first time actor-writer-director-producer.

It still needs work and will have to be fined tuned, but so far it is shaping up better than I thought it would. Which is totally amazing. And the one shot I was very pissed off about not getting a decent take of -- I think we may have one of the three shot that is usable. Once we add music and sound effects it should be doable. Reshoots are still going to be done most likely just to satisfy my own perfectionist sensibilities. But the amazing thing is that my performance came off better than expected. We won't know for sure till we have the first screening.

And if (or I should say WHEN) we get into Sundance and/or Slamdance, that'll be a great indication that I've made a successful film. Ya gotta love Hollywood.

Rough Cut. That's the name of a 1980's Burt Reynolds movie. Not the best flick, but I dug the title, star, and director Don Siegel. And the poster is pretty cool. With Burt Reynolds holding this handful of diamonds slipping through his fingers with a hot babe by his side. I remember one of the guys on Burt's heist team being a Nazi. He had this whole roomful of Nazi collectibles. Weird looking at that in today's context. Too bad the movie wasn't very good.

T.G.I.F.

Thank God It's Friday! That was a great disco movie from the 70's, sure silly, but fun, and it's the name of a cool restaurant chain. That I haven't eaten at in years! Great burgers. But they have the most uncomfortable chairs.

Went down to Father's Office for an amber ale and Office Burger and fries. Yummy yummy. Some cute blonde and her friend was playing Trivial Pursuit on the bar stool next to me. She remarked how good my Office Burger smelled repeatedly. Shoulda offered her fine ass a bite. Ah, me. Gals make me nervous, nervous, nervous.

Anyhow, came home afterwards. With a Angel Heart DVD and Ziggy Stardust CD from Tower Records. And a bottle of ten buck Merlot from the local liquor store. I need a woman. And an apartment that's less stuffy. I gotta an upstairs one and it gets too dang warm in the summer months.

I can get women. I've scored with more than I ever have in my life these last couple years. I mean at points in my life I went five years with no sex. I put on so much weight and never left my home -- except for work and movies basically. And the occassional comic book convention or something. But lately I've banged a lot more gals than, well, than I ever have. Some were pretty hot.

I should be happy with my lot in life, but I'm not. I'm sick, sad, depressed and I wanna die. Sometimes. Nuthin' left to do but drink myself into unconciousness.

See you on the other side, brothers and sisters.

Reshoots

There's a certain scene in my new feature film low budget comedy I need to reshoot. In the scene a female character belts a guy in the stomach and in all three damn takes the punch looked totally fake. Which pisses me off. Having to go back and reshoot that.

Everything else in the flick came out acceptable. Some parts could use reshoots other than that piece but it's the only one I can't leave in the film as is. I contacted my producer slash cinematographer about scheduling a reshoot before we submit to Sundance. Deadline's comin' up fast. But we'll make it. It's a long shot we'll get in, even though I'm confident the flick has a lot of laughs.

This damn hallway scene has been naggin' at me. Gotta fix it. Fast. But I have to wait. I fucking hate waiting.

Crows Redux

Well, well. Here we are. Went to Crows as I mentioned the other day. Not a bad little joint. All black interior, a barmaid with big juicy tanned knockers. Not the best beer selection. Me and My Female Friend let's call her knocked back a coupla Newcastles. MFF is a German expatriate (but sounds like an American) and she has hipped me to darker beers. Don't bother with the pale ales anymore. I like a nice red brewski. An amber lager.

Anyways, Crows has an all black interior hence the name Crows? No food to eat. Was hoping their would be a little kitchen in back to whip up customers quick burgers and sandwiches. No such luck. It was an eclectic crowd, some older, balding boozers and few young professionals just off work and beach bunny and beach bum types. All in all an okay place.

MFF had a burger jones going on and wanted to goto Father's Office in Santa Monica for an Office Burger and some sweet potato fries. But the drive was a bit much so we decided not to and went to the local Islands instead. Islands is a California-Hawaiian style burgers and drinks joint. I dig the place and I'd taken MFF there before, but she never had a burger. I ordered two Big Waves and she said she liked it. But not as much as the burgers at Hamburger Mary's nearby or Father's.

I had to order for both of us since she didn't find any of the burgers interesting. But I said screw it and ordered her one anyway and got her a glas of Merlot. She loves that stuff. We were at the Islands down by The Pike, a new shopping center down by the docks. After we ate she gave me the usual pressure about wanting S-E-X. I didn't give her any. MMF is a very pretty MILF (Moms I'd Like To Fuck) but I've just lost interest in her in that way.

She's got a ton of suitors both male and female hot for her, guys are always hittin' on her. So I don't know why she bothers with someone like me. She says we have a deep emotional connection. Which I guess is true. We almost have a psychic connection and know what the other is thinking in many situations. But I've become bored and should have ended the relationship a lot sooner than I did.

I bought her this two tone gold braclet a few years back. I was already bored with the relationship by then but I did it cos I just wanted to have the experience of giving a woman nice jewelry. It was on sale and only cost a couple C notes. It was five hundred normally. Two tone gold is her favorite so I guess I lucked out picking that. Anyway, she almost lost the braclet yesterday on the way to Crows. We searched all around for it until she finally found the dang thing back at her apartment. She changed bras real quick on the way out the door and it fell off. She found it by her first bra she changed out of. Hoo-rah for the bra, baby.

I took her home and went home alone, me bored, a bit tipsy and her sexually frustrated and a real horny bitch as always. Ah, yes. Friends!

Crows

I'm off to a local watering hole in Belmont Shore called Crows. Belmont Shore is a chi chi section of Long Beach, California. Nice place to grab a drink, window shop, have a meal.

Crows is a place I've been wanting to try for awhile. The place has a little cartoon crow on the sign. I'm going with a friend of mine, my ex actually. We have an on again off again relationship. Ain't love grand?

The movie is being edited as we speak. I'm going in on Friday to review the footage and make any needed changes. Add some music too hopefully. I'll be using a lot of Top Forty classical. Vivaldi, Bach, etc.

Cheers.

I Want A Lover

I'm a horrible person.

I have a love-hate relationship with the opposite sex.

I both love and hate women.

Women can make you feel so good. So happy. So fulfilled. When a woman gives herself to you sexual and emotionally, especially sexually it's the greatest gift in the world.

I quote Joe Pesci from the film With Honors -- "If a woman's willing to give you her love it's the greatest gift in the world."

Women also fill me with such hatred, such bitterness, such depression, such rejection, such anguish. It is almost unbearable. I don't want to hate women, I don't want to hate anyone, in my heart of hearts. But I do. I have such feelings of hatred and resentment toward the unfair sex.

And I feel bad about it. I can be such a woman hating bastard. So filled with hate and bigotry and bitterness. I guess I'm just -- oh, what's the word. Human?

I both love and lust after hate women. With a fucking evil passion. Life sucks. Wha'd ya gonna do? They are the most beautiful (women) and glorious and heart braking creatures imaginable?

Are males perfect? No. Far from it. And then some.

I both love -- well, I said it already. I want -- a threesome with two women at once, a foursome, a fivesome. I want every twisted, cliched male fantasy fulfilled. Which I could get -- to quote Kurt Vonnegut in Breakfast Of Champions -- Kilgore Trout says when talking to a truck driver that when it comes to getting women it just depends on "how determined you are".

Ain't that the sick, sad, sorry ass truth? I'm drunk on Turning Leaf chardonnay at the moment. I get the munchies when drunk. A Papa John's thin crust pizza is on the way -- thanks to internet pizza ordering.

(said in the voice of Aunt Jemimah 1999 ala Sique Sique Sputnik's 21st Century Boy (side two, track one, on the cassette anyway) -- not more side two's on CD!

My friend Rick was amazed by the album since they sold the dead air inbetween songs to advertisers. Which we didn't know The Who had done roughly 20 years earlier with The Who Sell Out -- a infinitely superior rock band to the one hit wonder Sique Sique Sputnik.

I want to fall in love and make wild love to a beautiful or just cute woman. I want it. Plenty of women have low standards. And thank God. Ciao.

Vanity Fair

I'm looking forward to seeing this new filmed version 0f the classic novel, which, admittedly, I never read. Love the title though.

I'll get back to you when I've seen it.

Okay. Back again! I've seen the film and found it to be -- decent. Not great. The director Mira Nair threw in a lot of her Indian background into the film, which I could have done without. Yes, yes, India was a British colony back then, but still it seemed out of place.

And there was a sequence that seemed TOTALLY out of place in the film, a sort of sexy modern day dance number set to Indian style music. I seriously doubt people danced in those sort of dance moves that look like something out of a rave. Sorry, in England a hundred years ago people didn't dance like they do at a rave! It reminded me of the painfully bad rave sequence in The Matrix Reloaded. Hey, I loved the first Matrix. The sequels blew the proverbial big one though. In my somewhat less than humble opinion. IMSLTHO for short.

Resse Witherspoon is an intriguing screen presence so I enjoyed seeing her in Vanity Fair. I haven't read the novel but I imagine it is much better than the film. Though that is sometimes not the case on rare occassions. I only wish Stanley Kubrick had adapted this film like he had wanted to in the early 1970's. But it's a decent adaptation overall.

Movie Update, Old Guy Directors, And Me

Looks my movie is a go again.

Got contacted by my producer slash cinematographer slash editor. They are digitizing the footage for editing on their new Macintosh editing system and we begin a'cuttin' digitally next week. The poor guy nearly got killed in a car wreck a day before filming began AND I had a last minute cancellation by an actress I had rearranged my whole shooting schedule around. Luckily I got it all settled out in the nick of fuckin' time. But what a pisser. Another actress who I told this to who worked on the film said everything happens for a reason, so maybe it was for the best in some weird ass sense. Welcome to the film business.

The great Sidney Lumet lamented on Inside The Actor's Studio that digital editing on computer is part of the reason you see so much junk in the cinema today. Uh, well, Sidney, a good edit is a good edit, be it on film or digitally. I can't remember the last time Sid made a groundbreaking film anyway. Or other old timers like Paul Mazursky.

I'd like to ask Paulie what it was like to work with Stanley Kubrick. I saw Shelley Winters at a doctor's office I was working at once, doing medical billing. I would have asked her the same thing about working with Stan The Man on Lolita if she hadn't been looking sickly and walking with a cane at the time.

One thing that pissed me off about Stanley is he didn't make ENOUGH FILMS. He had such a gift and he took so damn long in between movies. Here's the other films Kubrick should have directed in his lifetime:

One Eyed Jacks (a Western he was set to direct but didn't)
Napoleon (planned this one for years, never made it)
Vanity Fair (said he wanted to do this after A Clockwork Orange but felt he couldn't do it justice)
The Aryan Papers (a Holocaust film I believe that was in the planning stages)
The Catcher In The Rye (I can't think of anyone else as perfect to adapt this classic novel)
A.I. (he gave up on this one until he saw Jurassic Park and realized the technology now existed to make it, thought I kinda liked the Spielberg version)

I read Mazursky's book Show Me The Magic and he writes at the end of it that he and his friends hang out most weekdays at a table at Farmer's Market near CBS Studios. I just happened to be there one morning when I was going to attend a taping of The Price Is Right. I figure, hell, I live in So. Cal I might as well try and get on a game show once. Didn't make the cut though. But I did see old Paul when I strolled into Farmer's. We made eye contact for half a sec. Paul also qualifies for Cool Old Guy status as well. You might want to see him bar his thespian chops in Two Days In The Valley, a flawed but fun 1996 dark comedy. When I get my film put together I'm thinking I'll stroll on up to him in Farmer's one morning and hand him a DVD of my film.

I shot my film ON film not digital. I'm somewhat of Luddite in that sense. Digital video hasn't advanced far enough to match the look of film. Though Collateral and Once Upon A Time In Mexico looked fantastic on digital. Maybe not as good as 35mm, but damn close enough.

I sometimes feel directors who shoot their films on digital and not film, they haven't made a movie, they've made a home video. Gah, see Spike Lee's film Bamboozled to see what I mean. Bamboozled was flawed on a screenplay level anyway, so the cheap digital look was insult to injury, despite a cameo by comedy legend Paul Mooney. Bamboozled had a real persecution complex that I didn't care for.

Can't go 35mm? Try for super 16mm at least! Long live film, mama jama!

Spartan

One of the best films of 2004. Spartan!

It tells the story of a sometimes cold blooded Secret Service man who gets involved in a labyrinth plot of espionage. It wasn't a film that everyone dug, but a select few of us did. It's some of David Mamet and Val Kilmer's best work in years, baby.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360009

Jenna Jameson

Jenna Jameson: The Biggest Star In The Adult Film Industry.

What's the big deal? Sure, she's hot, but not THAT hot. I'm a fan of the adult film industry but I don't really get the public's fascination with her. Guess I never really got the hoopla about her. There are a million hotter women out there. And anyways, I've always been more partial to brunettes and redheads. Guess I don't like the gals everyone else likes.

Sure, if I had the chance to go out with her I would in half a heartbeat, I'm not crazy. Just think she's overrated is all. I'm at times more partial to the old school adult stars, Marilyn Chambers, Annette Haven or the many of never seen before, never will see them again gals of the countless amateur series out there. Ed Powers? He's the king. Love his stuff. Though I haven't bothered to check out his newer stuff in ages.

And don't tell me women don't enjoy pornography. Many do. To say that women can't distinguish between sex and love is laughable. Oh, I did like Jenna's work in the Howard Stern film Private Parts and kick ass video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City! A great video game and a great movie. Private Parts is a film people will like even if they don't like Howard Stern.

Happy beating!

Free Falling

Feeling a bit, well, a bit of everything today. Angry, hateful, sad, lonely. Mostly negative emotions. Well, at least I'm not starving in some third world hellhole.

Things can always get worse. My latest film project is not progressing as quick as I'd like it to and I'm upset about it. I'm making calls left and right to get things moving but no one is getting back to me. It's just a matter of time, I know, but I want to get the post production ball rolling faster.

Not sure what purpose any of us serves here on Spaceship Planet Earth. I always wonder if there is an afterlife. I think the ultimate cosmic joke would be if there wasn't. That life was totally meaningless and there was no afterlife. I sometimes think that would serve us humans right. And it is, of course, darkly humorous. What was it Kurt Vonnegut said? Cling to the foma that gives you comfort?

Foma being his word for "harmless untruths". Can't be sure though -- been awhile since I read his gloom and doom stuff. I read Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and I lost my taste for KV. Atlas Shrugged I found way too long winded. Good, but too preachy. The Fountainhead was a much superior book. The movie version with Gary Cooper didn't do much for me. Hopefully they will do a remake someday.

At least Half-Life 2 comes out soon. Looking forward to that. One of the most anticipated video game sequels. I still marvel at the fact that video games outsell movies these days. What do you call that? Revenge of the Nerds?