Bryan's Top 5 of 2006

I've been thinking alot about this list and it's really sort of torn me apart. There's movies that I thought would rate the list that I haven't been able to see yet because of my geographic handicap (Good German, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, Babel, etc.) and it's really sort of just pissed me off.

So, know that it took a lot out of me to make this list. But here goes:

Honorable Mention: Scoop.

It wasn't Woody Allen's best, but I thought it was certainly one of the funniest. It has the first runner-up award this year.

5) Monster House.
No two ways about it, this was some of the most enjoyable time I've ever spent in a theatre. I must have seen it five times, twice with my kids and three times by myself. It was everything kids movies used to be and still should be but aren't. And Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon wrote a helluva script. It's just dynamite.

4) An Inconvenient Truth.

This was an amazing documentary and I ended up seeing it twice in the theatres. I bought a copy of it and I've passed it around so much I haven't even had the chance to watch it on DVD for myself. I felt it was terribly important and the filmmaking was quite stunning for what it was. Basically, it made the list because I am forced to advise everyone to watch it.

3) The Fountain.Read my review here. I know Steve thinks I'm crazy, but I think he's crazy. Steve is actually the only person I've talked to personally that didn't like it. Mybrother loved it, Elias loved it, I loved it... Steve is the odd man out on this one.

2) The Prestige.
I can't sing enough praises about this picture. I've seen it five times and it works better and better each time. I read the book back in February and have been a fan of it ever since. The Nolan Brothers adaptation of the material was mind-blowing, I wish I could adapt material with such pizazz. I've been advising people to see the hell out of this movie, too.

1) The Departed.

I guess there's no surprises here. I saw this picture five times as well and I think that it was certainly one of Scorsese's best. And the balls it took to take a mainstream movie and kill pretty much everybody and still make $100 million+ at the Box Office makes me giddy.

Two days from now I'll be kicking myself for excluding something from this list, but I'll come back and make a top ten, using these as the top five....

If I forgot anything, be sure to let me know.

WHERE THE HELL IS THIS GUY?

OK, OK, Saddam is dead. Great. But what the fuck?!?!
Remember Osama bin Laden?

He killed Laura Palmer. And, like, 3000 others.
Why the fuck isn't he hanging from a noose?

SADDAM'S EXECUTION

Should have been a pit of hungry lions or snakes.

So Saddam Hussein was executed this week for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was a death by hanging, as it were. And what a stupid way for an evil dictator to die. They should have thrown him into a pit of lions or maybe snakes, or both. Armed with only a super soaker gun. Even cooler would have been a "Running Man" competition, where he has to run through a deadly gauntlet like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in that one 80's movie. FOX could have aired it live and it would have made millions. But, alas, they gave a very anti-climatic end to the bad guy who attacked us on 9/11.

I watched the video of Saddam's execution and it's typical voyeur snuff film. It's kind of weird watching a person be alive in one second and totally and completely dead in the next. Can I say that I felt kind of sad? Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure if I visually saw all the atrocities that Saddam had committed in the 1980's, I'd be really super pissed and my weak emotions of vengence would justify my pleasure in watching his neck get broken from a rope drop. But, still, I've never been too stoked on the idea of capital punishment. No matter who it is. Not because I defend what the criminal has done, but because I believe it's a lazy and medieval way of solving problems. Killing. If anything good comes out of Saddam's execution, other than a gigantic erection from George Bush, you guys let me know, OK?

One down, one to go.

That said, I was wondering if this would be the beginning of a new trend? You know, those involved with war crimes are tried in a worldly tribunal and then executed? If so, then Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush should start working out and pumping some iron. Cuz I hear those Running Man gauntlets are a bitch. And wrestling hungry lions ain't no picnic.

Movie Recomendation

I'm going to suggest a movie, just for Duckie because he felt so jilted by my endorsement of Rocky Balboa.

So, here you go, here's three movies you should see and in no particular order, because I like them. (I didn't specifically choose movies in the theatre, because in my area, nothing is really out.)

And none of them are sports or sci-fi or superheroes or anything like that.

So, here goes:

Seven Samurai: My absolute favorite non-Star Wars movie. Kurosawa's seminal classic from the fifties. It has every kind of story you could want in it: Romance, Action, Drama, Coming of Age, Politics. Seriously, it has everything. (Also, just for fun, after you watch this, go watch Pixar's A Bug's Life. Seriously.)


Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock directing Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in a Nazi spy thriller. It's really, really good. Aside from North by Northwest and Shadow of a Doubt, it's one of my favorite Hitchcock films.


Mother Night: This is probably the finest adaptation of any Kurt Vonnegut material to the silver screen ever. And the red band trailer on the DVD for this film is (aside from Star Wars trailers) probably the best cut trailer ever made. Nolte stars as Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American spy who must pose as a very public Nazi propagandist. It's an amazing journey and one of my favorite films.

So...

There you go, try those on for size. I hope these redeem my opinion of movies for all of you who felt I missed the mark on Rocky Balboa.

Rough Draft of my Novel

Well, I had a little celebrating to do.

I got online earlier and said that I was going to spend tonight and tomorrow trying to finish the rough draft of my novel and as soon as I posted that last post I went straight to work.

In between now and then, everything crystalized in my head so perfectly, I cranked out the last twenty pages of the novel and the rough draft is done.

I thought that I would feel an immense sense of accomplishment, but now I just want to get to work on the revisions because it is in no shape for another human soul to look at.

In the meantime, while you wait for me to post the first chapter, you guys should read everything and anything else I have posted over at the Short Story blog.

New Years Eve

I still don't know what I'm doing for tomorrow night.

Tomorrow, during the day, however, I'm going to try and finish the novel I've been writing. I'm in the home stretch and I really feel like I can get it done before the year is out. As soon as I get this first complete rough draft done, I'll start transferring it into the computer (i've written it all by hand, then into the typewriter) and maybe I'll throw up the first chapter on the Short Story blog to see if anyone likes it.

My guess is that you won't since I still haven't decided if I like it or not yet.

Anyhow, thought I'd lay that on all of you and wish everyone who reads this God forsaken blog (even you Duckie) a Happy New Year.

I hope that 2007 is better for everyone than 2006, I truly do.

From the bottom of my heart.

In all sincerity.

Seriously.

Saddam

Well, they're hanging Saddam.

Tonight.

It seems as though they're rushing it so that they can avoid criticism for the lack of fairness or justice to the trial. But to be honest, this is probably going to cause some problems. People in Iraq are already pissed off about pretty much everything. So, you've got the Kurds right now saber-rattling because they haven't had a chance to hold Saddam accountable for any of the crimes he committed against them, you've got the former Bathists who think this is all bullshit and you've got the Shi'ites who are going to be celebrating in the streets.

It all sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

We'll see what happens.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Has anybody heard about this movie?

Kurt Vonnegut first introduced me to the story of Sacco and Vanzetti and I've been fascinated with it ever since and now I want to see it.

So...

Yeah...

Here's the trailer.

Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford passed away yesterday. And he's probably the last Republican President I've had even a shred of respect for. Although if I were to do any digging I'm not sure if I would have any more respect for him, but that's beside the point.

I want to talk about the decisions of the Daily Herald.

I opened up the paper this morning and figured that the passing of the 38th and (almost) only unelected President would rate a five column headline across the top of the page. If nothing else, I figured that it would be at the very least above the fold. Instead, above the fold is a local story of Human tragedy. Granted it is important, but more important than the death of one of the few remaining former presidents?

So, I turn the paper over, and 2/3rds of the paper below the fold is a photograph of a man ice climbing with no accompanying story.

Below that is the news that Gerald Ford died.

I don't know. I like the Herald and, in all honesty, they probably made this decision to sell more papers but it just feels like it was a bad choice.

Holy Foreskin

I read this article (thanks to Jesus' General for pointing it out to me) and I have to say, this is the kind of thing that endears me to Religious people. Particularly the Catholics, as I was raised Catholic. I spent many hours studying bizarre church history from the story of Saint George and the Dragon to people like Saint Augustine of Hippo (who is, according to my Confirmation, my patron Saint) and it was all very entertaining to me.

Catholic Mythology has always, always fascinated the hell out of me. (Just ask Elias, according to him I unconsciously insert Catholic imagery, symbolism or undertones to anything we write. Which is okay since Elias unconsciously inserts bodily functions into anything we write.)

Anyhow, when I read the article about the travails of Jesus' foreskin from the above linked article(and this Wikipedia article), I couldn't help but want to share it with everyone who reads this. Relics from the church always fascinate the hell out of me.

Just writing this took me like an hour and a half because Wikipedia has an exhaustive volume of articles on Saints and their reliquaries. Even stories about the foreskin we amazing, take this one for instance:

Apart from its physical importance as a relic, the Holy Foreskin is sometimes claimed to have appeared in a famous vision of Saint Catherine of Siena. In the vision, Jesus mystically marries her, and his amputated foreskin is given to her as a wedding ring.

And this one is just as good.

Saint Bridget was said to have received the Holy Prepuce from an angel, and would experience "orgasm-like sensations" when she would place bits of it on her tongue.

But some might argue that it's no longer on earth, like this Catholic scholar who beleived that the Holy Foreskin is now a ring of Saturn:

During the late 17th century, Catholic scholar and theologian Leo Allatius in De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba ("Discussion concerning the Prepuce of our Lord Jesus Christ") speculated that the Holy Foreskin may have ascended into Heaven at the same time as Jesus himself and might have become the rings of Saturn, then only recently observed by telescope.

God, I love learning about religion. I really do.

Global Warming

I want anyone who doesn't think global warming is occuring to read the following article:

Global Warming Claims Tropical Island.

This is really scary shit and could be prevented if we had people in office (of either party) with the balls to admit that we should be regulating greenhouse gasses.

BUSH'S SHATTERED GLASS

Move over Chuck Norris. Bush kills way more people in his little action movie.

WARNING:
This Blog Post States The Obvious.

I've been following the recent developments of the new Iraq Study Group's report saying that basically the war in Iraq is a God-awful mess and that Bush has utterly and completely screwed up everything.

Bush is now on some kind of humble defensive saying that he's now "willing to listen" to what I can only describe as common sense.

But the facts that have come out over the past few years have exposed George Bush as a stubborn-headed liar and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Wow, that bears repeating. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES have been lost. And for what? For what purpose did they die for?

I'll answer that question: They died because that's how the story goes.

Yes, the story that Bush has been writing since day one. It's about a lone crusader who battles the forces of evil with a merciless and endless amount of guns and ammo. A kind of Die Hard John McClane character who stands up to opposition and bombs the shit out the bad guys. There's a lot of blood involved. A LOT OF BLOOD.

John McClane About To Fuck Up Some Sunnis

And then there's more hard-cock talk like "Let's smoke 'em out" and "Bring 'em on." And there's at least a dozen times when someone says "Yippee Kayay, Mother Fucker" right before they blow someone's brains out. And then, once this fearless hero seems victorious and everything is about to end, the bad guys double and triple and quadruple their forces and start kicking some serious ass. Good guys start dropping like flys. And all of a sudden, you're reading this story and thinking, "Jesus Christ, I thought Bruce Willis' character was supposed to be the one who won."

And then it hits you.

This isn't a story. For God's sake, this isn't a story.

But we've been told this story over and over and over again by it's author, George W. Bush. A cleverly crafted story right out of a Hollywood action movie or a Tom Clancy novel.

But the only difference is that when someone dies in Bruce Willis, they don't really die. When someone gets all blown up in a Tom Clancy novel, they don't really die. Because they're just fictional characters. And that's the story Bush has wanted us to hear. A fictional one. One where people don't really die and where things don't really go THAT wrong. In the end, the "good guys" win.

Action Figure George Bush about to stab and shoot Saddam Hussein.

Well, the story is ending. The Iraq Study Group's report sheds a strong light on the realities of the war and it's origin. It's a real bitch-slap of reality. As it stands:

2,957 US Troops have been fucking killed.
22,235 US Troops have been injured in combat.
100,000+ Iraqi Civilians have been fucking killed.

In George Bush's action movie, women aren't just unharmed sex objects.
They get their fucking legs blown off.

One Study Group Panel Member said: "The situation in Iraq is very grave. We do not know if it can be turned around..."

George Bush's story telling is over, folks. If he wanted to, he should have written a actual novel about his war fantasies instead of trying to convince the world that the story was real. But he did anyways, and now more and more of the world is discovering that he a delusional liar with apocalyptic visions of action movie victory.

It's like Stephen Glass in the movie "SHATTERED GLASS". A true story, Glass writes these series of AMAZING stories for THE NEW REPUBLIC magazine and is heralded as brilliant and a superior journalist.

But, an independent team of journalists dig into his stories and found out that most, if not all, of his printed works were utterly and completely fabricated. His colleagues at THE NEW REPUBLIC are baffled and approach Glass on the allegations.

Glass tries and tries to create more lies to cover up his previous lies, but in the end, everything comes unraveled. Stephen Glass is exposed as a national fraud and his life falls apart. He becomes dreadfully suicidal, realizing that the fantasy world he's been living in is suddenly crumbling.

I hope and pray that the Iraq Study Group's report is the beginning of the end of this absurdity of a war. I hope more and more of Bush's lies will come out. And when they do, I hope we as a nation have enough patriotism to tear him down. Tear him down to that which he fears the most, reality.

Because this can not stand. This war. These lies. It can't stand. Not anymore. Even John McClane wouldn't let this happen. He'd be throwing grenades at the White House covered in camouflage paint.

And that's how the story goes...

"John McClane killed my parents and now I'm covered in their own blood!"

Rocky Balboa

So, I've been binging on Rocky movies for the last few weeks.

Before last month, I'd never seen a single Rocky picture and I kept seeing the trailer for Rocky Balboa and thinking to myself, "Jesus, that looks like it's going to be pretty bad, but something I can't define makes me want to go see it as soon as I can."

So, I rented the first Rocky picture and was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was really simple, but very good. Was it better than it's other Best Picture contenders? No. I mean, it beat out Network, All the Presidents Men and Taxi Driver. There's no way Rocky was a better movie than those. More popular perhaps, but not better. (Read my other rants about Network here and here.)

And watching the rest of the Rocky films back to back to back really places into perspective how much better the first picture is than all the others. I have to say though, I really, really, liked Rocky III. It was really fun to watch. Rocky IV was completely terrible, but I enjoyed the hell out of watching it, too. I mean, come on, what's with that God-damn robot? And I couldn't even stay awake for all of Rocky V.

But I went last night, opening day, to see the latest in the franchise, Rocky Balboa. As far as Rocky movies go, this film was a masterpiece. Yeah, yeah, it's all the same as the others. The formula for the movies has always been the same:

1) Rocky wants to fight but either can't or shouldn't. In this case, he's too old.

2) An opportunity is put in front of him by some promoters (basically the same thing Apollo Creed did in the first film) to fight even though he shouldn't have a shot

3) A training montage set to Bill Conti music

4) An edge-of-your seat fight, wondering always who's going to win.

It's a by-the-numbers Rocky, but it works. I was like a kid watching that movie.

Anyhow, my advice is to go see it, if nothing else because it's a nostaligic piece of film history. And you'll enjoy the hell out of it. And you've all seen Rocky IV and V and it's waaaay better than those two. Also, if this movie doesn't give you a new respect for Stallone, then go and read his Q & A sessions over at Ain't It Cool News. It's a fascinating read.

U.S. Not winning in Iraq

Ordinarily, this wouldn't rate massive headline, that the U.S. isn't winning the war in Iraq, not for a long time now, anyway. It rates as a headline now because it's the first time Bush is the one saying it.

It's certainly no surpise to anyone with half a brain that we're not winning, but hearing Bush say it, I can't help but think that it's some type of political manuever. Maybe he's finally realized that things aren't going well in Iraq or maybe he's just realizing how much of an ass beating his party took in the mid-terms.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just some type of jaded partisan hack, but all I see Bush doing is playing politics, not governing.

It's frustrating to me. Especially when people are dying because of decisions he makes that any five-year old could tell you would be a bad idea.

The Good German

So, I picked up a copy of "The Good German" the other day and I couldn't put it down. I devoured inside of the first twenty-four hours of owning it.

It was a marvelous piece of fiction that reminded me of a slightly more long winded version of a Graham Greene.

It would have been both a joy and a torture to cut down into an adaptation and I would have loved doing so. I'm very curious to see how they do it.

But like I said, if the movie is half as good as the book is, we're all in for a treat.

The thing that sucks about it though is this: "The Good German" came out yesterday, but only in limited release. I might not get to see it here until well into next month and that both confuses and infuriates me. I want to see it now, I've been dying to see it for a while. I like Soderbergh (generally) and I love old post-war reconstruction films of the era which this is so clearly aping.

It makes me happy. Whether this is a success or not, they should take more cues from films that came out of that era. They're much more timeless than most of the crap that comes out nowadays.

Apocalypto and Blood Diamond

I just wanted to come over here and weigh in on the two movies I saw over the weekend.

First up:

Mel Gibson's masterpiece "Apocalypto."

This movie is really good. It also serves as an intense kick in the pants. A major sequence of the film takes place while invaders are killing and raping pretty much everything in the village of the main character (Jaguar Paw, played to perfection by Rudy Youngblood). I have to say, the sequence was so brutal and heart wrenching, if I weren't with my brother I might have cried. The make-up effects for the gore was superb.

The story was exceedingly simple and that's maybe something filmmakers forget they can do these days. It's about a guy who gets abducted into slavery and wants to get back to his wife. That's it. No Internal Affairs investigations, no rug-pull endings, no Keyser Soze, no nothing. A guy wants to get home to his family and it works.

The character work is astonishing, especially when you take into account that the vast majority of the cast have never done ANY acting work.

I know I say this a lot, but pieces of the cinematography were stand out. There's a shot that dollies maybe thirty feet, beyond Jaguar Paw and then cranes ten feet over the edge of a waterfall. It was outstanding.

As far as the language is concerned, I think Mel Gibson (say what you will about him personally, but professionally, screw yourself) is making other filmmakers look extremely lazy. I mean, nowadays, it seems as though audiences are capable of reading subtitles, so there's no reason to do a movie in any language but the right one. I think Passion of the Christ's Aramaic might be half the reason The Nativity Story flopped. People just didn't find it as authentic.

Anyway, long story short, go see Apocalypto, it's good.

Next up, Ed Zwick's "Blood Diamond."

There's not much to say about, it's fairly by the numbers. There wasn't anything overtly terrible about it, but I have three major beefs with it:

1) It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fucking long. It needed thirty minutes trimmed out of it. At 2 hours and 18 minutes, there's no reason it couldn't be thirty minutes shorter.

2) Most of those minutes need to come out of the film where they are trying to make Leo look like an action star. He's really, really good in the movie but when it stops being an interesting character-driven political thriller, it turns into a really boring action film. Leonardo DiCaprio is not an action figure, please refrain from using him as such.

and

3) I knew about the politics about diamond trafficking going into the film, so it didn't hold any surprises for me, but I don't think that Zwick did enough to make the situation clear to someone who doesn't already have a prior knowledge about the process. Maybe he was trying to balance preachy and interesting, but I think he could have been more informative.

I feel like Zwick just pulls punches for no reason. In this, it wasn't a scathing enough explanation about the politics of diamonds. In Last Samurai, Tom Cruise should have committed Seppuku on the battlefield.... I don't know.

It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't great. It looks like Zwick is in the same league as Ron Howard and Tony Scott. They so badly want to be with the big boys, but just can't make a film any better than "pretty good" and more often than not, not even that good.

(On a side note, I picked up a copy of the book "The Good German" last night. I'm half way through it and if the movie is half as kick ass as the book is so far, we've got something to look forward to on Friday. I'll write more about it when I finish the book.)

Glorious Quicktime

Maybe seeing the trailer in Quicktime will change your tune.

Here's a link to the TMNT trailer.

Come on, you guys have to admit that the live-action Ninja Turtles movie (the first one) holds up as a really kick ass comic book adaptation. In fact, I watched it a couple of nights ago and still found myself laughing my ass off and getting worked up in all the right places.

I also just want to point out to everyone that they should read the run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that Image published in the late nineties. Erik Larson of Savage Dragon fame edited it and it was probably 23 of the coolest issues of anything I've ever read. (I also got a letter of mine published in issue 21:)


At the end of the day, the Turtles are part of the modern pop-culture and mythology and I would argue that they are an important part of modern pop-culture and mythology. I would bet that the Ninja Turtles have name recognition as high as Batman or Superman or The Beatles or Adolf Hitler.

And the comics that have published that aren't kid-centric are some of the best that have ever been published. So.... There....

Take the Money and Run

Well, it seems as though most of you don't share the same passion and enthusiasm for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I do, but, I suppose a love for the Turtles can be chalked up to varying tastes. I mean, you guys can't blame me for liking comic books. You guys knew I owned my own comic book store for a few years there, right?

Anyway, I finally got a chance to see "Take the Money and Run" last night which was both Woody Allen's directorial debut and Duckie's prime suggestion for a movie for me to watch.

It was hilarious.

I really liked it. I wouldn't call it my favorite Woody Allen movie, but it was certainly entertaining and worth owning.

To be honest, the Woody Allen movies I like the best are the ones that have some dramatic meat to them. Seriously, Hannah and her Sisters and Manhattan and maybe Husbands and Wives and Match Point are probably the ones I like the most.

Take the Money and Run is more in the straight comedy vein of Scoop and Curse of the Jade Scorpion (which I loved as well.)

So, thanks for the suggestion, Duckie.

Excitement Personified

For the love of all that is holy, follow this link.

This is the thing I am most excited for in 2007 so far. The only thing at this point I might be more excited about is that Star Wars cartoon...

But....

Yeah.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are rad. Beyond compare, even.

International Covers

Here's a look at some international DVD covers to "This Divided State."

It looks like Alex Caldiero and Jason Nichols made the cut on this DVD cover design of the film from Sweden. It's funny, this is basically the postcard we were handing out at festivals.


And here's one from Australia that's a little bit more recognizable. I think it's funny, it seems they actually paid to have it rated and we got an M for moderate coarse language.


Just thought everybody might be interested in seeing these. Supposedly, the Swedish distributor is actually going to send us some copies, but... who knows... I mean, they are Swedes.

Not as dumb as he looks?

I was thinking about what I wrote last week about Mitt Romney and I really got to thinking about how smart it was for this guy to do what he did. Now, bear in mind, I'm saying that this was smart on his part, not right, moral or ethical. This is part of the brilliant political shell game people like Karl Rove play. In fact, it would actually surprise me if this wasn't taken directly from Rove.

If Romney is serious about a 2008 bid, what better way to get close-minded conservative voters to the polls to vote for you in a blue state than to put such a close-minded conservative ballot initiative as a ban on gay marriage (or "anti-marriage laws" as I like to call them). And this isn't even going to help a bigot like Romney exclusively, either. This could be a boost for whomever the Republicans field in the '08 presidential election.

Maybe this isn't news to anyone and maybe other people have blogged about this ad nauseum, but cut me a break. I work a lot and haven't been able to keep up with what anyone else is saying in the land of the internets.

Untitled Obesity Documentary

We've been working on this documentary for quite a while now, and no Duckie, we still don't have a title. But when we started this project I was quite lukewarm about it. I didn't think Obesity would be the most dynamic subject for a documentary and I'd thought for sure that Morgan Spurlock had covered all the bases.

Boy was I wrong.

Morgan Spurlocks film barely scratched the surface of the problem. It's not just a problem, though. It's a crisis. A crisis of epidemic proportions.

And we've designed our public policy and infrastructure in this country to promote unhealthy lifestyles, eating habits and a culture that demands more and more food.

I just wanted to sort of give you guys an idea of the scope of the issue we were addressing in our documentary. I don't want to give much away, though, especially at this early stage. What I can say is this: we're going to ruffle some feathers and hopefully something will be done about it.

As the production goes forward, Elias and myself and hopefully Steve will be putting together some essays about the things we unearth doing research for this film and publish a couple of them here on the blog. I think the ones we publish here will take aim more at a few of the political angles, seeing as how this seems to be a political blog.

So, really, this is just a heads up for some really interesting things to come.

Crooks and Liars

Crooks and Liars, one of the largest political video-blogs on the internet deemed "This Divided State" a worthwhile holiday gift.

Good times.

Screening Success!

We had our first rough cut screening of "The Fleapit Three" tonight and I have to admit I was nervous.

Terrified even.

The thing about the film is that it's a comedy and at the end of the day, comedy is subjective. What makes me laugh won't necesarilly make anyone else laugh. And if people hated this movie, they'd basically saying that I have a shitty sense of humour.

But it went really, really well.

Frustratingly well in fact.

No one said anything to me in the form of constructive criticism. It was all pats on the back and "Great job" and "I'm an actor, when are you guys starting your next project?" and "that was hilarious, man."

I wanted someone to say, "Hey man, you need to shave a little bit here and add more of this and it'll be great." I don't have to listen to those people, but it would force me to evaluate a situation or an idea that I hadn't previously considered, but there was none of that tonight.

At the end of the day, it would seem as though we have a funny movie on our hands.

Watching it with a big audience though, really showed me where it lags and where it needs to pick up, so I have my work cut out for me as we prepare for another cut. Perhaps in the next month or two we'll do another screening and make it even bigger.

Screening!

The rough cut screening of "The Fleapit Three" is for sure.

It's tomorrow night at 8:00 pm at the University Mall Cinemas in Orem, Utah.

Everyone is welcome to come and to bring a person or two.

Just bear in mind that it is a rough cut.