in the mood for macs

wong kar wai is at the apple store in SoHo on April 1st

He better come to LA

paid for a car with my pee pee

So I bought a car. You can't be in LA without a car so i got one. It is the most unexciting, unimpressive car possible. But it is mine and it won't break down. It's a 2003 Honda civic 4 door. the base-est model with no frills- I haggled with a car dealer on a lot after 12 days of trying to find a deal through regular folks. I tell you what 'regular folks' you go to hell and take your shitty cars with you

Blood Car is playing the IFF Boston in April with some really great films. I saw some of them at Sundance but others I missed and am excited to get a chance to watch. I'm always amazed when Blood Car keeps playing in the midst of really great cinema- it is such an honor.

I saw a couple movies-

21......eh. Not for real movie goers. not really terrible, but kind of unbelievable and not really engaging. very...ah hem. by the numbers...Kevin Spacey is bitchy an gay (seriously! never seen that huh?) and some pretty people try to make me believe they are math wizards. Disbelief in unsuspended

Flawless- you may not have heard of this one. the pitch- starring Demi Moore (strike 1) and she has an english accent (strike 2-674)
this movie is a pile of (madlibs it)
so bad, so so bad. stupid heist movie that is a period piece with a forced feminist angle

what else? I got a library card, and discovered the Echo Park Film Center- which I will hopefully have a full report on after I see a screening there

there's an elliptical trainer in my living room....gee thanks, craigslist

I actually got into a pharm clinical trial.....boring work but I did get to watch the original Alien.....I love that movie
I also played some Star Wars Battlefronts on XBOX- I don;t play video games, but sometimes boredom and circumstance will thrust them upon me and I get addicted. the star wars game claimed a day or two of my life but I was able to fight it off and watch a couple movies and get out of that place. If you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say 'pharm clinical trial' let me fill you in. i agreed to take a drug never taken by a human being and then stay in a place day and night (5 days 4 nights) while people studied the effect (mainly how quick it leaves the system) through my piss and blood. I read about this in the New Yorker and thought it might be interesting subject matter for a film...it may be, but being there won't show me it. I'll have to make it up because that place was dullsville- but they paid me about the rate of a PA to do nothing.....because it wasn't that dangerous of a study

I also saw a traveling STD test center today on Vine (ave? street?) never seen that before. and I heard 2 casual pitches (just chit chatting about movies, noone is really pitching me to get something made) today and they were both exciting and awesome.

tomorrow I will kill a man with my mind! i'll write about it

The chicken or the egg?

its a little past 3 am so I guess I can start blogging, right?

So in LA the eggs are really expensive compared to Atlanta, BUT chicken by the pound is cheaper.....I'll let you process the bad jokes and witty observations there

I worked 3 days.

Day one of work:
I tried to take part in a Pharmaceutical study on Asthma- I failed the admittance and was paid $100

here is a picture of the device that cost me the other $1900

I was a PA on a INFORMATION OMITTED DUE TO SOME SHIT I SIGNED
and that was just great. I set up some tables and wandered around.

Here a the only pic from set
I can show you because of said 'disclosure agreement'

I have been trying to get around LA on the metro...HAHAHA that's a joke- Although after seeing this station full of- what looks to me like- people jumping from buildings...as art, I will have to do a tour of metro stations. because my camera phone didn;t do this justice


I have been trying to buy a car through craigslist and the classifieds. Buying a car in LA is like negotiations at the UN- it takes translators, bizarre rituals and customs get in the way, people have old grudges from generations back- it's a diplomatic mess. But I have seen many parts of the city and had conversations (or conversations with translating relatives) that reach the ears of discerning Russians, groggy Armenians and many Mexicans-who are all so remarkably agreeable. Its a pretty good time actually. I feel like Kissinger

I have learned that NYC is a pizza town, ATL is a wing town and LA is a burger town. So let me give you my burger report- its weak now, but it will grow.

Tommy's Original: burger with lot's of shit and chili....awesome. here's a pic


In N Out Burger- I Love it. Double cheese burger 'animal style' -there's some kind of bullshit secret menu and animal style is on it...its good. The fries kinda suck though

One more thing. People of LA, please stop being douche bag's to me. what's the deal here? I ask this guy what street I'm on today because I'm lost- he says "what did that sign say?" He was like 70 years old. Just douching out on me. There are so many instances in you people giving me the high hat that I can't even count them. But just to set it striaght LA people: you can't drive for shit, you're not half as important as you act and the grocery store is not the place t dress like a hooker to be "discovered"

I will try what I would normally do anywhere else tomorrow- I will test just how easy the people of LA like conflict. They seem to invite it with their asshole faces and attitudes- so I will respond to your jackass antics with my normal smart-ass, make you red-in-the-face-mad comments and taunts. There's no way these fuckers will swing on people faster than rednecks will....I just hope that rednecks don't drive BMWs and have ponytails here

movies:
Lubitsche double feature: Trouble in Paradise (amazing) and another of his (eh)
Mario Bava double feature: this guy is Russ Myers/Argento awesome, check him out they are showing a gaggle of his films at the Egyptian
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days- if I have to tell you that you should try to go see the Palme D'Or winner then you should just have another Cheeto and look for Road House on TBS. it is fucking great (4 Months and Road House) seriously- it was a big screen experience

Making moves

Katie keeps telling me I gotta start "making moves"
so I thought "ah screw it, I'll do some extra work"

So katie and I respond to an ad seeking people for extra work. Should be a short interview right? Take my picture, submit my "type" and give me a damn call time.
Wrong.

it was some stupid scam and they wanted me to PAY to get some hotline # to do extra work. so stupid. But I came up with a fun game out of the experience. I want to crazy myself up a bit (stupid clothes, big hair- something weird looking) and get some more of these "interviews" and go in and be bat-shit crazy and do bad audition monologues and start crying and talk myself out of it. Maybe bring cupcakes- just basically be as idiotic as I can and keep an audio recorder in my pocket. That would be entertaining.

So after that stupid crap I had a beer at this great old school Hollywood Cafe called......ah shit. Can't remember- if I do I'll update this. It was red and on Santa Monica.

After that we ended up by the house at the Silver Lake Lounge and it happened to be an open mic night so we stayed and a bunch of the guys that were there were really funny.

But this one guy, named Ben, had this deadpan routine about rape and abortion that made me and Katie (and pretty much only us) laugh so hard I couldn't see straight. I started talking to the guy and he told me that everyone in the bar was a stand up- which is odd, right? They all come there to work on new stuff and "get some time" one guy told me- i did get his name Adrian Mesa. He was visiting the rape joke guy (who was recently on Jimmy Kimmell I think, different material) and from Miami. He had a helluva funny bit about booty bass music and he used the phrase "pig knuckle" (like camel toe) -that's a new one right?- in his booty bass bit. I laughed. I will no doubt go back to that deal. $2 beers, free laughs, walking distance- I'm in

Steal this blog

this got posted late- wrote yesterday, posted now

Last night I saw a double feature at the Aero in Santa Monica. (two movies-$8) Two heist films that I have never seen before- the first being THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE


Awesome. I loved this film. Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Walter Matthau. Tony Roberts is the Lt. Mayor. The orderly Washington- from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, plays a transit cop, his name is Nathan George. Jerry Stiller plays a cop who could give a shit. The movie is PACKED with amazing one-liners, great jokes, refreshing political incorrectness and it is a hell of a heist film. Every character actor in this film is so on their game- it’s sick. Like a Preston Sturges (or for you younguns- Coen Bros) film. Skillfully written by Peter Stone- who wrote Charade- he effortlessly moves between the remorseless character played by Robert Shaw and killing innocent people in cold blood to laugh out loud funny bits with Matthua and every other city employee character involved. The mayor is so silly he could be Mel Brooks taken down just 12%. That guy who runs out holding the Blue Letter in Hudsucker Proxy is in it and he looks exactly the same- it is amazing- he doesn’t age. Pelham is directed by Jo Sargent.

This film has been remade once for TV – and is being remade again with Denzel Washington- they are shooting now. Tony (throw up in my mouth) Scott directing. Everyone has stolen from this movie, everyone, if you’ve never seen it- do yourself a favor and go buy it- it should be studied.

After the film Hector Elizondo was there for a Q&A. I have realized that you can only hope for maybe one good story and rarely anything too insightful from Q&A sessions. Its not anyone’s fault really, well actually sometimes it is and sometimes they are fun, but usually not- especially when the geeks of the geeks are asking the questions. There was the gem, “I think improv works for people with a sense of humor” there was some random pettiness about Robert Shaw being a hard-ass drinker and kick ass ping pong player and some other random shit. A story about Garry Marshall that started good (he got hit in the face with a basketball) but ended with a bad kicker that false laughter over the years has not improved. And too many people asking about an actor’s process on a film he shot 30 or 40 years ago- he even said he hadn’t seen the film in 20 years- and people are asking him about the working relationship between him and the director- or who came up with what business. Come off it, guys.

Then I watched Joel Siegel’s CHARLIE VARRICK- starring Walter Matthua and featuring John Vernon. Things started good- a heist went wrong and the wrong thing was there was too much money, some people and small town New Mexico cops got shot. Not bad. Then the writing went south- forced bits of comedy with a kooky old woman, scenes so inconsistent I was shaking my head- but John Vernon has the weirdest bits of business in it I have ever seen, its like he’s coming up with things to do that make no sense- or beyond no sense- so that someone could think they might mean something. Pretty weird and amazing stuff from him in this film-doing lines while strattling (sp?) a fence next to cows (and making groanful cow analogies), doing lines and then playing the piano like Rock Monanoff, having a conversation while pushing a retarded girl with a kitten in a swing. There’s a decent joke or two- a bad ass El Camino that the “sociopath” killer drives- but Joe Don Baker doesn’t play much of a sociopath.

I don’t want to ruin this movie telling you all the things that made me “huh?” so watch it. You’ll laugh and get a bit bored toward the end but so what. Its John-Fucking-Vernon and Joel-Goddam-Siegel.

Ok- more movies to watch will report soon. I tried to watch the whole godfather trilogy in the past day or two. I and II -as we all know- are amazing. Part III is so amazingly unnecessary and poorly constructed that I have invented a drinking game to make the piece of shit watchable.

One person drinks every time the word “family” is said.
One person drinks when Sofia Coppola gives a shitty line reading(or in other words, appears on screen).
One person drinks when Talia Shire gives a shitty line reading. (drink twice when it is obvious she made up the line on the spot)
One person takes the combo shitty lines of Eli Wallach and Andy Garcia and Joe Montenga (drink twice when either of them fails at acting anything like a gangster)
Whoever takes that last one ain't making it through Act I.
Every time there is a clip reel from I or II- everyone drinks.
Every time someone says “Fredo” all older brothers drink.
Every time someone says Sonny or Santino- all loose women drink (which is all women who are sitting around getting bombed to Godfather III, I'm sorry)
Everyone drinks until they black out when Sofia Coppola gets shot and all the characters flail around.

I shouldn’t be so hard on the film- it must be a sore spot with everyone involved and I’m sure it has been trashed enough by everyone but me, but hey- whaddya gonna do, eh?

Oh, that last crack was so bad.