Sunday, July 27, 2008

Hi Blog. Let's catch up.

I get this random phone call and this guy is all heavy breathing on the phone and he says, "You're not blogging."
ME: "Hello, is someone fucking with me?"
Heavy mouth breather guy: "This is no joke. you must blog......you must blog."
ME: But everyone is blogging all the time. What's the point? its pointless.
Mouth Breather: If you blog it, they will come....
ME: Ok, who is this? Stop goofing around.
then I hear some kinda smashing and the mouth breather is breathing really fast, it sounds like a broken whistle. I can hear people speaking Korean, eh, more like shouting Korean at this guy and he starts rattling off all this craziness at me about "when the third moon is half empty" and "the crow caws to the east" and the "sugar pops won't float anymore" and whoever it was really went all out on this joke because it sounded like these Koreans were kicking hell outta this mouth breather. Then they are wrestling the phone away from him and he's SCREAMING and I mean screaming the word OSTATINE over and over. like a panicked asthmatic parrot.

ok, so I thought. that was a good one. maybe I should blog about it. And now that I'm here I'll let you know about things I have seen and done.

Dark Knight is not perfect, but it is pretty rad. I'm tired of everyone throwing around the word AMAZING. "OMG this spider roll is amazing." Stop that shit, people. Everything cannot be amazing unless you're eating windowpane all the time.

I did see CALIBER 9 at the Egyptian. Holy shit! rock n roll! I was going to see these Italian Grindhouse movies, hoping to see that one gem. the crazy, well shot masterpiece I didn't even know existed. well my friends, Caliber 9 is that masterpiece. it is not on DVD for some crazy reason, but it should be. there is so much greatness going on. A hilarious cop and his partner talking about class struggle instead of fighting crime. the opening sequence is some sort of money passing- hiesty kind of thing. then the money is gone so these gangsters start gathering people up and torturing them and then they put them in a cave, tie them to TNT and blow them up. That sequence is before you even see the damn title and super fast/crazy/great. The plot is nuts, the climax is so great in so many ways, I don;t want to ruin it but I was smiling for 3 hours after I saw it. The second this movie can be watched...you fucking watch it.

I was in Scotland. I ate some Haggis with neeps and taddies. Mmmm, Mmmm. good. Saw Radiohead in Glasgow- good times. Played all the hits, and a bunch of new stuff. pretty lights. Hanging out at the Edinburgh FIlm Festival was great. MAN, those scots do some drinking. they broke me one night. I was still a charming disaster though....I'm sure of it. I saw Erol Morris talk about makign docs, that was tits. I saw Roger Deakins and Seamus McGarvey talk about DPing and Christopher Doyle sat in the audience doing some heckling. that saw like dancing on a rainbow. I took this cruddy pic on my phone:


listen to this all you DPs- Roger Deakins has a webiste that is all about lighting and camera and all that shit and he answers your questions and discusses things with you. INTERWEBS WOW! here is the site http://rogerdeakins.com/ just sign up so you can talk in the forums.

So the EIFF was a great time. Movie went over well, met tons of really cool people. It was great. They have the BEST venues ever, and they are all really close together. AWESOME venues that all have great pubs in them for drinking and yelling about cinema in. and the town is just so pretty. I went on a castle tour and had an idea for a movie about some regular people touring a castle and then zombies attack them, so they all have to use the old ways of defending the castle from the zombies. And because Ray Harryhausen was at the fest (I got a signed book) I thought the Zombies should ride giant lizards. So you have japanese tourists and a family of four and some boy scouts all in armor shooting canons and sword fighting zombies. I'll probably never write that, so if somebody wants a go at it- be my guest. I just want a story credit.

Yesterday I went to DIY DAYS. A bunch of cool panels and stuff about DIY filmmaking and distribution and all that. I dunno why people always ask about raising money at these things. I thought the point was that none of the filmmaker really have a bag of money and they are just making movies. just Doing It Yourself...get it asshole guy who thinks everyone should be writing him checks? I actually did a couple panels at EIFF on this stuff to. there's plenty of information out there about finding an audience and getting your movie out to them. there's great stuff to learn so you too can go from hopeful, bright eyed soon to be feature filmmaker to jaded "I made a film and now I want money" person. what? Me? Oh I'm not like that....you go to hell. I'm gonna make another cheapy movie or two. I don't know who you think you're talking to.

Since I've been back, just been kicking around. You know, doing this and that. A little writing. A little movie watching. Hopefully tonight I'll be going to see BULLITT and POINT BLANK at the Egyptian. I love the Egyptian. greatest theatre ever? I dunno, I have many more theatres to visit. But the Egyptian is amazing, if you've never been.