indieBlog

Somber New Orleans

Apparently, I was fired yesterday.  That's o.k., I just wish he'd call and tell me BEFORE I get up, get dressed, and COME to work today!  Now I'm just depreciating the value of my clothing by yet another day.

Over the weekend, I attended the 17th Annual New Orleans Film Festival.  It should be the 18th, but last year, Katrina was a bit of a killjoy.  So, despite only getting a new Artistic Director 6 weeks ago, replacing the former director who formerly had a home in New Orleans, the festival survived!  As an opening night, it showed a film I really enjoyed, The Queen.  It was a lot more sympathetic towards the Royal Family than I imagined.  As a young girl (well, I was!) who watched Diana and Prince Charles get married at 4am, and who mourned when Di was killed, I actually found myself understanding the position that Queen Elizabeth found herself in.  Typically, I hate films that present themselves as if they were written by someone who was in the room, but is actually made up crap, I really found myself gaining a greater understanding.  I also saw Little Children and Sherrybaby.  Really liked the first, and appreciated the performances in the latter (Maggie, Maggie, why so naked all the time?). 

Since I've been back, everyone has asked the same question; How is it really in N.O.?  Well, it looks like a city that has been through HELL.  I was in the French Quarter, a lesser hit area, and every block had businesses that have closed.  I met some really great people at the festival - including two people who were nice enough to join me on my panel, Rio Hackford, the charismatic son of Taylor Hackford and a fine actor to boot, and my new best friend Mari Kornhauser, who did an indie called Housebound with Peter Sarsgaard.  Mari befriended little lonely, scared me and showed me around a bit.  I met some N.O. natives, actual N.O.P.D. and S.W.A.T., and they shared some stories about their time during Katrina.  They all talk like they've just returned from Iraq.  The death and destruction they saw could probably rival.  Still, they were cheerful and friendly, and happy to see people coming to their town (and spending $$!).  I easily blew my SAGIndie per diem (hey, $20 doesn't go as far as it used to).

I had a great time in New Orleans, and was happy to support the city and the festival.  But boy was I happy to be back in Los Angeles where bodies only occasionally lie in the street and running water confines itself to kitchen and bathroom sinks.  I stopped counting my blessings when I hit one million.

BREAKING NEWS!

The Internets is Super Useful

Some days I'm just so damn happy that Al Gore invented the internet (with an able assist from that noted Alaskan braniac Ted Stevens). Not only can you find many useful things floating around out there in cyberspace - funny cat videos and glittery MySpace pages to name just two - but you can also find many unuseful things to help you kill time at work. You might also forward links to these unuseful things to your co-workers. Your boss might then receive these links and decide that one of these unuseful thing is actually useful after all, and direct you to utilize said thing in a blog post.

Following me so far? Good.

The unuseful useful thing is this nifty page, which features various image-generating apps that allow you to create, among other things, cassette tape images, 45 rpm record labels, funny George W. thought-balloons, and, as pictured, official-looking seals for work, home, or play.

Awesome, no? A few spare minutes to spend tweaking the easy-to-use interface, along with a willingness to bastardize a dead language in order to come up with an authoritative sounding motto*, are all you need to produce your own, extremely rad, seal.

Not, perhaps, unlike this:

 

*In this case, I've either cobbled together a rough approximation of "In Independent Film We Trust", or "Do Not Take On An Empty Stomach", I'm not sure which.

The Evil Truth About the SAG Indie Blog

Also, Darrien, blog about New Orleans or you're fired.

Michael, blog about the end of NYFF or you will meet the same fate.

Love,

Paul

David Lynch & Tony Orlando

Okay!  I finally have a few minutes to blog here (saving my SAG Indie job by the skin of my teeth - Bales is on a drunken firing rampage as usual I'm sure). 

So the first of my two big stories of the week is that I indeed saw David Lynch's newest mindfuck "Inland Empire" at  the New York Film Festival.  In fact, I think Lynch should start using that term the way Spike Lee uses "joint".  "'Inland Empire' a David Lynch Mindfuck".  To get to the point: it's freakin' brilliant.  If you thought "Mulholland Drive" was insane, hard to follow, and yet a totally captivating and unforgetable piece of post-Modernist filmmaking, you're gonna pee your pants when you see this.  Lynch has taken the place of Poe and Lovecraft and Gorky as our own genius dark myth maker and proves again that his visions outweigh the necessity for linear storytelling.  The road he started down with "Lost Highway", filled with cleverly-remade mythical creatures, heros and victims, is apparently a long and winding one and "Inland Empire" comes off as the devil spawn child of his last two films.  I'm not going to go in to detail here about it as you'll have to experience it yourself.  Just don't go in expecting to understand everything.  It's the type of film I know I'll be watching again and again when it's out just to allow my brain to settle in to what is going on.  Lynch, Laura Dern (who also produced and is at her best ever), and the always surprisingly deep Justin Theroux were at the screening and answered baffled if not enthralled questions from the press and industry audience.  Perhaps the most astonishing moment came when Lynch declared that "film is dead", saying that he'll never shoot anything but video again.  Believe it or not, "Inland Empire" was shot on the Sony PD-150 which isn't even a 24p camera let alone HD.  It's and old pro-sumer camera now used by people who can't afford to buy anything new, including its updated model the PD-170.  The man is a visionary and a true artist in the classic sense.  Go see this film.

Story number two of the past week: I was hired as lead cameraman to shoot Tony Orlando in concert.  He covered Prince's "Purple Rain" in a sloppily conceived segue from James Taylor's "Fire & Rain".  Come on, sing along with me: "I've seen fire and I've seen - purple rain, puuuuurple raaain...".  Need I say more?

Don't Get Screwed!

Fans of Film Independent's Producer Series take note: the Series has gone the way of cheap gas and winning post-season Dodgers teams, having been relegated to the ashcan of history.

Fear not, however. Replacing the time worn, slightly irrelevant Producer Series is the exciting new Filmmaker Forum, which aims to give independent filmmakers the tools they need to make a film and find distribution for it.

Held at the Hammer Museum over three days, from October 26-28, 2006, the Forum will feature panels, presentations, and networking (natch!) geared towards the independent filmmaker. As an added bonus, the program will kick off with a sneak preview of Catch a Fire, the latest film from  Phillip Noyce, who will be  on hand for a Q&A following the screening. 

For more information, including rates and participants, visit the Film Independent website. Also, stay tuned to indieBlog for news, updates, and reports from the Forum.

Almost Starstruck

I've lived in Los Angeles for a long time.

You see celebrities all the time in this town and in my line of work I meet them every day. So it isn't very often that a star sighting gets me excited.

On Saturday my girlfriend and I were driving through Beverly Hills when we came to a four-way stop. I arrived at the intersection a split second before a big black Mercedes, and after completing my California Stop, proceeded through the intersection. I saw the Mercedes moving forward slightly and was thinking that the driver looked familiar, when suddenly, Meagan screams:

"Don't crash into Sidney Poitier!"

And sure enough, looking at me sternly through his windshield as I drove through, was Mr. Tibbs.

Now that was cool.

He probably didn't think so.

Nothing to do with Movies...

...but everyone deserves to see this oldie but goodie: Download Worst_Album_Covers_Ever.pdf .

Can I borrow a feeling?

Will Direct for Food:

We laugh now, but are we going to be above this after 10 years of struggle to fufill our dream?

Just sayin'.

Commanist

The Hollywood Reporter Risky Business Blog has a good feature on one of my favorite films of all time.

Reds is a great film and if you haven't see it I encourage to check it out.

Of course, the guvmint will add you to a watch list.