Steve’s bird mocked my obnoxious laugh
Literally. And I thought it was cute.
Indie Memphis ended up being pretty nifty, as I thought it would. There are a bunch of cool kids locally doing damn cool things. Apparently Craig Brewer’s success has brought the area some attention and activity. I think they deserve it. I quite like Memphis (always have—I almost moved there).
I managed to meet people, as challenging as that may have seemed. I highly recommend you check out this guy Kelley Baker, the Angry Filmmaker. I had met him at the party the night before, and he did a panel the next day. Basically the guy shuns Sundance, NYC, LA, Hollywood and other cliché movie establishments. Once a post/sound designer on such titles as Good Will Hunting, he makes his own movies and self-distributes his feature films. He’s a character.
I saw Soderbergh’s latest film Bubble—one of six projects the owner of the Dallas Mavericks wants to try launching in a whole new way: release the film in theatres, on cable, and on DVD the very same day. We’ll see how that goes. The screenwriter was at the screening and is pretty darn awesome. As for the film itself, it was small but had a solid story with great performances by, get this, non-actors! The lead was a normal-looking middle-aged lady who was discovered by the casting director when she was the manager at KFC reaming one of her employees.
I also saw Loggerheads, a Lasalle Holland production, which is a cool little flick I recommend you catch. It has Bonnie Hunt and the guy who played Victor in Rules of Attraction (I only mention this because not being able to place him was making me NUTS), Kip Pardue. It also starred the super nice actor Michael Kelly who attended the festival and also lives in Brooklyn. It was a well-crafted little slice of life story about an AIDS-ridden drifter whose real-life mother desperately tried to find him 20+ years after putting him up for adoption and his adopted mother (and father) who let him go. The subtle torture in these women’s performances was quite good.
Say Yes Quickly, another feature I caught, ended up being a great study for the current script I’m working on (Memphis Bound). I also compare it to Elizabethtown since I just saw it and it has the same idea of these two people meeting each other and this spark occurs where they’re “meant to be”.
I guess I liked Elizabethtown… my initial reaction was that it had great elements and accomplished the whole Cameron Crowe thing to an extent, but generally I didn’t feel satisfied by it—even with its beautiful homage to the south. At the end of the day, I just didn’t buy the relationships (and their attraction to one another). It didn’t flow very organically. Whereas in Say Yes Quickly, though the setup was a tad clunky and the budget was low, I bought the whole film and believed in the characters and their choices.
This all applies to my script because the story opens with the two main characters who are barely skating by in this lust-based infatuation but mature over the course of the script to become grounded in a more solid and mutual love, respect, trust, considerate, and acceptance of one another. A place I don’t see a lot of relationships reach.
The screening of animated shorts where Jack Quack played went quite well. I was the only filmmaker present. I didn’t really say much before or after because, as you know, I was freaking out. I liked the other films. They each had a different method of animation. Steve’s buddy Hal attended and it meant a lot to me when he said, “You’re movie was the only one with a plot.” Plots could be over rated, but at least I accomplished what I was going for.
It was nice spending time with Steve again. He’s a good old friend from freshman year in college and if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have been able to attend the festival. And eat. We laughed a whole bunch and I hate to admit it (but not really)—we watched all of the Firefly DVDs (finally!!) and I read the comic books. NOW I can go see Serenity. Joss Wheden ROCKS. As usual. Even though I rarely like his outfits.
Poor Steve had to endure my constant critique of his bachelor pad. It’s not all that domesticated and looks like he just moved in five years ago. I find this endearing, of course. I just had a vision for it he really didn’t want to hear about. Don’t let this deter you from having me over. I enjoy torturing people on occasion and that was his. Besides, on several occasions he kindly offered to dump my ass off down the block at the Courtyard Hotel.
We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night. I was dressed up as a filmmaker from NYC but no one asked me about my costume. I figured Steve’s girlfriends would give me the third degree but they were really friendly (and made damn good homemade chocolate!!). I think that Steve was surprised I’m shy. In the past, he’d only seen me commandeering a number projects in college. It seems I have no trouble with shyness when I need to accomplish group tasks.
Anyway, my purple pen just exploded. I have grape-flavor colored fingers. I’ll post you a new playlist in honor of my trip down south. I have to hit the ground running today since I have a bunch of calls and pick-ups to tend to when I get to the City.
October 29th, 2005 at 3:13 p
Cool Blog. The design is way cool (except for the yellow). Haven’t read the post since I’ve been so busy, but it sounds fun.