be kind, see this movie

the theatrical trailer for michel gondry's "be kind, rewind" is up at yahoo! right now.

watch it HERE.

watch me shoot myself in the foot

upon reflection, 2007 is starting to look a lot like film school to me.

since january, i've picked up my still 35mm SLR and camcorder and have set out, for all intents and purposes, to recreate my first two semesters of college.

there were the photo projects:

there were the video exercises in seeing a project through to its completion ( a "documentary" about my 93-year old grandfather and a still-in-editorial short film called Character Assassin), and now I'm going to attempt my first serious 16mm film short as a cinematographer and director, Bicycle Boulevard.

i've tried blogging about my film projects before, and neither blog nor film have ever fared well in the process. it's that whole "talking instead of doing" thing that i get wrapped up in, wasting my time fantasizing and dreaming about how good the film will be when i should be out there actually making it happen instead.

well, i'm doing it again, against my better judgement, if only to help me keep track of my own progress.

with my still photo and video projects, i've found that the more prepared i am, the better. it sounds cliched, but without those shot lists or storyboards, Character Assassin would've been a disaster (and it nearly was, forethought be damned).

so without further a-do, my to-do for august and september:

• finish emulsion tests.
• get producer to help me decide if this is even worth all the trouble it's going to be.
• have script finished by mid-september.
• get puppet artist to help design or discern feasability of bicycle rig.
• get actors/bicycles.
• bicycle camera tests.
• location scout.
• get old computer system from parents and upgrade video card/system memory for pre-viz software.
• contact Antics for pre-viz support.
• pre-viz project.
• beg friends and family for money.
• crew up.
• get 16mm camera serviced at Arriflex.
• get film.
• shoot movie.

there's more to that list than i can remember right now, i'm sure. two months sounds like a lot of time - but it's not - so i'd better get cracking!

harry potter and the book seven spoilers

there's a death toll at the end of harry potter and the deathly hallows, and i know every name (worth knowing) on the list.

i figure that at this point, its pretty much all anyone talks about when it comes to the book these days, so i might as well get it out of the way before moving on to the stuff that matters... like, what happens in the rest of the book? how does it end? who sleeps with who (things i still don't know, and don't WANT to know)?

there was a link on the drudgereport to a page at torrent freak with another link to a page that pretty much lays out the last potter novel in a format so succinct that would make cliff hillegass blush.

i'm pretty used to spoilers by now, being the web-loving media-loving geek i am (i knew about the big death at the end of book six well before it hit my shelf, and i wasn't even looking for that one). in fact, at times i'm rather fond of them. knowing what i'm getting into before i spend my money on that movie ticket or book doesn't diminish the pleasure of experiencing a real moment with characters i have grown to love .

it all comes down to the fact that i don't really care if i know who dies at the hands of whom before it happens in the book or movie. what matters to me is HOW it happens (i still cringe at the end of joss whedon's serenity every time a certain beloved character meets his untimely demise).

death comes to everyone, that much is guaranteed. what i want to know is will j.k. rowling put me there with these characters when their time comes? is their death noble? justified? unjust? will it fill me with hope or despair? these are the moments i look forward to most.

btw, i would NEVER ruin the book for anyone else. i completely respect other people's wishes to remain "pure" for the moment of truth... these are just my opinions on the matter.

holy fucking shit

it's a few minutes before four pm on thursday, july the fifth, and i'm walking along spring street in downtown los angeles. i've just taken my first peek inside what i'm told used to be the los angeles stock exchange. the building has a beautiful stone facade on the outside, but inside it looks like a cross between the death star and a trailer home from the 1970's.

i love it.

my car is parked on main street, just a little ways up from where spring and main meet. until earlier that afternoon, i didn't even know the two streets weren't totally parallel. i had meant to pick up some bike parts from maestro (on main) and then have a coffee with bri (at lost souls on fourth), then circle around (back up spring) to where my car was parked at a broken meter (lucky for me, being out of change) just a few yards down (again, on the main street side) from the angelique cafe, which is smack on the most acute corner of that little isocelese triangle-shaped block.

as i approach angelique, i notice that two of the women who work there are already packing in the small sections of white picket fence used to barricade off their patio area. the sun is shining, downtown is beautiful, and these ladies are going home.

i reach the patio just in time to see a grey pontiac cutlass heading north on main blow a tire, skid out of control, jump the main street side curb at about 20 miles per hour, glance off of a street light, and plow through the angelique cafe employee who not a second before was standing just ten feet from me, minding his own business stacking chairs and probably thinking about how he was going to spend the rest of his day.

i swear to God - he was there, and then he was gone. it was all over in about three seconds.

one of the women who was cleaning up comes running out of the cafe. what happened? what happened? where is jim? (speaking spanish)

the other woman (who is standing next to me) shakes her head. we exchange blank stares. like myself, she's still in the middle of processing what just happened. her coworker rushes back inside, where the wreckage of the cutlass is visible through a couple of large picture windows. the picture windows have those metal security gates on them that roll up like blinds, and the one closest to me has been torn completely off the building, its coiled shutters lying across the trunk of the cutlass, having shattered the rear window completely.

she stumbles back outside in tears. jim is not well. i spot the baseball cap on the sidewalk where he had been standing and i suddenly remember what i saw.

i take out my phone and start to dial 9-1-1, but someone inside the cafe has already been connected with a dispatcher. by now, not more than a minute after the incident, people are rushing to the scene, either to satisfy their curiosity or to help. i do the only thing i can possibly think of.

i walk away, retracing my steps down spring to a small beauty parlor about half a block back. i cut through the parlor, whose patrons have already emptied onto the main street sidewalk for a look-see and walk up to my truck, which is just a few paces down from where the cutlass came to a stop.

from this side i can see that after the cutlass slammed into jim, it travelled down the sidewalk another ten feet, scraping the driver's side of the car up against the brick facade of the cafe. i can't see through the windshield (it too is shattered, but intact). it looks like a wood beam or something has pierced it close to the driver's side. the front passenger wheel is shredded.

the whole scene is fairly beliwidering. angelique's kitchen staff seemed to have been in the middle of gathering up the day's baked goods for storage or disposal when the accident occured. they've dropped the bags of baguettes and rolls next to cafe's back door and rushed to assist jim, who seems to be pinned between the car and the wall and a stack of tables and chairs. a woman is sitting on the curb next to my car, crying hysterically and bleeding from head wound as three samaritans try to keep her calm.

just a few feet from the cutlass's front bumper, amongst the toppled patio furniture and forgotten bread, another hat lies on the concrete filled with what looks like spaghetti sauce and broken pottery.

at this point, it seems like the situation is as under control as its going to get until the fire department and medical assitance arrives. i'm about to get into my car when i notice a homeless man surreptitiously sidestep the hysterical woman on the curb, tiptoe around the hat filled with spaghetti sauce and pottery chips (oh God, i hope that's what it is), and casually swipe three baguettes from the bags the kitchen staff had dropped. he slips away unnoticed.

i drive back down main street to spring and fourth. i'd been arguing with bri earlier, and now i just wanted to tell her i loved her. up in her editing bay, i can hear the sounds of sirens racing up spring towards angelique and i feel a deep sense of remorse for not having acted in a helpful manner when the accident initially occured.

at this point the most i can do is give the police my information and volunteer myself as a witness, which is exactly what i did. the least i can do is go back to angelique next week and offer my support, any kind of support, which is what i plan to do. if anyone out there reading this lives downtown or happens to be a regular angelique customer, a little extra neighborhood/patronly support probably wouldn't hurt these nice folks.

between now and then, i'm just hoping that jim is all right.

or is it joe?

(photo by eric richardson; used under creative commons)

what now, los angeles?

bri brought up a good question the other day:

now that aron's, tower records and the warehouse have gone out of business, where will people in la get their music now?

i mean, besides amoeba, itunes or teh intraweb... or did i just answer my own question?

a church grew in hollywood

it's pretty un-hip to be a christian. i should know, because i am one.

no matter how hard jay bakker, creed, or mosaic try to convince you otherwise, they always come off as looking like they're just trying too damn hard.

update: i'm not getting down on christians in general... it's just that telling most people you know Jesus makes a completely different impression than saying you know Steven Spielberg or the one-armed drummer from Def Leppard.

over the years, i've come to terms with my christianity, and at times i'll even admit it publicly. it wasn't acutally that hard, because i've pretty much been a square for most of my life anyways. i figure if you want to look at it from a logical perspective, the pros for being a christian far outweigh the cons (eternal paradise? come on, it's a no-brainer!). but for some people - particularly for people living in los angeles - being percieved as "uncool" is just about the worst thing that could happen.

i'm just glad I don't live in china, where people braver than me are hung from iron gates and tortured for their beliefs.

now that's totally uncool.

but i digress...

if you're looking for a place in hollywood where you can go and hang out with all the other un-cool people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, ecclesia hollywood has just moved into its new digs at the beautiful old pacific theatre on hollywood between cahuenga and wilcox (click here for map).

incidentally, ecclesia is celebrating its second year in hollywood this weekend (may 20th). there's going to be a roundtable discussion with all of the church officers, so anyone who's been curious about the church will probably find this sunday's service to be a good jumping-on point (kind of like those midseason "recap" episodes of lost).

there's really nothing i feel like i could say about ecclesia without making it sound like every other "hey we're young, urban christians and our praise band is gonna rock you out with some newsboys covers this sunday" kind of church (incidentally, our pastor has actually directed a few newsboys music videos - be sure to ask him about the dance from "love, liberty, disco" if you ever meet him).

in the end, i know that being a christian isn't about what i want (in this life) or about how comfortable i feel (around other people), and a church should be judged by what it teaches, not by its tattoo or celebrity count. what what i will say is that ecclesia is the first congregation i've ever been able to worship with where even though i don't feel any cooler or hipper, i'm able to take comfort in the fact that we're being un-cool and un-hip together.

and that's pretty cool, if you ask me.

i <3 blogging.la

now that a few more people are being directed to the CF, i wish i had more interesting things to say. remember how in my first post i mentioned that if i could keep this thing updated once a week, i'd be able to call it a success?

whoops.

its like every time i'm out riding my bike or driving my car - pretty much any time i'm nowhere near a computer - i get an idea and i say to myself, "i should write a blog about that."

of course, i never do. i get distracted by something shiny in the road (like a car door opening into the bike lane), or the hollywood hills ablaze three or four blocks up from my girlfriend's apartment.

i'm guessing that blogging is fairly easy, in the same way that a lot of things are - writing, talking, driving, making movies - it's just that doing it well is the difficult part.

speaking of good reads, check out the dancing panda, bri's dance music blog. why? it's fun, and the moving gif of a girl in a panda mask will blow your mind.

playing with food

bri and i were out to breakfast at fred 62 this morning when one of our little rituals turned into an all-out war.

it normally starts with one of us passing the sugar or ketchup bottles when they are asked for by the other person. the fun of it is that once the requested item is delivered, it's followed by pretty much everything else on the table.

this morning it ended with me spilling the cream container all over the table. it got me thinking that maybe this could be a pretty fun game.

so here are the rules:

1. start with two equal teams on either side of a booth or free-standing table (table must be square)

2. the table can be populated by any number of cups, sugar holders, plates, bottles or whatevers.

3. the first team to get everything on the table to their opponent's side doesn't have to pay the check!

disqualifications include:

- trying to slip extra items onto the table

- dumping items off of the table.

- spilling anything onto the table (i.e. food or liquids)

- breaking restaurant property


so that's that! does anyone have any ideas for additional regulations? i particularly need to work out the 'round table' rules.

anti-what?

i'm not apathetic to the war. it makes me uncomfortable but i'm not up at night worrying about it. my girlfriend's brother was a soldier in iraq and he survived to see his loved ones again, but the effects of the conflict still remain in other ways, so she feels very strongly about the US not being in iraq. she doen't want her brother to go back.

before we left that morning, she was angry at me for not being anti-war.

"i'm not pro war either," i told her. i don't have an opinion either way because i'm not in iraq, and i don't set the united states' foreign policies, and working at a major cable news network, i get innundated with more media bullshit in one workday than most people get all week. i simply don't have the full story so i'm not going to go out there and yell and shout and call our president a fascist because even though i voted for john kerry in the last election, i have no clue what's REALLY going on with halliburton, dubai, attorney general firings, or karl rove and the CIA.

that's what really keeps me up some nights.

so i told her, "maybe I'll have an opinion after today."

here's what i saw:

martin sheen carried a cardboard coffin draped in an american flag.

some actress i've never heard of dressed up like a "dove" (it looked more like a pteradactyl).

another tragic testimony from a grieving soldier's mother was told before a crowd of 2000 people chanting "no blood for oil!" (judging from the pre-rally foot traffic coming out of the arclight parking structure, i'm guessing that probably more than half of them DROVE to the rally and maybe just as many were there to see ozomatli and ben harper play for free. i know i was.)

there were the peace protesters screaming obscenities at the pro-bush supporters sitting quietly at the corner of hollywood and highland.

there was some hispanic guy who followed (or preceded, i can't really remember) the grieving family on stage to champion illegal immigrants rights because, as he stated, "our purpose is one and the same."

there was the group of anarchists screaming "fuck the gap" i saw eating lunch at baja fresh.

there were the outraged bus riders who don't want the LA transit authority to hike their fares. instead of urging more people to take the bus, they would rather hand out flyers about how angry they are.

the most interesting thing i saw was the old guy in a wheelchair mocked up like a tank and doused with what looked like flour. he wheeled around and tried to bump into people.

i'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from an anti-war rally. it seemed to me like a lot of people pushing separate agendas, but at the same time who were unwilling to compromise their own actions. if we can't all agree on why we're marching in the streets, then how are we supposed to figure out why we should or shouldn't be in iraq?

i found the whole experience disjointed, disorganized, and paradoxical. at the end of it all i was tired, confused, and all i was sure of is that i was hungry.

as i sat at the window of baja fresh, enjoying my black bean and cheese burrito, i checked my watch and realized that I was supposed to be somewhere in an hour. the "rally" had turned into a march, and it had been almost four hours since the start. we pushed through the crowd of anarchists and headed down the less crowded orange ave. in the direction of sunset blvd. just then, ben harper jumped on stage to begin his set.

i didn't even get to see ozomatli.

Is this thing on?

I'm terrible blogger, journal-writer, whatever you want to call it, so if I get in one post a week, I'm calling this a success.