Quick catch up

A death in the family prevented me from updating this over the past few days - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. So allow me to quickly say the following:

300... could there be a manlier movie? I asked Amy this midway through watching yesterday. She responded that "any minute now, I'm going to grow testicles!". I replied, "Any minute now, I'm going to grow ovaries!" I liked it. I didn't love it. And having studied Persian culture along with many others over the years, I think I can safely say that I recognized NONE of the costume designs as anything remotely Persian. Or Asian. Or... human. (And is The Island of Dr. Moreau located in the ancient Persian empire? What was with Frankenstein and the other human/animal hybrids throughout the movie?) And why was Xerxes conceived as a villain from Stargate? Anyway... during the middle part of the movie, I found myself mocking the narrator a little: "And Xerxes then sent his Immortals, then other waves of those under the God-King's Rule: the archers, the milk men, the babysitters, those who understood Trigonometry, and a league of men named Dave..."

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Christopher P. Garetano's documentary, Horror Business, as exemplary as it is, should really have been titled Horror Dreamers or something more appropriate as it had so little to do with the "business" of horror filmmaking and everything to do with those whose passion it is to make horror movies. I question a couple of the people he chose to profile, but their dedication to their art cannot be questioned. I recommend to people who can't quite figure out why it is we no-budgeters do what we do. Oh, and some of us are less angry than Ron Atkins. Really.

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Two weeks ago, Amy and I had the pleasure of working with Devi Sniveley of Deviant Pictures (Teenage Bikini Vampire) and Jane Rose (Heading Home) on a predominantly-female-helmed film called I Spit On Eli Roth. It was a labor-intensive two-day shoot at the fantastic "Hundred Acre Manor" in South Park (where I can't wait to shoot again). Expecting a very long two days with little to do, I brought a book. Due to some scheduling snafus on the part of one of the producers, I wound up the movie's director of photography. Quite the surprise, actually.

Ultimately, it's going to be a very fun little movie. Here's a pic:

That's Amy, Jane and Devi starting l-r on the far left.

Lots of blood and anti-social behavior inflicted upon someone who looks an awful lot like Eli Roth. You can allow your imagination to go wild as to why Eli Roth was singled out to be spit-upon. I like to think it was for Hostel, though there are those who would prefer he repent for Cabin Fever. Or his cameo in 2001 Maniacs...

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Amy and I will be speaking at the I-CON 26 SF convention at Stonybrook University on Long Island this coming weekend. One of the panels I'm hosting is "Breaking into publishing for artists", which I know nothing about. I think my whole speech will be "Be a good artist that will give Sirens of Cinema a cover for the same price as a cheeseburger and I'll hire you." Which is exactly happened last year when I met Mike Lilly, Joseph Corsentino, Mike Okamoto and Scott Grimando. I hope to exploit many other talented artists this year.

Oh, and both Abattoir and The Resurrection Game will be screening over the weekend as well. Don't ask me when (and don't ask me why they call Debbie Rochon "The Geilgud of Bad Movies" either. That's just mean.)

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And in case I didn't mention it a hundred times already, Abattoir will be screening at Cinema Wasteland, March 31 at 7:00pm. We're starting to get offers on this one, so we might have a winner on our hands. I know, I've said that too. And I mean it, dammit!

Malena Teves, exactly one-half of the duo that makes up Lorraine 'a Malena, the band that donated the song "Dark Sonnet" to our closing credits, mentions Abattoir HERE on her blog. Thank you, Malena. Everyone should thank her. And go buy a copy of "Mirror Mirror" from which the song was taken.

There should be more soon. Including, hopefully, an official announcement about our next production, some news about an old production, and why I love Terry Gilliam but don't want to be him.

Complications in writing reviews

While working on a new review for Patrick Desmond's The Absence of Light, a project I've had the pleasure viewing multiple incarnations of, I've come to the unshakable conclusion that my days of reviewing indie movies may be numbered. I've professed in the past that I'm done reviewing anything, period, only to allow myself to be sucked back in a few days later. But after ten years in the industry, I just may be too entrenched to churn out an unbiased review.

I had no hand in the production of Absence, though, as I said, I've seen multiple versions as Desmond fine-tuned it over the past two years or so. Since I was first asked to check it out, Patrick and I have become close friends. His lead actor and sound engineer, Rich Conant, has become a good friend as well, and did me the favor of serving as post sound engineer on both Abattoir and the new version of The Resurrection Game (more on that in a minute). Other members of the cast of this film (both the stars and the lesser-knowns) have become acquaintances and con friends (actor Eric Thornsberry has been jokingly referred to as my "Twin" by more than one passerby). Patrick and I continue to discuss the possibilty of our working together on a project in the future.

And, of course, this isn't the first time this has happened. Nor will it be the last. JimmyO Burril and family have become close friends of ours since he first sent me Chainsaw Sally to review. He and Sally star April appear in Abattoir and we've stayed at their house on a couple of occassions.

The entire Project: Valkyrie crew have become members of the Happy Cloud family and we, in turn, have become members of the Hero Headquarters family. We've taken part in Piranha Pictures' Fifth City (and Eric Thornett also appears in Abattoir).

There's talk of our joining in on an upcoming Low Budget Pictures project. We'll likely work with Henrique Couto on an upcoming Freak Production. We have hopes of joining forces with the Wicked Pixel team as well. It's just what happens when you travel the con circuit and like and respect each others' work.

So as our circle of friends widens, the number of people I am not associated with in some small way grows smaller and smaller. Even when I do write reviews for movies I haven't been associated with, I still get dinged by fanboys on message boards - "Of course, this movie gets it's good reviews and quotes from friends", etc. To make matters worse, I don't generally write reviews for movies I don't like, so I'm constantly accused of associate nepotism. It's an ongoing headache. So this current review of The Absence of Light might be one of the last ones I do. I say this now, of course, knowing full well I'll get suckered again in the future. But my intentions, right now, are pure.

With all this in mind, I was also going to review Skin Crawl, which is coming out on DVD at the end of the month through POP Cinema, but I will probably have to pass these duties off as well. Skin Crawl is the feature debut of Justin Wingenfeld, who is quite possibly my oldest friend in the industry. We met when I was a freshman in college and we've shot movies together, performed on stage together, hung out, got drunk, watched endless amounts of movies together. I was at his wedding, but I have yet to meet his brand new baby daughter (which is what comes from living in different states). I also put him in touch with the folks who run Pop Cinema, way back when, back in my Cinefantastique/Femme Fatales days. So my excitement over Skin Crawl's pending release has as much to do with fraternal feelings of affection and love as it does the fact that it's really an amazing, intelligent, disturbing and multi-layered horror movie.

To make things worse for my ethics, Skin Crawl also stars one of my other very best friends, Debbie Rochon, in one of her very best performances. And she has to eat bugs, so how's that for devotion to craft? And I have a vast number of friends within Pop Cinema as well - folks I've known for more than a decade. When you consider that I also wrote the questions for the interview portion of the DVD extras, there goes any hope of being unbiased.

So, I'll console myself by saying that everyone reading this should make it a point to rent or buy Skin Crawl when it's released on March 27 (the same day that the new Fangoria Magazine hits the stands, containing an article on Debbie in which she talks about Skin Crawl - how's that for circular publicity?). There are two articles on this film in Sirens of Cinema #7, due out next week - one by Debbie, the other on co-star Julian Wells - so I at least feel like I've done something to get the word out.

What makes all of this - all the above and even things I haven't mentioned - so amusing is every now and then I'll run across someone on the web who just hates me. Doesn't want anything to do with me. Will go out of their way to avoid me at shows, events, etc. And will say, publically on message boards or whatever, that they not only want nothing to do with me, but won't have anything to do with anything/anyone I'm involved with.

And like I mentioned above, this is a very small community. The number of folks working in the business that I don't know or at least know of is a very small number indeed.

So good luck avoiding me, friends. I'm just one of those guys...

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I mentioned a new version of The Resurrection Game... for reasons I can't yet talk about (though I'm positively dying to), we are in the process of retooling and repolishing this movie for what will be - and this, I swear by the paint-flaking dinosaur outside the Art Institute of Pittsburgh on the Boulevard of the Allies! - the last time. For this final version, I am foleying new sound effects, having the sound tracks remastered and - very exciting - have commissioned a brand new score by none-other than Scooter McCrae. While much of Paul McCollough's original score will remain, Scooter has taken it upon himself to create several new tracks to reinforce the noir tone of the film - saxophones, bass cellos, all the stuff Bernard Hermann was made of.

With all of this will come two new audio commentaries, possibly a new documentary to commemorate the movie's 10 year anniversary, and new motion menus will accompany the new DVD (these hosted by non-other than the one and only Necro-Phil).

I'll be announcing the where's and why's of this new DVD very soon. As soon as I can, anyway.

In the meantime, drop me a line and try to wheedle more out of me. It'll be fun.

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Abattoir, incidentally, will be screening at Cinema Wasteland on March 31 at 7:00. This is very cool news for us. Our brand new baby playing at our all-time favorite show. Don't miss it!

Cock waffles

Well, the weather didn't get its way: we not only made it to Chicago for Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, we made it back as well. Yes, the planes were delayed coming and going, but at least we didn't take Jet Blue and wind up as hostages...

Anyway - as with last year, the Chicago Fango was a big success for us. We got to hang with some very good friends, folks we don't see too often like Tim Buchholz (exec producer of Abattoir), Scott Licina (from Fangoria Comics) and the whole Wicked Pixel crew - particularly Eric Stanze, Jeremy Wallace, Emily Haack who have been fans-via-email for years. I also got the chance to hang with some of the Precinct 13 gang - Robert Kurtzman, Al Tuskes and John Bisson - and got to see the trailer for The Rage, which was very exciting. It was cool to see shots that I got to watch being filmed when I visited the set last fall. (Not to mention it being a rather odd experience. I don't do that many "big" set visits.)

Plus, we got the chance to spend some quality time with Monique DuPree and Saint. We discussed the possibilty of doing a project together - something with a lot of "cool" potential, incidentally.

The nice thing about this show, though, is people tend to come up to us with more regularity - folks we don't necessarily know - and tell us how much they respect our work, our philosophies, etc. Amy had a number of women tell her how much her portrayals of strong women mean to them, how much they admire her views on women in the industry. A number of people - a few who I wasn't aware even knew who I was - came up to tell me that I'm the "best fucking writer around". And they weren't even trying to sell me anything! A couple of folks asked our advice on producing, screenwriting. I worked hard to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

Financially, we left with less stuff than we brought - always a good sign. Abattoir sold well, as did The Spicy Sisters Slumber Party, which usually sells the slowest. (Despite the whole Dinner for Five in Lingerie aspect, it's still a documentary and, therefore, a hard-sell at conventions. So the renewed interest in it was refreshing.)

But, perhaps best of all, Scarecrow, we got to hang with Sofiya and her friend, Rian, who we'd met at that very convention last year, leading to our working with her on Abattoir and Blood Bath. They generously allowed us to stay at their apartment in Chicago, thus saving us a bundle on hotel rooms, but also shuttled us around. Sofiya's friend Alex DelMonaco, and her husband, Tristan, were also staying with them. We'd never met Alex before and she turned out to be a lot of fun. Tristan and Rian ended up cooking for us - steaks, fettucini - and since I'm not much of a cook and they had a two-person kitchen, I opted to hang back and just be one of the girls. I hung with Amy, Alex and Sofiya. We talked about boys and did each others' hair. I discovered that I'm an Autumn. Good times.

We discovered, too, that adding the word "waffle" to profanity will enhance only masculine insults - "Cock waffle", "Dick Waffle" - with the exception of "Dousche Waffle", which seems to work just as well (good thing, too, as that's the exact word I stole from Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job). "Cunt Waffle" doesn't work. "Waffle" softens the impact of former. "Cock waffle" indicates a particularly heinous individual, while "dousche waffle" seems to imply a higher degree of loser than simply saying "dousche" or "dousche bag".

Honestly, we spent a great deal of time figuring all of this out. So you wouldn't have to.

You're welcome.

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The other big news: I've been cast as "Buddy" in Professor Jack and the Electric Club, Jeff Waltrowski's follow-up to Project: Valkyrie. PJ&EC is a genuine tribute to '40s serials and is being done in black 'n white and will actually be serialized on the internet - the first time, at least to my knowledge, that a real serial will be offered in the new frontier that is this nifty internet thing. Now we have to convince Jeff to include a cartoon and a newsreel after each segment.

The first episode is called "Message from Beyond the Moon". Professor Jack, Buddy and Penny journey to find a the crew of a previous moon mission. We encounter Moon Men and The Queen of the Moon (played by Amy!). We're shooting the whole thing in front of a green screen, with the backgrounds and sets added in later by the lovely and talented Jacob Ross.

Here's what I look like in the film:

A little bit Ronald Coleman, a little bit Clark Gable. A little bit Snoopy.

You can check out more about this terribly cool project at http://www.myspace.com/theelectricclub

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Big news about Abattoir and The Resurrection Game, coming soon!

Why I Hate Tuesdays

This blog was originally intended to be about my admiration of Terry Gilliam, how he's one of my personal heroes and someone in whose shoes I never want to be.

However, that will have to wait. I want to tell everyone about what happened to me this past Tuesday.

We are in the process of upgrading our computer equipment. We'd intended to pick up a new PC with a dual processor so that we could return to running Premiere and, let's say, Notepad at the same time. I figured, in hindsight somewhat naively, that once the tower was bought, I could take my old DVD burners, replace the crappy Lightscribe burner we were inflicted with, and slave my back up internal hard drive to the new hard drive, just as I have in the past.

But, no. IBM and PC have decided that all the old connections I was familiar with have been arbitrarily replaced. So I spent hours upon hours, with the help of Amy's father, trying desperately to retrofit the new computer and get it to recognize my older components. And having, well, no luck whatsoever.

Tuesday: In the midst of struggling and swearing and re-installing my old software, grateful, at least, that we'd managed to buy the last existing PC running Windows XP and avoiding the bullet that is Windows Vista, there came a knock at my door. It was my neighbor, Ralph. He's the gentleman sheep farmer who rents us some of his land as pasture for our horses. He also supplies us with large roundbales of hay for the said horrible beasts so they don't starve in the winter.

"I need your help," he said. And I figured he needed me to open the gate for him so he could drive his tractor into the pasture and deliver the bale. Well, as it turns out, he'd already done that. "And your horses took off up the road. They'd never done that before. Normally, they just wait for me to leave and they go right to the hay."

I ran upstairs and thew on some clothes more appropriate to tramping around in the snow. I figured they were right up over the hill, probably in another neighbor's barn, chowing down on other hay bales, etc. They wouldn't have gone far. Ralph felt really bad about the situation, so I was trying to remain light and positive, even though I just wanted to find the two mares, shoot them, and roll them over the hill for dragging me out into the cold.

Grabbing harnesses, a couple of buckets of grain and a lead rope, my thought was that I'd whistle for them, they'd come down, I'd throw a rope around Callie, the older horse, and Filly, the younger, would follow.

My nearest neighbor, Mr. Kiger, is a quarter of a mile away. Up a steep hill. At the crest of the hill, and Mr. Kiger's land, we discovered no horses. Their tracks showed that they were there, but kept on going.

At this point, I could hardly breathe. I ran back down to the house (running a quarter mile down hill in the freezing cold with only a sweatshirt but no coat), I retreived my keys and got my car. Driving back up the hill, I saw Ralph still trudging along towards our next neighbor's land. I let him into the car and we continued on. He'd heard them at the top of the next hill.

I didn't know these next neighbors. Had no idea that they owned horses too. Let alone a rather large Appaloosa stallion who had not, upon first glance, been gelded. There were my two mares - right up against his fence, while he pranced around and screamed, trying to figure out how to get at them.

I whistled. They came. I realized I'd grabbed the wrong halters. Neither was big enough for either one of them. Not a problem for Callie - she's content with a lead rope around her neck provided there's food promised. Filly would be more difficult. Particularly when it became clear that neither wanted to leave the stallion's sight.

I buckled the short halter around Filly's neck, which was all I could do. I looped the lead around Callie, then fed the end through Filly's collar/halter, effectively teaming them together. Then I struggled to get them to walk. They didn't want to. I tried holding a bucket of grain before them. It worked for a bit, then Callie knocked it out of my hand and stopped in the middle of the snowy road to feed.

I should point out that it had been snowing for a couple of days at this point. PenDot doesn't like to plow our road. It's inconvenient, being on the side of a mountain, lacking guard rails, spilling into near 90-degree drops at some points. A snow plow driver could get killed plowing a road like this!

I'm pulling and pushing and cursing these damned horses out as I try to force them to start walking the half-mile plus back to their pasture. They did NOT want to go. Meanwhile, Ralph followed behind me in my car. My only thought was, if he has to get out at any point to help me, someone is going to come along and steal my car. Because that was the kind of day I was destined to have.

Also meanwhile, the owner of the stallion is watching me from behind his fence. He's terribly entertained by my struggles. And does nothing to help. Particularly, he refuses to do the one thing that will improve my life drastically: take the stallion into its barn and out of the sight of my mares. Instead, he lets the stallion prance and scream, he lets me fight my horses all the way down the road by his acreage. And he refuses to even answer me when I ask why he's just standing there watching?

A few minutes later, the one thing I was was dreading occurred: a pick up truck comes around the corner. I was surprised that it was going slowly. Probably, due to the snowy road, the driver was being cautious.

Until he saw the poor, helpless city boy struggling with two mares at the side of the road. The driver now figures that the best way to help this guy would be to, well, gun his engine and shoot past the horses in order to spook them out of their fucking minds!

I'm doing everything with these horses you're not supposed to. And by the time this truck comes along, I've been struggling with them to cross the road. I've somehow wound up between them.

When the asshole in the truck shoots past us, Callie and Filly both spook, turn around and start to drag me back up the hill.

They dragged me for about twenty feet before they recognized that it was me screaming "Whoa!" Callie stopped abruptly and swung her head back towards me. Since I was more or less tethered to her, I swung with this motion - into the steel guardrail. Then Filly felt the need to kick my thigh. Not hard enough to really hurt. Just hard enough to make me feel more abused.

We were still at the edge of the stallion's land. He was still screaming. His owner was still watching and still grinning and I was still vowing revenge. I knew what was happening and why it was happening.

I don't believe in God. And that pisses Him off.

After about a month of this, I finally fought and swore those damned horses back down to their pasture. The last eighth of a mile or so, Callie gets pissed that she can't see the stallion any longer and starts biting me. Then whacking me in the side of the head with her head.

I, in turn, admonish her, telling her that this is her fault. She ran out. If she hadn't run out we wouldn't be going through all of this. Because, you know, horses understand cause and effect.

The pasture: The gate was open and there was Ralph's tractor, waiting. The horses were, naturally, wary of the tractor, so they ran past it quickly. Remember: I'm still more or less attached to them. I hold tight to their various ropes and halters until Ralph parks my car and works his way over to the pasture to close the gate behind me. Because I knew the minute I let go, they were going to bolt right back to that stallion again.

There's no real climax to this story. Once they were back in their pasture, they walked calmly over to their hay bale and ignored my presence. Ralph climbed into his tractor and returned home. I limped/crawled back across the street and into the house, returning to my pile of waiting programs and my new PC, which was still laughing at me in all of its incompatibility.

And that's why I don't like Tuesdays.

A short anniversary announcement

Just a short anniversary announcement. Wanted to do this yesterday but The Empty Ghost Town That is Pittsburgh wouldn't let me. It claims, via banners and great announcements, that it is a "WiFi City". Apparently, it was only kidding.

As of yesterday, February 6, Amy and I have been together for thirteen years. We'd known each other for a couple of years prior, but it wasn't until 1994 that we finally got together. Five years later, we were married.

So last night, I got to have a good dinner with the woman who has been my absolute best friend for a third of my life. We put all the work-stuff aside. Forgot about the pending projects and the upcoming trips (as best we could) and just tried to celebrate the achievement that is the last 10 + 3 years.

With all the ups and downs and middles, I wouldn't have traded a second of it. Honest.

Love you, Amy.

Thank you - now vote!

I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes. You made it a very special -6th Anniversary of my 40th Birthday. To all of you, have a clam:

Second, I want to bring the Rondo Awards to everyone's attention. Every year, these prestigious awards are granted to the pinnacle examples of classic genre - books, movies, television, events and magazines. And I must say, Sirens of Cinema is woefully under-represented on this year's ballot. And by "under-represented" I mean, not on there at all.

The nice thing about the Rondos, however, is the "Or write in another choice" section, giving the voters a chance to cast their own ballots. Which I'm urging you to do now.

Go HERE, take some time, cast your vote (and don't miss that our good buddy Rich Scrivani's book on his lift with Zacherley is on there too) and do us all a favor and give a little love to Sirens.

Write in for category 10. Best Magazine - "Sirens of Cinema" (if you truly feel this way, which, of course, I'm sure you do.)

Write in for category 11. Best Article - "______" by "_______" from Sirens of Cinema - because, man, we busted our asses last year to bring readers some amazing content! In this category, you can vote for TWO CHOICES!

Category 12 is just not fair. There are some beautiful covers represented there, true, but also some truly lackluster ones - covers that don't come close to Mike Lilly's gatefold cover of Sirens of Cinema #5 or Mike Apice's wrap-around Kong cover from Sirens of Cinema #2. Throw caution to the wind and do a write-in here, too. You'll feel good about yourself all day if you do.

(And I can't help but notice that Genghis Con, PA is not listed among the fine entries of Category 14. Best Convention, but that's not (specifically) the focus of today's little call-to-arms. The Blood Bath: Blood Wrestling event isn't in Category 15 either. Again, beside the point.)

So, again, Go HERE, take some time, cast your vote and do us all a favor and give a little love to Sirens.

We love you, too.

First post of 2007

Ahhh, the first post of 2007. And has 2007 so far lived up to my expectations? Has it truly cast-off the spectre of 2006? Shall it be the year to end all years?

As of this writing, I have not been run over by a truck. Depending on your point of view, this is either the best or worst thing I can report.

I am but seven days away from my 34th birthday. Or, as I like to refer to it, the negative-sixth anniversary of my 40th birthday (yeah, all you stuck-up linear chronologists can suck it!). We're planning a big bash for the celebratory "Escape from the Womb" event. If you can't make it, please send donations (monetary and physical expressions of your love can be made via our paypal address).

In the meantime, I toil.

Yesterday, after about seven hours, I finished the edit of Retreat, the short film we produced for Melantha Blackthorne's Countess Bathoria's Graveyard Tales. This was the result of a whirlwind single-day shoot, chronicaling the oft-told tale of the beginning of a zombie epidemic. (We at Happy Cloud Pictures just can't escape the zombies, can we?)

The script was designed to be something that could be shot in a single day, minus some expository exteriors. And because it was such a tread-upon story, we decided to take a different approach to it visually and structually. At least for us. Amy, DP Jeff Waltrowski and I decided it would have a documentary feel to it, so we lit it naturally (as opposed to our tried-and-true subjective feel (which also allows us to cheat) we love so much), shot hand-held with the wide-angle lens and did a lot of Homicide: Life on the Streets-style compositions - lots of dialogue delivered off-screen while focussing on the subject of the shot, lots of shoulders and hips dominating the foreground, etc.

The result is a tense, frenetic eight minutes, climaxing with a cool and bloody shoot-out. I also decided, while editing, that I'd forgo music and most editing tricks--except for one instance. Usually, I love to pack my movies with score, slow-mo and dissolves (it provides a nice rhythm and covers compositional mistakes, but it wasn't until Abattoir that I became aware that this was actually a style of mine). In Retreat, these devices are kept to the bare minimum. For the music, there are only four notes used in the whole thing (composed by me in Garage Band, which, in truth, was all I was up for).

So, ultimately, I'm pretty proud of this thing. It's different than other things we've done, which is important to our growth as a company. It also proved that we are bringing a really solid rep company together--we're starting to to develop solid machinery, with everyone chipping in on the production and turning out a pretty solid product in the end.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Melantha incorporates it into the final product. There are, I think, eight or ten filmmakers contributing shorts to this project, including Melantha and JimmyO (in fact, we intended to have JimmyO's daughter, Lilli, who stars in his short, S'mores, cameo in our section, but the weather and our vehicles worked against us when we visited over the first of the year).

Plus, it was good practice for when we come together in the spring for our next production (which I'll announce here soon).

***

Abattoir has been sent out to the Dead By Dawn Film Festival in Scotland. It was the first time any of our stuff was requested to be submitted to anything (outside of events run by friends, of course). We're taking this to be a very good sign. If it's accepted, I have to figure out how to get the movie transferred to Beta SP PAL without having to sell my body to cover the expense. Fortunately, Scooter McCrae and Scott Simmons both gave me some ideas. Unfortunately, both of them have suggested "selling my organs", which is only a short step from the former. Then we have to figure out how to afford to get over to Scotland. My body is going to be sore and filled with sawdust, I suspect.

***

Blood Bath: Blood Wrestling Vol. 1 is, if I haven't already mentioned it, NOW AVAILABLE at our site. If you're a fan of sexy women rolling around in fake blood and beating the hell out of each other - and really, who isn't? - you should order at least three copies of this. We shot with five cameras, folks! It took me weeks to edit this! Then it took me another two weeks to figure out why the audio would bounce from front to back speakers without warning. And when I didn't figure out the why, I had to figure out the "what do I do about it"? (It took the Dummies books for both Final Cut and Premiere Pro before I finally found the solution, though I never located the cause.) And, hey, we have a featurette dedicated to the ladies showering after the match! Isn't that enough to keep you warm on those long and lonely winter nights?

***

2007, as I've said, will be bringing some new developments, including the long-awaited Severe Injuries-in-Wal-Mart deal (hopefully) and something cool involving the 10th Anniversary of The Resurrection Game, which I hope to announce soon. Matt Gilligan just finished a brand new poster for Res, which I'll unveil here and on the site.

We're also planning on updating our computer equipment, as I've nearly burned out our PC and prefer to finish DVDs in Encore. So a new computer will be vastly helpful.

Also look for a new book from me (God, I love talking about me) and the afore-mentioned next feature. If the powers-that-be on our side, there will be other things to announce as well. What will become of Genghis Con III? What's new in store for Sirens of Cinema Magazine? (Issue #6 with Justice Howard cover on sale now!) All these questions and more will be answered when I get around to them.

For now, have a clam:

Final Thoughts for 2006

I've been taking a lot of stock of my life over the past few weeks. 2006, while being 100% better than 2005 for us, creatively-speaking, really tried to go out kicking and screaming since the beginning of December, unleashing a lot of hell upon us. I'll refer everyone to my previous blog, which details the absolute worst day of my entire life and kicked off a chain of, while not tragic, per se, certainly annoying events. But that's the way most years seem to go out, so I'm trying to take it all in stride.

2005, as I've mentioned, was one ball-kick after another, and I vowed that 2006 would be an improvement. And it was. We shot 3 1/2 really stand-out projects this year (High Stakes, Abattoir, Blood Bath and our upcoming Retreat which will be finished by the middle of January). Put on a pretty decent convention, put out four really great issues of Sirens of Cinema, and set the ground-work for what might be an even more successful 2007.

2006 saw me drift in and out of a number of part-time jobs, most of which ended due to my conflicts outside of gainful employment. But this December, I landed something that is not only paying me consistently, but also wound up being terrifically flexible, ensuring I won't have to quit or inconvenience anyone when Amy and I have to travel out of town for shoots, conventions, etc. (It's so flexible, I went to work last Thursday to be told that the entire office was closed from the 22nd to the 2nd, so that was a pleasant surprise.) What's better, I actually enjoy the work. Yeah, I have to drive an hour and a half to get there, drop Amy off at work, then walk two miles across the City of Shattered Dreams and Tumbleweeds that is Pittsburgh, PA, but that's going to ensure that I will also get back into shape and lose some of the full-time writer's physique I've acquired from sitting on my ass every single day for the past five years.

And I'm slowly relearning how to accept happiness. It will take a lot of work, and a possible new and nifty prescription of American medication (the chemical solution to life's problems) to get back on track, but I think I actually made some headway today.

It's my biggest problem right now: suspicion of good fortune. I live with the constant fear that I am standing on a big white 'X' and any time something good happens, I'm convinced that it will immediately be followed by a falling piano. It's gotten to the point that any amount of good news has me not only knocking on wood out of heathen superstition, but coming to feel in my heart of hearts that the good fortune will be, at any moment, snatched away from me anyway so there's no point in actually celebrating. In short: I've conditioned myself, Pavlov-style, to reject happiness like a mismatched transplanted organ. I replace any good feelings, as quickly as I can, with suspicion, dread and, usually, anger.

And quite frankly, I'm tired of feeling this way.

I've counted here, many times over, how this self-fulfilling prophecy has worked for me. I celebrate a script deal, then watch it slowly turn to shit in the hands of others. I complete a project, then dread that it will be poorly-received, rejected, etc. And I have to ask: is this fate's doing, or my own karmic sabotage? Is optimism truly an invitation for luck to vanish? Or is my pessimism simply taking over the minute a smile creeps onto my face?

So I tried an experiment today.

Yesterday, we took our car in for a simple alignment and oil change. The whole job would have cost $50 tops. An hour later, our mechanic calls with this question: "Did you know your oil pan is cracked and that your car is officially undrivable?" Our $50 quick fix suddenly became a $400 nightmare. We're only a few days past Christmas, folks; we got no money to cover this very necessary expenditure. So last night, while I tried to hang out with Don and Jeff, both of whom stinging from problems of their own, I wallowed in worry and doubt and fret.

This morning, we discovered that my first paycheck from the new company had come in just before Christmas and I hadn't opened it. Inside, minus taxes, was about half of what we need to cover the car. (The other half will arrive in a matter of days from one of the companies I do publicity for.) Even better, I discovered that I'm making roughly a dollar per hour more than I initially expected from this new company.

Now the experiment: I allowed myself to be happy about this turn of events. It was fortune. If I'd opened the mail on the day it had come, we'd have spent the money already - either on other bills or on more presents for each other or... well, the list is endless. In any event, it would have been allocated for other things. We found it at just the right time. I gave myself exactly one minute to worry - was the phone going to ring and announce some new car problem? Would our second car's wheels miraculously and simultaneously blow off in all four directions needing a replacement to the tune of my first paycheck right down to the penny? The minute passed. Nothing new and disasterous happened. I had, it would seem, sidestepped the 'X'. The piano didn't fall. So I relaxed.

This wasn't easy for me. Being raised Catholic, martyrdom comes very easily to me. I considered the above a very big step in my becoming a new human being. One that will actually allow himself to be happy.

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I can be a bit of a bastard. I know, I know, it's hard to believe. I don't take compliments well. I have mastered the Ninja style of Sarcasm and use it in both defense and offense. I'm narcissistic, self-loathing, edgy, jumpy, raging, egotistical and tend to lash out at those I love and refer to it as "affection". And God (or whoever) help me, I'm trying to change. Mellow at the very least. I'm tired of smashing bones on unyielding walls when frustration pushes me to the breaking point. Mainly because my breaking point is getting easier and easier to reach any more. Hence the grey hair, the TMJ, ragged nails, and steel cables connecting my neck to my shoulders. T'ain't healthy. But I'm trying.

So my New Year's resolutions have nothing to do with the sit-com cliches. I just want to work on making 2007 work better for me than 2006. Again, professionally, we already have some wheels turning that could translate to some really exciting projects including a new feature, the possible sale of two past features and the possible appearance of yet another of our past features in dollar stores across the country. Sure, there are a lot of "maybes" in there, not a lot of "is"s, but they're all steps in the right direction. There's a lot of potential for "woo hoo" in there. I'd like to actually feel the celebration when they happen. And you'll notice, too, the "when" there. Because, for the love of God (or whoever), I'm very, oh so very, tired of "if"s.

So the big white "X" be damned. Imaginary fate piano be damned. I'm going to try giving optimism a shot. I'm going to try very hard to not turn every corner prepared to duck a punch. I'm not so naive to know this isn't going to be difficult. I'm fully aware that I'm talking about undoing years of conditioning, Catholic and White Guilt and plain old modern day pessimism. Just because I wear a lot of black doesn't mean I want to go Goth, emotionally.

So bear with me, me, because you're in for a hell of a battle, I think.

***

I'd like to leave 2006 with a collection of random thoughts:

- Driving across the McKees Rocks bridge the other day, I noticed a Pro-Life abolitionist standing at the light wearing a sandwich board. On it was a photo of an aborted fetus, in a circle, with a big red line through it, like a "no smoking" sign. I realized I never see any pro-Choice people doing the same sort of thing. What would the Pro-Choice equivalent to that sign be? The same picture of the same dead baby, only with a "Thumbs Up" next to it?

This thought got me giggling all the way across the bridge. Which is what made me realize, yet again, that I'm a very sick individual. And that thought made me proud.

***

Speaking of "no smoking", two restaurants are suing the City of Pittsburgh - with backing money from RJ Reynolds, no less - over the recent city-wide smoking ban. And I applauded the suit, feeling more than slightly greasy that I agree with any stance that RJ Reynolds "Big Tobacco" is taking.

I don't smoke; I hate smoke. It makes me physically ill. I hate the way I smell when I come home after a day spent with smokers. I needle my smoking friends and thank them for the cancer whenever they light up around me. I think it's an idiotic habit. And I insist that if they're allowed to smoke, I should be allowed to chronically masturbate. (And it makes me uncomfortable when they tell me to go for it right there in their living rooms...)

But I never want to be the guy who tells someone what they can and can't do. I ask that people don't smoke inside my house. Everyone I know who smokes respects that. Most of my smoking friends will point their smoke away from me as much as possible. But if this ban goes through, what's the next thing to go? Table salt? Alcohol (again)? Noisy children? (Actually, that last one isn't such a bad idea) Once you outlaw one thing, other things follow. It's a dangerous path, this smoking ban, and I want to see it eliminated. If I end up in my grave because of second-hand smoke-induced cancer, at least it came from the lungs of my friends and at least I wasn't rescued by the Gestapo.

***

Dane Cook isn't funny. I'm sorry everyone. And the Original Kings of Comedy are none of the above. Redneck humor can go away now too. We already have pro wrestling, what do we need Larry the Cable Guy for?

***

The title of the movie Invincible annoys me. It's about a guy named "Vince", so I'm sure Hollywood thought it was being clever by naming the film Invincible. Really, what the title is translating to is The Inability to be Vince. It was a dumb idea, guys. For Christ's sake, think!

***

I'm tired of cute talking animal movies. I thought after Barn Yard and Flushed Away and Over the Hedge that everyone else was too. Then Happy Feet came out and we're back in that rut again.

***

Freedom Writers... how many times are they going to make this movie? Dangerous Minds, Take the Lead, Step it Up, Dead Poets Society ... Teachers, could you just have a positive influence on your kids and take pride in that? Stop writing books about the experiences. Please. Just give us a decade or so to recover, okay? We're all still stinging from Pay it Forward.

***

The Star Wars Trilogy was released, unmolested, on DVD around Thanksgiving. All is finally right with the world. We can finally stop holding our breaths in fear of what Lucas may do to us next. We got our childhood back...

Until next year,

Mike Watt

Today I had to kill something

I woke up this morning, aching and recovering from a cold. I took out the garbage, fed the horses and discovered our dog, Zoya, attacking a deer.

Deer are everywhere down here. They live on our property - especially during hunting season; they seem to know we don't allow hunting on our 30 or so acres. We dodge them every day on the road. Five years and we haven't hit one yet. I'll stress yet so as not to jinx myself. People consider them nuisances, which is fine.

Got the dog inside, inspected the deer. She was hurt, obviously, and lying in the ditch where we'd found our other dog, Lilly, a few years back. The deer must have been very hurt as she let me not only get within a few feet of her, but let me touch her. Not the smartest of moves, but I'm an animal person.

Amy called, told me to keep the dogs inside because there was a deer lying in front of our mailbox. "Nope," I said. "She moved." Tufts of deer hair lined the trail where she'd dragged herself to what she thought would be safety. Amy had seen her this morning. Drove the the Waynesburg police station - found it locked. Tried the county office. It was wide open, but no one was there. She called local then state police, who promised they'd be out. No one came.

I went back out, sat with her a bit, dragged some more cover over near her so she'd be hidden from any random dipshit driving down the road. Living in a rural area, folks get overzealous with their rifles around here. Saturday, while filming, some drunken assholes saw some deer in our neighbor's yard and started shooting at them from their car. And at our horses and Ralph's sheep in the process. Those were the assholes I wanted to protect this deer from.

I left her some of the horse's apple chips and went back inside to get some work done. Bill gets up around 9:30. He hunts. He'd always been my go-to guy when wounded animals appeared in the past. I've never even killed mice rescued from cats. Except for one raccoon and one suicidal chipmonk, I've never even hit animals with my car - despite the fact that I live on a pitch-black road. And I've always managed to avoid deer. But I knew it was inevitable that this deer would need to be put down.

About nine am, I hear a rifle shot outside my house. Running out in boots and sweatpants, I discover a guy about my age with a scope rifle, barrel resting on the ledge of his truck door (steadying his shot or expecting the deer to return fire?). He fired again and took a third shot just as I came out. An older man--don't know his name but recognize him from some of the very few community functions we'd attended and who obviously knew us--came around the car to me. "How many fucking shots are you planning on taking?" I demanded. The deer was already wounded and lying fifty feet away in a ditch and this asshole needed THREE SHOTS?
"Sorry, didn't know you were home," our neighbor explained. Then explained further that his son-in-law had overshot the first bullet, but the second put her down and out of her misery. "What was the third shot for?" I wanted to ask, but didn't want to talk further. Part of me was glad that she was down and at peace.

They drove away as quickly as they could - not even bothering to check on her. I went over to do that.

And she was still breathing. And still struggling. And the bullet hadn't hit anything vital.
And she whimpered.

I ran into the house, called Bill and asked him to come up as quickly as he could. Since I'd woken him up, it was going to be a few minutes. As I called Amy, in a rage at our stupid fucking neighbors, I loaded my .45. The same .45 I've used as a prop for the last two movies. The one I've pointed at all my friends, unloaded. The .45 I've used for target practice, failing to hit any target under five yards. I went outside.

She was still whimpering. Bill was still a few minutes out. And I knew that if her wounds from the car were so bad that she'd been unable to get away that this new pain couldn't possibly be any worse.

But she was whimpering. And breathing heavy. And then she looked at me.

I don't know how to kill deer. I don't know where their hearts are.

I put the gun to her head, between her ear and her eye, looked away and pulled the trigger.

I know it was the adrenaline that made her try to get up. The blood stopped flowing almost immediately, so I knew she was dead. I know the movement was reflex, the body shutting down. But it felt like I sat there forever to wait for everything to stop. It was only a minute or so, but time really did slow down as I waited for this poor animal to die. And I hated myself - for pulling the trigger, for having to, for crying while I did.

I sat there with my hands on her, waiting with her. Stupid, sure. But I had to. I couldn't make myself walk away from her.

Bill pulled up a minute later, checked my shot, assured me that it had put her down at once. That it was a good shot. Never once cajoling me for crying or being upset - not that he would have, but others around here would.

He helped me move it across the road to the other side of my property, where nature could take over. Foxes and raccoons have to fatten up for the winter and it was better than letting her rot on a landfill somewhere.

Her rear leg was shattered - I could feel the bones grinding as I hefted her up, afraid the meat was going to tear away. There was at least one compound fracture. Whoever hit her ran over her leg and kept going. It had to have been agony for her for the last three or so hours.

Let me tell you, it would have been easier for me to open fire on our dumb-ass "helpful" neighbors than it was to pull the trigger on that poor deer. I've never killed anything before. Never wanted to. Right now I'm sick and I'm angry and I know that there are more than a few of you out there that think I'm a royal pussy right now, but I don't give a shit.

Today someone put me in the position where I had to put a gun to a living animal's head and pull the trigger. I had her blood cool on my hands. And that's going to be with me. If not for the rest of my life, then for the rest of the day. And this isn't how I wanted to spend my day.

Other places you can find us

A few months ago, my good friend at EI Cinema, Mike Raso, approached Amy and I to contribute to the suppliamental section to the anniversary DVD of John Russo's Santa Claws. We managed to run down Bill Hinzman, another friend, who appears in the movie and did the movie's cinematography. We interviewed him, I whipped up some liner notes and additional interview questions for Debbie Rochon and sent the raw footage in.

The DVD finally hit the shelves in September. EI sent me some copies, which I promptly misplaced during the Genghis Con hoopla. Debbie emailed me to compliment me on the liner notes, though, particularly in my restraint as I refrained from ridiculing the movie in the slightest. Santa Claws is a fun little slasher that opens itself up to a lot of cheap shots. I felt it was my duty to mention Russo's missteps with Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition and Children of the Dead, but they aren't slams. It wouldn't be fair to beat up on the movie you were hired to introduce. It was the first "film scholar" duties I was hired to do since the commentary for SRS's DVD of Campfire Tales.

In October, a brand new edition of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit the stores in a snazzy gold tin keep case. It boasts a number of extras including a new documentary, Flesh Wounds: Seven Stories of the Saw, directed and edited by Mike Felsher of Red Shirt Productions. I had forgotten that he'd shot a good deal of footage at our first Genghis Con, PA show, when Gunnar Hansen and Ed Neal were our headliners. He also interviewed me about Chain Saw a month later at Monstermania in New Jersey.

A large amount of this interview actually wound up in the documentary, along with interviews with the extremely wonderful Ken Kish of Cinema Wasteland. I was shocked at how much Mike used, actually. I was also shocked at how self-deprecating I was during the piece, but oh well. Sometimes, that's me.

Even though I've been in the game as long as I have, it's always a surprise to see the things that I've contributed to or wind up involved with, even in small ways. I recently wound up as the publicist for the exemplary Severin-Films due to the recommendations from Alex and Ian at Heretic Films and Ed Samuelson from DVD Maniacs. Apparently, publicity is not something I suck at. But it was still nice to learn that people I work and with for have a high opinion of me.

I'm hoping that the work for EI turns into more work next year. Quite honestly, stuff like the job I did for Santa Claws and Campfire Tales were just fun. I'd like to do more. But, in the meantime, I'm content to kill myself over our own stuff. Speaking of such things, look for Blood Bath: Blood Wrestling Vol. 1 to be available in January. We're taking pre-orders now. We'll also be beefing up the official Happy Cloud site in the coming months and starting two new and exciting projects (as I've already mentioned). So maybe I shouldn't be so quick to wish for more work. I'm already busy with more than I can handle. If the Film Gods are truly benevolent, they'll let all this effort translate into money...

Robert Altman and the GOP Majority: Rest in Piece

I’m surprised that no one has commented on Robert Altman’s death. Maybe it hasn’t resonated yet. Maybe a lot of you thought he’d already died just after “Gosford Park”. I always had a fascination with Altman, but never really especially enjoyed his movies. I don’t particularly like any of his films, though I do respect them. I think he revolutionized dramatic presentation and know he was an actor’s director. He just wasn’t much of an audience’s director. I do think that American filmmaking will suffer from his loss. Like him or hate him, there was no one else like him.

* * *

I've been meaning to mention the best thing about the last elections: all the voters were so adamant about sending the Republican incumbents a message that they had forgotten to get hysterical about the Democrats sneaking into their houses in the middle of the night and revoking the Second Amendment as they slept, taking their guns away. When Kerry was running, that’s all I heard from the galloping galoots in my little rural paradise. “If the Democrats gain power, they’ll take all your guns away. You won’t be allowed to hunt no more! Or protect your family!” Protect them from whom, I’m not really sure. If a rampaging maniac wants to trek the three miles into the country to reach my house and kill me, he’s earned the right to try.

But this time around, most people were more concerned with getting rid of the current crop of GOP warmongers. But now that the dancing has died down in the streets, the fear is starting to creep in. I saw a little sign—actually a big sign—taped in the back window of a large mom-mobile, lettered in hysteria and blocking the driver’s vision, screaming that PA’s Governor, Ed Rendell, is “going to take your guns away”. And must be stopped. Even though he was just re-elected.

Now I don’t follow politics quite that closely, but I have never heard Rendell make any rumblings about gun control in the slightest. He’s a hunter, for one thing. And he’s also far more concerned with making slot machine gambling legal in the state. And figuring out how to lower property taxes without allowing anyone to really benefit from this lowering. Those are his two main concerns—you might even say, his only concerns.

So to all the hysterical gun-toting, meat-eating folks out there (and I consider myself to be both), *ahem*: No one is going to take your guns! For one thing, most of you own multiple guns. What happens if Ed Rendell, or Al Gore, or whoever, shows up at your door asking for them? You’re going to pull a gun on him. They all know this. Your guns are safe.

So shut the fuck up and go hug your kids.

* * *

Personally, I’m happy that the Democrats took power. I really am. Now I’m only terrified that over the next two years, George Bush will somehow declare himself Caesar and never go away. Rather than my former terror that the U.S. will be simply blotted off the face of the map by our own hands. Or that intellectuals will be rounded up, sodomized and shot (no, wait, that could very well still happen).

Now, while I’m happy that the Republicans got their asses handed to them, I’m not so naïve to think that anything is actually going to change. I understand how the world works. Governments of any nation attract only the corrupt and ineffectual. No one sane or with any integrity would want the job!

However, I do understand psychology. So while I don’t think change will happen, I am convinced that change will actually happen. Or, rather, that people will believe that something has changed. The economy will recover because people will think that, with the regime change, the economy has recovered. Even if gas prices stay where they are, so long as they don’t spike another dollar, people will be content. And they’ll start to relax and begin to deficit spend again. And thus, the economy will recover.

With the Democrats in power, people will think that the war will come to an end, despite all evidence to the contrary. So when Bush does leave office in 2008, the war will inevitably end and the American people will attribute this end to the change in power. Even though nothing really changed.

And I’m desperately hoping for this perception. I need the American people to believe that change is occurring.

Because I have movies to sell. They don’t have stars or big budgets or media tie-ins. And I need people to start risking their money on movies they’ve never heard of, just like they did a decade ago, when I didn’t have movies to sell. So I need movie fans to relax and start spending money they don’t have. I want a little chunk of wonderful Capitalism.

I’m not asking the entire country to sacrifice baby formula or insulin for copies of The Resurrection Game, but if they could go without a pack of cigarettes for a single day… Yes, I realize that doing without insulin might be more realistic…

Anyway, isn’t that the spirit of Capitalism? The American Dream? That if you work your ass off, you can be rich and famous and tax exempt? Puppies and blow jobs for everyone? Isn’t that what it breaks down to in Econ 101?

Or did I make that last part up?

Brief updates

There's a whole slew of updates over at the Happy Cloud Pictures blog. That should answer all the nagging questions that four of you have been asking.

Been meaning to update this for some time but either couldn't get around to it, couldn't slog my way through the rest of the work fast enough or, to be honest, just didn't have the energy. I'm a strict believer in only blogging when I have something to say. As strange as it may seem, there are days when I just don't have anything to say.

But, I will now perservere:

After a few crazed weeks of trying to put the new issue of Sirens of Cinema to bed and editing Blood Bath: Blood Wrestling Vol. 1 (see below), we managed to fit two more shows into the year. The first, It Came From Lake Michigan, granted us the opportunity to catch up with friends Sofiya Smirnova, Brinke Stevens, Michael Berryman and Debbie Rochon, and allowed us to meet a whole slew of new cool people like Elske McCain, the musician Mars, the awesome Eddie Deezen, a cool collective of Wisconsin filmmakers and the guys behind the upcoming Hot Rod Zombies.

While the show itself left a bit to be desired, this could have more to do with the fact that nobody seems to live in Racine, Wisconsin. To prove this theory, I went for a walk in search of any kind of food and passed one person on the street. My walk took place at one pm on Saturday afternoon. The only people in the Quiznos (the only open restaraunt I stumbled upon) were myself and the two people behind the counter. It was nice to come home that weekend.

The next week, we were supposed to head out to Tampa for a show I won't mention here. No point in running it down. Amy had been helping promote this convention in its various forms for about three years. When it finally came to it, the inexperienced promoter hadn't been able to raise the money to bring us down, but didn't let us know about his dilemma until the Wednesday before we were supposed to leave. Annoyed, but having no choice, we elected to stay home and take a road trip to Cleveland to see A Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D.

I was a lot more pissed off than Amy (who was only a little bummed that she was missing spending her birthday in the warmth of Florida and, more specifically, the hotel pool), as it turns out, the show barely attracted thirty people in three days. Again, I was more annoyed than Amy was at this promoter, I don't wish those kinds of numbers on anyone. It is my sincere hope that this show didn't bankrupt the poor, misguided guy.

Finally, this past weekend, we were guests at the first Hotel Horror Convention in Warren, Ohio, held at the same odd little Comfort Inn that Dark X-Mas had been held last year. The show did fairly well for a first-year, thanks to the dilligence of promoters AJ, Josh Maldonado and Lynn Mars (of Doorway Productions). And it was nice to finish out the year with Brinke, Tim Gross and our new favorite person, Dee Wallace. I even managed to line up some new content for next year's run of Sirens, so a good weekend all around. Sadly, I was unable to drink as much as I usually enjoy to at these things. My Irish side felt a bit cheated.

But with the year coming to a close, it'll be nice to have a few weekends to ourselves at home. Of course, those weekends will be filled with the cringe-inducing combination of filming and Christmas shopping. And I'll be facing the wonderful inevitability of aging again in January.

But there are some cool things that might possibly pay off over the next few months and, provided I'm not standing on a large white 'X', said things might actually happen. So I remain optimistic. Or, at least, too exhausted to worry about it.

IL-literature

So, I wake up this morning and see from my email alert that a "User has commented on your YouTube movie". And I know right then that this can't possibly be good news.

Sure enough, the "comment", such as it is, is a misspelled mess telling me that my little teaser for Severe Injuries "reli reli reli sux". Their spelling, of course. They also spell the word "that" as "tht", which seems to be an epidemic on YouTube. The word "That", one of our favorite impersonal Pronouns, obviously has too many letters for our on-the-go, have-to-make-my-opinion-known InterneTeen crowd.

So I thanked Mr. Constructive Criticism for his time and told him that the minute I translated his message into English, I'm sure that I'd take his comment to heart. Which was a pointless exercise on my part. I doubt the comment-eer will come back to check and see if his "thoughts" upset me or not.

And if he did check and see my response, no doubt he'll get all up in arms, which seems to be another epidemic. If you call them on being the little illiterate punks that they are, they come back with, "This is what makes us different. This is our generation, dude." At least, that's what I think they're saying. Who can tell with the abbreviations standing in for words?

This isn't an American disease either. The wordsmith who posted this latest is from the UK, where English was invented.

So what makes the "kids" on the net different today is the inability to communicate? Are they, as a generation, aspiring towards autism, then?

Personally, I'm not sure what annoys me more about the email-culture that swarms the internet: the smugly illiterate compositions or the compulsive need to make your opinion known, particularly if all you have to say is "tht sux".

Now, bear in mind, please: I was not hurt or offended by the criticism. Criticism rarely bothers me, and when it is delivered in such eloquent terms, even less so. "Tht sux" is not criticism; it's barely more than striking random keys with your elbows. My bitch is the pride these lower primates take in their non-sentences and their negative opinions.

WHY does it suck, Your Honor? Or don't you have enough random consonants to formulate support for your opinion?

As an editor, I used to get irritated with the misuse of "your" versus "you're", "its" vs. "it's", "their", "they're" and "there"--I suppose now I should just be grateful that any of the letters make it into a word at all. And that a thought is being conveyed.

My brother-in-law, Darren Little, and some friends made a highly entertaining video parodying street magicians like David Blaine and Chris Angel, "That's Street Magic". Anyone with half a brain will figure out in the first four seconds that this is a parody--not of the magician's tricks, but of their supercilious attitudes. There are currently 845 comments on the video, most of them the equivalent of "tht sux".

Here's one classic piece of Illiterature: "lmao. from an adults point of view i would thing ur weird and should get a life. from a magicians point of view i would say dont bother doing shit like that, from a kids point of view your weird and that was some SHIT."

What the hell does that even mean?

More entertaining are the people that didn't get it at all! That the tricks presented in "That's Street Magic" are SUPPOSED TO BE FAKE! There is a scene where a man "swallows" three pens. He's not hiding the fact that he's just dropping them past his head. The fact that he's doing this with a straight face and "street" attitude IS THE JOKE.

Ahem: "BULLSHIT!! that wasn't even my card... thos pens were clearly being droppd on the floor... there was a cut the size of Australia when he was coming out of the box... and why do you think they didn't show the top of him when he was floating...?? could it be because he has a harness lifting him upp... *duh*.. =| DON'T BE FOOLED... GO TO CHRIS ANGEL TO SEE REAL TRICKS!"

By the way (or BTW in netspeak), in the last instance this scholar is referring to, Darren announces that he will now levitate. The camera pans to his feet. They lift from the ground, hover, and then lower. Our genius critic was quick to spot a "harness lifting him upp". In reality, Darren did a chin-up on a set of monkey bars. No harness required.

So does this indicate that the lower primate's mind was at least thinking? The gears were grinding, at any rate.

I am particularly fond of the reams of negativity to be found on Netflix. Go over there and look up Citizen Kane, arguably one of the finest films ever made. Look at the illiterature that piles up in the comments section for Orson Welles' first feature. "Tht sux" pops up more than once. "My friend said it was borning [sic] and he wuz right!"

Page after page of mental diarrea just like this. It's positively astounding.

Am I wasting my time being annoyed by things like this? Are comments pages merely the electronic equivalent of a graffiti-covered wall? Or is our culture in some serious trouble here?

I'll admit to being guilty of IM-contractions. I'll use a "brb" and a "k" (because OK just takes way too long to type!). I'm guilty of the and even the ;) and :) -- I admit it!

But I also have a habit of spell-checking my outgoing email. Particularly to parties I want to impress-- or at least trick into believing that I'm a somewhat intelligent human being.

The English language has difficult rules, I agree. We have consonants that pretend to be vowels (sometimes 'Y'??). We have other letters that pretend they're not present at all. (silent 'H'?? Are you on crack?)

"Did you know the 'sugar' is the only word where the letters 'su' make an 'sh' sound?"

"Sure."

Dammit!

So I'll cut the little grammar monsters a bit of slack in this area. But I can't seem to excuse sloppy execution when it comes to conveying ideas. Are our schools in this much trouble? Are we not even bothering to teach children (teens, adults) methodology behind communication? Or is this the by-product of our electronic culture? Did the Information Age devolve into the Dis-Information Age? Is it more important to have your voice heard than to have anything to say?

If it is... well, tht sux, dunnit?

* * *

While I'm sure so many of you are pondering the above futilities, I'd like to point you to the Very First Trailer for Abattoir. It's dark and grainy and has a really crappy compression. But it exists and is available for perusal.

A cleaner version can be found HERE. It's big, though. Be warned.

If you post "tht sux", even as a joke, and I know who you are... I will hurt you. Just be warned.

Another quick update

I've been putting off writing one of these for a while now. When life wasn't getting in the way of updating, I just wasn't in the mood to share my intimate thoughts with the entire world (or the six people who actually read this). Just been moving in and out of stages of "too busy" or manic depression.

By now, Genghis Con has come and gone. If you read Amy's blog, you got the gist of what happened. I'm planning on doing something up for Film Threat very soon, as well as my end-of-the-year recap of other shows. Ultimately: it was a good show. Everyone had fun. Some people even made some money. In the end, the people who whine the loudest about there being nothing to do in Pittsburgh abandoned us for college and high school football games.

I've said it before: Pittsburgh is an unsupportive town. If it doesn't have a ball attached to it, the residents don't want to hear about it. This isn't a lame excuse; we did everything right as far as publicity goes, improving over weaknesses from last year. I'm not going to beat myself up about anything. We did the work. But like Yogi Berra said, "If they don't want to come, you can't stop 'em."

The Blood Wrestling went over like a charm, though. And we'll have a cool DVD available by the end of the year. I watched a couple of professional wrestling shows to give me an idea of how to edit the footage, but discovered lots of loud posturing briefly interrupted by a few moments of actual wrestling. Leading me to believe that we should go out and shoot more loud posturing from the ladies...

Abattoir, if my exhausted eyes don't deceive me, is in picture lock as we speak. I have received 99% of the music from Scooter McCrae and am in the process of fixing up the sound design now. We're right on track for a finished product by Halloween. We've already been approached by a major distributor and a film festival, so maybe we did do something right.

We just got back from Cinema Wasteland, which has become our favorite show of all. This time was less fun for me because I spent the entire weekend with a nasty cold that just refuses to go away. Even as I write this, various things are dripping out of me, my eyes refuse to focus. It's annoying. Still, I got to hang out with James (Frankenhooker) Lorinz and saw his cool little "test short", Swirlee. Swirlee is about a gangster whose head is made of ice cream. Yes, it is, too! David Caruso is in it and he didn't annoy me once. I liked it so much, I did a little dance. Then popped more Day-Quil.

Sirens of Cinema #5 hits the stands next week. It's gorgeous. Gatefold cover by Mike Lilly (Vampirella). See if the vampires inside look familiar to you. They should.

We're officially in pre-production on a new movie. I don't want to give anything away, since it's still in the planning stages and the script needs a polish, but it's going to be cool. Bloody. Evil. Fun. Think Hellraiser with a sense of humor.

More later. Must die now...

A Quick Update

A great weekend for friends and family. Mike and Carolyn came over to cook Amy and me dinner, which was fabulous and should happen much more often.

Last night, Don and Megan came up to help us shoot the last effects shot for Abattoir, which is going to be a show-stopper on-screen, I can promise you! (And ironically, it'll be seen very early in the film!) I'm cutting it into the main feature tonight.

Scooter McCrae tells me that he's working overtime to get us music for the film in time for our special sneak preview at Genghis Con on Saturday, 9/16.

And speaking of such things, Fangoria posted this notice about Abattoir and Genghis. Pretty cool of Mr. Gingold, I must say!

I'm not doing reviews any longer...

Of course, every time I make this vow, something yanks me back.

I was never comfortable doing reviews. They're not my strong point and they take me longer to write than straight essays or articles. Others can knock them out a dozen at a time. Me, I'm lucky if I can get one out per hour. Maybe I'm too close to the business -- too much empathy for the filmmakers behind the movies because I've been there. It's hard for me to see the flaws in indie films. (Hollywood films, I have no problem with this...)

A while back - several years, actually - I stopped reviewing movies I didn't like. I'm not good at the insult review: "This movie is worse than having a glass rod inserted into your urethra and broken off!" I'll leave those to the reviewers who have mastered this art. Again, I'd feel bad later. What's worse, I'm too accessible to filmmakers. I'd get nasty email for weeks following a bad review from the artists, their friends, family, co-workers. It wasn't worth my time. Particularly when, more often than not, I'm not paid for the review.

But then an odd thing began to occur, almost immediately, after I'd give glowing reviews. I'd get the same email messages nitpicking the review. "You said you loved it, but then you commented on the bad edits. Do you know how long I spent editing that thing??" Or "I don't think her acting was 'weak' at all." Keep in mind, again, these were little things mentioned in an overall positive review. No one can make a perfect movie.

Recently, I was contacted by acquaintances to do a rush review. I was asked to set everything aside, watch their movie and expedite a review to help them out. Because I'm an abject moron who still believes that every request could possibly be coming from Jesus in disguise (thanks to my many years of Catholic school), I set everything aside and watched their movie. I loved it. I wrote a review. I got it to my editor with amazing speed, even proof-read it and everything. I basically compared the film to something smiled upon by God.

I didn't get a 'thank you' from either one. I got called on a fact that there was no possible way I could have been privy to (that who I thought was their distributor in fact was not, but one of their investors, despite the fact that the film began with the distribution logo as the very first image!). Keep in mind, I received a shiny DVD-R in a plain envelope without even a letter accompanying it to explain what the friggin' thing was. No press kit, nothing. (Of course, the last time these guys had asked me to review something, they couldn't be bothered to even send me a copy of the movie!) And, of course, not even a "thanks for your time". And the one guy called me at home four times to make sure I received it.

I'm not going to name names. They're good guys, they work hard, and their movies are really terrific. I cannot take that away from them. They're doing the movies right and everyone should see them.

But they're indicative of defensiveness of the artists we deal with on this level. The slightest criticism (or, in this case, a fact that should have been clarified on their end) and filmmakers can't handle it. So I'm done. No more reviews. If this sounds like whining, so be it. But I'm too busy and I don't like being told how to do favors for people.

****

Sixteen days until Genghis. The tension mounts!

****
Post-script five minutes later:

Okay, I just re-read the one guy's email. He did give me a half-hearted "Thanks for the review, just read it, but..."

So I take it back. I was thanked. But shit, what have I done for them lately?

I'm an uncle! Instead of just being a mother...

I have a niece! Haley Althea Spano was born Monday, August 14, 2006 at 9:45 pm.

For the first time in my life, I'm an uncle--weird in and of itself.

Amy spent most of the day at the hospital. I went straight over after work. Liz, Amys sister, had been in and out all weekend with contractions and false labor since the previous Wednesday.

When she was finally born, the family rushed in to see her, all pink and new, and Liz, exhausted but looking happy. Then the nurses took Haley away to be bathed and we got to watch these enormous women toss her around like pizza dough. Then there was more cooing and cryingmore from the family than the baby, who only being an hour or so old, looked exhausted herself.

With the baby arriving, Amy and I took in Mike and Lizs cat, Butters, who was originally born at the stables near our house in Waynesburg. Butters is in our house now and traumatized. The other cats dont like herwhich is astounding considering the one cat loves everybody and everything. But he hissed and she swatted and now Butters is hiding under the dishwasher and Duke has run outside to pout. The other cat, Gypsy The-Formerly-Fat, couldnt care less about the new cat one way or another, so long as he gets to eat.

****

With the temp job at an end, I can concentrate next week on getting the house in some semblance of order again. With so many shows spaced so closely together, we hadnt even bothered to unpack from one trip to the next. Just tossed the clothes into the wash and back into the suitcase, then off we go again. The next few weeks are going to be just as busy, of coursea set visit to The Rage to watch Bob Kurtzman at work, a side trip to Monster Mania just for the fun of it and to spread more Genghis fliers around, then more preparation for Genghis and the Blood Wrestling, which is intent on killing me.

(The Blood Wrestling thing has us all stokedalmost to the point where were feeling to hell with Genghis! Lets just do the Blood Bath event. Ironically, Toe-Tags Crusty, who had the idea in the first place, wont be able to make it to the show at all! Which is sad all around. None of the Toe Tag folks will be in the house as it turns out. Their new movie, Red Sin Tower, which is looking amazing, is due for its own premiere right around then, so theyre swamped with their own machinations.)

Scooter McCrae has been sending me pieces of his score for Abattoir. Lots of sinister, ethereal pieces and one genuine gunslinger piece so far. Its very weird: Ive never had anyone score for me before. Im used to getting lumps of music and cutting the image to fit it. Hes waiting for me to finish cutting so he can score directly to picture. Were having a tough time meeting in the middle, which is amusing, but also nerve-wracking since were trying to get everything done in time to premiere it at Genghis. Worse comes to worst, we do a sneak preview of the fine cut. We still have two effects shots to shoot anyway. Hopefully the time will arise to allow us that luxury as well.

After Genghis, provided were not broken, quivering shells of the people we once were, were hoping to start production on our first horror movie. (Wait, vampires, serial killers and zombies dont constitute horror? Not according to distributorsat least not in the case of The Resurrection Game!) Itll be a brutal, hopefully scary and gleefully violent piece of nastiness that I dont want to talk about just yet. Suffice to say, our villain will be someone so wonderfully sick and evil that people will (hopefully) feel guilty for rooting for, but they will anyway. Think of Pinhead without the self-righteousness I have a terrific location available to us, but weve had a tough time meeting up with the appropriate parties to get in and make sure its all we hope it will be. Best case scenario: it is and we go to town for three weeks to knock this baby out!

Where I've been...

Wow… been a while since I had ten minutes to myself to write something. Where the hell did my summer go?

For the most part, I’ve been working a temp job at this documentary company a ten miles from Amy’s office outside Pittsburgh. Check that: it was supposed to be a temp job, but they decided my first few weeks there that they had really been looking for someone full time. The fact that they had hired me three days a week didn’t tip me off to this fact, though. I thought things would have been perfect. I could re-arrange my schedule (so my direct supervisor (ten years younger than me) told me, the out-of-town trips wouldn’t be a problem—yay!

Well, no. Because her direct supervisor didn’t want that to happen. I’d either work Monday, Wednesday and Friday or… well, not. They’ll show me. Without me, the work just won’t get done! “What do you think of that?”

See, I have too many “outside interests” for this company, as it turns out. “This isn’t a 40-hour-per-week job,” I was informed. “It’s a 24/7 job.” Surprisingly, they only want to pay you like it’s 40 hours, though. The extra time, thinking about the company, coming up with new innovative ideas on your spare time, it would seem, was on your dime as well.

So it’s not working out. Tomorrow is my last day. Which is fine with me. I only needed some extra money before Genghis came on like a freight train. Monday, I can devote more time to the companies I do PR for. And my temp agency agent tells me that there’s plenty of part time work out there, so I should not worry. After Genghis, I’ll find a new office that doesn’t care that I occasionally have to switch some things around. (And won’t condescend to me at every turn and ask if I took my San Diego Comic-Con business meetings in costume.)

The only crappy thing is that I really enjoyed the work. Granted, I was doing little more than scanning WWI documents and captioning pictures for their website and upcoming documentaries, but it was interesting work. I dug it. I run the risk of having the next job being interminably boring, stressful or, like the Post Office, damaging to me physically. But, oh well. Them’s the breaks, right?

****

As you’ll soon read in Film Threat, Amy and I traveled to the Comic-Con in San Diego, Twisted Nightmare in Cleveland and Horrofind in Baltimore. We saw a lot of friends, drank copious amounts of alcohol and sold fewer DVDs and magazines than we’d wanted to. But at least fun was had.

Today, I auditioned for the Movie Week version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I thought sure I’d nailed the written version—a multiple choice SAT-style test with nothing but movie trivia. I knew that I’d missed three: one about Soul Food (which I haven’t seen), Legally Blonde (which I’ve avoided) and one about Ishtar (because there are some things my brain refuses to acknowledge ever existed). As it turns out, the first Palm D’Or was not awarded to 1955’s East of Eden but Marty. So I missed four. Okay, still not bad out of 30, right? 88% is still a passing grade in college.

Apparently not on Millionaire. Seriously, I was astonished that I didn’t make the cut. My arrogance aside, I’m a major film geek! I mean my pride was at stake here. So either the curve is really high, to keep people from wasting their time or, as some people have said to me, I over-shot it. I mean, really, they’re giving away a million dollars to the winner. They don’t want people to do it too easily. Personally, I have accepted the latter explanation. My ego needs this to be true. I mean, really… Really! I read the Maltin Guide cover-to-cover every year! I’ve seen a lot of movies.

Honestly, I don’t have any other kinds of information up there.

****

Hopefully, I’ll be back in the swing in these last few weeks before Genghis takes my life away and leaves me a broken shell of a human. Don’t forget people: Blood Wrestling!! Check it out, tell all of your friends and come to http://www.genghisconpa.com!