How You Know a Wedding is Awesome
When stuff like this this is stuck to the back of each and every guest place card at the reception. Thank you Heather and Richard Grove!
Cooking with Justin
My best buddy Justin has decided to fill in some of his free time with a small cooking show. It’s pretty amusing and definitely doesn’t skimp on the foul language. Enjoy and subscribe to his channel: http://www.youtube.com/cookingwithjustin31
Trailer Trash: The Three Musketeers 3D
Just an honest question: How many frigging incarnations of The Three Musketeers are we going to need in my lifetime alone?!
You Know What’s Bull$#it?!
Anyone who knows me knows of my undying fandom for James Rolfe and his menagerie of online review characters (the Angry Video Game Nerd, Board James, etc.). In fact, if you look carefully in the left part of the frame for my first two Haywire Effect reviews, you’ll see a postcard from the man himself he sent as a thank you for a donation I sent him last year. I love this guy’s work not just because he always turns out a quality product, but because we have so much in common and we’ve gone about a lot of our careers in the same way. I feel a kinship with him when I watch his work.
So when he says something I completely agree with, I like to spread the word. As much as I’m a fan of DVD and Blurays (ever seen my collection?), I have become as disgruntled with their packaging at James, and when I got my Back to the Future box set for Christmas last year, I pretty much opened it and stared at it wondering how the hell the thing worked.
Speaking of bull$#it, I have to issue a formal apology and a thank you to Jon Gann of DC Shorts, who not only was kind enough to address my issues with the festival presentation personally, but also clear up some key points that I was quick to jump the gun on. Apparently, he issued an order for a new projection bulb two days before the film festival, but it was never installed. So it wasn’t an oversight on his part that the showcases at the Artisphere failed. I have great respect for him in going out of his way to bring this up and because of that, I’m sorry I said the things I said out of anger. It doesn’t change how my film was showcased but apparently it received much more crowded and brighter lit screenings afterward. So thank you to Jon and again, my apologies. I hope to see him and his crowd again next year.
DC Shorts in Retrospect
So DC Shorts was my sixth film festival in the last year and a half. It was supposed to be the biggest, the fanciest, the most professional. Well, we all know what I think about that… but how was the experience? Not as bad as it could have been. What I do know for sure is that considering the film festival was the whole basis for my trip out to Maryland, which resulted in a tenure of stay with my godparents, it should’ve been the most memorable part of it, and it was not at all. The screening at the Artisphere was sparse in attendance and the presentation was the worst I’ve ever seen at a film festival. In fact, aside from some really nice people I shared a few words with, there was nothing about it that would make me want to submit to it again… except to have an excuse to visit my godparents.
 
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| During the Q & A at DC Shorts |
Some local Michigan filmmakers know about Connie Mangilin and her Mitten Movie Project, which I am a champion of–not because I won it last year, but because I think what she’s doing is pretty amazing. I’ve heard some gossip around the campfire that the Mitten, while nice, shouldn’t be constituted as a “real film festival.” Well, I’ve got some news for the people who think that: It is. You’re wrong. End of story.
While the Mitten may not award the best of the bunch every month due to its audience award being decided by popular vote, which is as easily swayed in one direction as a drunk who accidentally collides with a coffee table, the turnout every month is staggering compared to what I have seen at other yearly film festivals. And this is a monthly endeavor. Yearly festivals, which have the backing of sponsorship and much more promotion, should always be packed, and yet certain blocks of films are screened that might as well receive the designation “Swept Under the Rug Showcase”–which starts on a late Thursday… or an early morning on Saturday.
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| Connie Mangilin |
The combined attendance for my film when I attended DIFF, DWIFF and DC Shorts did not amount to the first screening which was held at the Mitten. Sorry guys, I know you pride your festivals on being big and “real,” but so far at every turn you’ve been getting your ass kicked by a tiny chick from Detroit who is apparently very clumsy on a bicycle.
What I’ll remember from this last trip was the fact that the first three days felt like monsoon season, relaxing conversations over beer and cigars on the porch with my godparents and their family (who I consider to be my own family), seeing Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (one of the best paranoid thrillers I can remember) with the pleasure of good company… and just how flipping dark the projector was at my screening. Balls.
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