If you are an aspiring actor, you’ve just gotten your headshots, and you’re about to start sending them out, I have what I hope is a useful piece of advice. I’m not pretending to be a casting guru. But at least from this one producers perspective, this is one of the biggest mistakes an actor can make when it comes to landing a role, and it’s something we saw happen far too many times.

So my advice is this. Before you send your headshots to any agencies or production companies, send a few out to your family and friends first, but don’t let them know it’s your picture. Attach a note that says “Whose photo do you think this is?” If your family and friends all come back saying “Duh, it’s your photo,” then great. Awesome. You are in a good place.

But if they say, “I have no idea who that girl is.” or, “He sort of looks like you, but not really,” or “Not sure, is she related to you?” or any comments that indicate your headshot may not be the world’s most accurate representation of what you really look like, or that it flat out doesn’t look like you at all, you may want to consider getting new headshots.

In some ways, the rifling through headshots part of casting is like internet dating. You are looking at a picture of someone and either you’re getting the vibe or your not. So you build all your fantasies and scenarios with this certain face (or faces) in mind. But at some point, you do have to meet this potential soul mate in person, and if they look nothing like their picture, all your illusions are shattered. Even if they are hot and super cool, it doesn’t matter. The fantasy is blown. The vibe is gone. To make matters worse, now you are questioning the honesty and integrity about this person and you’re annoyed that you’ve wasted your time.

I experienced this unnecessary barrage of negative emotions too many times during the casting process. There were headshots that hypnotized me, or would hypnotize Doug. The photos would scream “I am the soul mate of your vision of (whichever character).” So many actors we could completely envision playing these roles. So many actors we would get really exited about. So many actors that we timed our auditions slots carefully to pare or best prospects up with our best prospects.

I would have to say that about a fourth of the actors we auditioned turned out to look nothing like their headshot. Some looked so different that when they walked into the Norris Center I didn’t recognize them, even though I was holding their headshot in my hand. All those negative feelings of distrust, disillusion, and disappointment would then rush through me, which is hardly the effect any actor is trying to have on someone thinking about casting them in a movie.

So that is my one piece of advice. Photoshop your zits, erase a few wrinkles, add a little shine to your hair in post…all totally cool. But I see absolutely no merit to submitting a headshot to anyone unless it honestly looks like you.

But this is my only advice to actors at all. Outside of that, the only rule I’ve noticed is that there are no rules in casting. We even broke our own rules while casting, such as “We will only cast actors who live near Naples” or “Absolutely no more than 3 actors from Hollywood because we simply can’t afford them.”

I am under the impression that something bigger is in play here, because when an actor is meant to be a part of a film, things just come together. I guess my advice is to just keep the faith, because when it comes down to it, you will get cast in the roles that play into wherever your life is going: the roles that will lead you to have the experinces, meet, affect, and be affected by the people, and learn the lessons you were meant for on your life path.

Yes I am a bit of a hippie, but when I think about all the totally random events, twists, dips and turnarounds that went into the attachment of each actor to Still Green, as well as the relationships, friendships, lessons, and life changing experiences these kids had during those five weeks of production, a lot of which had very little to do with Still Green itself, my only conclusion is each of these actors was meant to go on this ride. Yes part of this ride happened for reasons related to Still Green, but a lot of it seemed to happen for reasons way bigger than our movie, those destiny reasons that we will never entirely understand.

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I was at the Target Red Room last evening when I got into a conversation with someone whose name currently escapes me, and they asked why I, and Film Threat, wasn’t covering LAFF this year? To which I responded with, “What do you mean? We ARE covering LAFF.”

The confusion was thus: over the course of the last few years, folks have started to read the blog entries of festival coverage and, in many cases, have begun to equate that content with the breadth of coverage period. In other words, if there’s not a blog entry with a silly pic of me or some other FT’er out there, then we must not have covered the festival. This, quite simply, is not so, as recent coverage of the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival, deadCenter Film Festival and SilverDocs would show.

If you look at the FilmThreat.com right now, you’ll see a sidebar with all the LAFF films we’ve reviewed thus far, and that list is growing daily. On top of that, though they have not made it to the site yet, I happen to know of a number of interviews both in the final stages and/or soon-to-be-conducted for LAFF films and filmmakers. In other words, we’re covering LAFF. We’re covering it hard.

Now, I’ll admit to being a bit lax in the blog entries category. Most of that has to do with the fact that, when it comes to festivals, I tend to be the one who hits the blog keyboard most often with the various pics I take and, in all honesty, I haven’t had the full opportunity to immerse myself in LAFF in much the same way that I can at out of town fests.

See, hometown festivals offer a different set of challenges, and require a certain perspective re-boot. Why? Well, when I’m in another town for a set number of days, everything to me feels picture or story worthy. Everything is an adventure. When you live in the town you’re covering, all of a sudden something you may’ve taken a picture of and talked about becomes, well… Westwood is Westwood, etc. On top of that, festival coverage is not the only thing I do here at Film Threat, nor is it the only thing we run on a daily basis. Everyday brings new reviews from all over the world, new video content, other festival coverage, interviews… when I’m at home, I’m more likely to try working on everything whereas, at an out-of-town festival, I tend to focus only on that fest for the few days I’m there. Plus, being home brings other concerns, like laundry, groceries, gas for travel to and from theaters, etc. It’s an entirely different experience.
But to bring this all back to the reason I’m writing this, we are covering LAFF. Eric Campos has been seeing films like his life depended on it, Pauline and I have been picking up flicks day in and day out since Sunday and Zack will be gracing the site soon with his own reviews and interview coverage. We’re on top of this, believe me, so if you only read the blogs… check out our main site. THAT’S where the gold is. The blogs, to me, is dessert, but the full meal and sustenance exists on the frontpage.

Oh, FINE! Here’s some pics too…

The sun was so bright (and hot) on Sunday, that I didn’t even know this photo was out of focus because I COULDN’T SEE when I took it. This is the view of Broxton Street (Ave? Rd?) from the top of the parking garage adjacent to the best Philly cheesestake shop on all of Los Angeles, South Street.

The Target Red Room lives up to its name. There’s the Target logo, and the lights throughout are red. Monday evening’s Red Room experience brought wonderful conversations with everyone’s favorite festival attendee John Bernstein, MethodFest’s Don Franken, the one-two punch team of Sarah Harris and James Faust of AFI Dallas and brief hellos to Cinetic’s Matt Dentler (who exec produced fest film “Trinidad”) and Spout.com’s Karina Longworth. If you recognize these names from the CineVegas blogs then, yes, you’re right, because they were all in Vegas too. Nature of the festival circuit, really.

Is someone you know in this picture? Quite possibly…

I also ran into James Rocchi from Cinematical and Steve from Collider, but they weren’t at LAFF at the time, they were at the press screening for “Hancock.” Still nice to talk to so many movie geek’ed friends.

Finally, it is a Film Threat tradition to get at least one picture, at some point during their tenure, of a Film Threat writer at a film festival double-fisting drinks. We’ve all got pics circulating of us with big smiles and two drinks, and now we can add Pauline to the list…

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Tomorrow is going to be like Christmas, St-Jean Baptiste (drinking day in Quebec for the uninitiated), Guy Fawkes Day and Halloween all rolled into one for me because one of my favorite shows on television is coming back for a brand new season of motoring and mayhem.

Yes, it’s “Top Gear“, which used to be a dreary sort of straight laced show about cars and is now something much much more. On the surface it sort of sounds like Mythbusters or Monster Garage or something, just a bunch of blokes going goofy with cars or other mechanical things, but it’s not. There’s a unique, no other way to put it… British chemistry and rapport between the hosts that I really dig. Jeremy Clarkson (the tall one), Richard Hammond (the short one) and James May (the other one) really are just three guys having fun in front of the cameras, and some of the stuff they come up with is amazing.

Look at the following uh… “test”, for example. As a car nut I can assure you that it’s 90% real. No fakery. Toyota trucks REALLY can do that. That’s why they (the old one’s especially) are so fucking awesome:

Killing a Toyota - Part 1

Killing a Toyota - Part 2a

Killing a Toyota - Part 2b

Here are the lads trying to make Boats out of cars.

Here is host Jeremy Clarkson road testing a Bentley Arnage as it deserves to be.

Here are the three hosts visiting America: Part 1 and Part 2

Note: All the above links go directly to the official BBC Worldwide Youtube page. I had originally direct linked them, but apparently the BBC doesn’t allow that. Sort of how they frown on that whole “success” thing. Anyway, don’t let that stop you, and go check it out directly. It’s some funny stuff.

Now, there’s going to be an American Top Gear hosted by Adam Carolla, Tanner Foust, and Eric Stromer. I was afraid they’d get three male models, but maybe this is worse because this is giving me hope.

Personally, I’ll keep an open mind, but I dread that it’ll be crap or as Jeremy Clarkson would say “Rubbish”. Primarily because it can’t be like the UK version where they’re cuttingly honest about bad cars. If a car’s junk, the British hosts aren’t shy about saying so; but with American channels utterly terrified about offending sponsors we’ll basically just have one of those “every car is great” lovefests. Total Bullshit. Jay Leno had been approached to be on the show; and whatever you may think of him, he’d have been a good choice, but he refused for that very same reason. He wouldn’t have been able to be honest about what he thought of such-and-such a car and if it’s going to be 100% bullshit why bother frankly?

Still, Carolla’s a funny fuck and the other guys seem okay. I’ll give it a chance, but just one…

In any case, who cares what you Yanks do? The British show is what counts and I’ve got a big stiffie while I wait for it to come on. If it plays on of the BBC cable channels in your area, I totally reccomend you watch it. Awesome show.

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My CineVegas 2008 is pretty much over. Except for the ride to the airport in, probably, 10 hours, I won’t likely see any of my CineVegas friends for a while (except, you know, all the ones that’ll be at LAFF, or live in LA, or will be at whatever festival is after LAFF). I am sad that this year’s festival is over, but happy that I, again, was given the opportunity to come out and cover. I had an absolute blast, and even my last day was an exciting one (as the pics below will show). I’ll have more fest-specific thoughts come Monday, when the CineVegas wrap-up runs, but in the meantime, here’s the story of the end…

I spent the better part of the morning working on film reviews and didn’t make my way over to HQ until shortly before 3pm. When Jamie I got there, we were treated to an AMAZING spread of food. I tried to contain my glee (and appetite), but I ain’t going to lie, I made short work of two plates…

See how wonderful the shrimp look? They tasted EVEN BETTER!

After eating, Jamie headed out to see “Help Me Eros,” and I walked around chatting with the various filmmakers and other friends I’ve come to know as this fest, and many others, have gone on.

Nathan Zellner was too busy with his mail-order bride business to talk, but it wouldn’t be CineVegas without a Zellner photo.

I’ll admit it, I’m very immature, but what does this table look like to you? To me, and quite a few other people, it looked like some sort of phallic symbol of justice, reminding all that, yes, in film we do trust.

Same table, much funnier angle…

Now, the next series of photos deserve both a warning and an explanation. OK, here goes: When Don and I first got into town, we had this idea to pose for topless photos down by the Planet Hollywood pool. The idea being that we’re two people no one should ever see with our shirts off, and we really wanted to affect a male model vibe, for humor’s sake. The problem is, no one was around to take said picture. I was lamenting the situation to filmmaker Ben Bachelder when he suggested that, even though Don wasn’t around, that I should do the photo anyway. Now, not being near a pool, I thought “what better place to look like a poster boy that in front of the 10th anniversary CineVegas poster?” Remember, never said I was mature, but I and Ben sure make gorgeous male models…

The money shot, however, is this spin on the infamous Janet Jackson cover from oh so many years ago…

Anyway, moving on…

Tonight was the 2008 CineVegas Honoree Awards Ceremony and Reception at the Planet Hollywood pool (the very pool where the idea for the above pictures came from, which means I made a pretty tight segue, if I do say so myself). I found myself in an amazing spot for photos of the event, and now present to you the winners in all their glory. Oh, and if the photos seem like they’ve been framed in a very CineVegas-centric way, I was going for a consistent feel and wanted to make sure I got the fest in there too.

Robert Duvall presented James Caan with the Las Vegas Icon Award.

Don Cheadle got a Half-Life Award…

…as did Rosario Dawson…

…Viggo Mortensen…

…and Sam Rockwell.

And Anjelica Huston closed out the ceremony as she accepted her Marquee Award.

Now, first and foremost, I am a fan of cinema and… being in the same air space as Anjelica Huston, James Caan, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall had me running all their classic films over and over in my head. Add Cheadle, Mortensen, Rockwell and Dawson into that crew and it just blows my mind. All deserving of the accolades they’ve been afforded in their careers, and I feel honored that I even get to stand on the same pool deck. Amazing.

After the ceremony, the event slowly wound down. Many folks bolted for the afterparty back at the Palms, but a few of us stuck around, opting to sit by the pool for a bit before deciding whether to call it a night or not.

I asked James Faust to give me his most serious face, and this is what I got. Honestly, it’s pretty serious.

Even though the evening ended after we were kicked out of the pool area, and James, Jamie, Jeff, Jerry, Childress and I instead spent our remaining minutes together at Planet Dailies eating some late-night grub, I like to think that the following picture is a solid capper to the blog entries. I may have one more, a photo gallery with all the pics that were good but that I didn’t really get into any of the other entries, but this is the last major play-by-day entry. Goodnight, CineVegas, see you next year… unless those half-naked male model pics get me kicked out of the festival, in which case I can only apologize for my beauty. Sometimes, it’s just too much for people to handle…

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The 2008 CineVegas Film Festival is winding down, and so is my ability to keep up with the festivities. Recovery from bowling was painful, but I am happy to say that the groin pull isn’t that bad, the blood blister is no longer bright red, the heel is healing and, in general, I feel quite well-rested. Friday will be my final night for any sort of partying, so I expect to finish strong, but in the meantime, just been working on reviews and, as you have seen daily, writing blog entries.

Tonight is actually an early night, considering. 2am or thereabouts ain’t bad. Mainly because tonight’s event, while a fun one, also didn’t last all evening. See, tonight was the screening of “Them!” at Fremont Street’s Drive-In (located well north of the Strip in Old Downtown Las Vegas). Jamie and I had been informed earlier in the day that we were going to be able to share seats in an Escalade for the screening with Jeff and Heather from Reelz.

We’ve been enjoying the lure of the Escalade all week, as that was the shuttle that got us from Planet Hollywood to the Palms daily, and it was cool to be sitting in our old friend for some old-fashioned drive-in action. Old-fashioned in the sense that we were in a car and not, say, because any of us made out with each other. I did down many Red Bull Colas, however.

Jeff played the concerned Father…

…and Jamie played the concerned Mother. Why were they constantly checking in on me? Probably because “Them!” is scary, and they wanted to make sure I could handle what I was seeing. Of course I could, right? I’m no scaredy-cat…

After the film ended, we all made our way to the Downtown bar at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont for some late night drinking. Fremont Street reminded me a lot of Universal Citywalk back in Los Angeles…

Our night ended shortly after making it to the bar, however, as the three of us… I just don’t think any of us were up for it tonight. The bar was really dark inside, and that made it difficult to see or walk, and none of us wanted to battle our way to get drinks so… we called it a night. I’m sure if I wasn’t on Day 8 of the festival, with 6 of those 8 days including 5am hotel room returns, I’d have been more up for things but… I’m wearing down, man. Doing what I can…

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I am a man in unbelievable pain. I have a blood blister on my right ring finger, missing a chunk of thumbnail, have a bloodied and battered heel and, worst of all, I’m pretty sure I pulled my groin muscle. How did I do all of that, you might ask? Simple: CineVegas Bowling Night!

Before I recount more about what made tonight’s bowling experience so epic, I’d first like to talk about earlier in the day. Jamie caught “Go Go Tales” and “Momma’s Man,” while I got to check out the wonderful documentary “All Together Now.” Fittingly, considering the doc is all about the Cirque de Soleil Beatles’ show “Love,” tonight’s party was at the Mirage’s Beatles’ Revolution Lounge.

It’s hard to see, but the O’s have half-naked womens dancing in them…

CineVegas Artistic Director Trevor Groth rocking the jumpsuit next to the man behind Revolution, David Pappas. Jamie and I enjoyed Revolution quite a bit, and I think she has way better low-light pics than I do (her camera got some amazing ones that really show off how awesome the different lighting effects in the club were), but I do have a few shots of her enjoying herself…

Yay, Jamesway! Kidding, there are pics of her having fun, but this was my favorite, so I posted this one. Deal with it.

After Revolution, it was time for my favorite annual CineVegas event, filmmaker bowling at the Gold Coast Casino. Put on by SAGIndie, it’s the only time during the entire year that I bowl. Every year, the goal is the same: break 100 points. To let you know my skill level, my very first bowling event, two years ago, involved a zero game. Yes, a game in which I got ALL gutter balls. Last year I broke 100, and I hoped to continue the trend of improvement.

But before I get into the bowling adventure, I really want to mention something Darrien Gipson from SAGIndie mentioned to me, which is a guaranteed completion deal for independent films. Essentially, filmmakers interested have until June 30th to get a SAGIndie contract going, and if they do, in the event of a SAG strike, indie productions will not have to stop production. They can keep shooting as long as they don’t bump up to regular SAG contract (due to studio financing or distribution). In other words, and research this because I know I’m not giving or even getting the finer details, if a strike happens and the big productions have to stop working, you can go ahead and shoot your indie film. The benefits? Your movie will be available when the industry is looking for new projects AND you just might score a big actor that you might, otherwise, be unable to get due to studio production schedules. Indie filmmakers, GET ON THIS!

Back to the tale of bowling. CineVegas bowling is serious stuff. There are little bowling bobblehead dolls that are given out as awards (Erik Childress won high game last year), and folks can get pretty into it. Mike Plante, in no doubt an effort to hide from my camera lens, even donned a disguise for this year’s event…

At the decidedly AFI Dallas lane, Sarah Harris watched as James Faust got his stretching in…

And over at lane Film Threat (named so because, somehow, Jamie and I got our own lane and no one would join us), a battle was about to be waged between Jamie and I. See, Jamie and I are both fiercely competitive, and it was decided that we would play a best of 5 bowling series.

Now, Jamie is much better than I am, and she trounced me in Game One, bowling 117 to my 69 (giggle). Still, it was the first game, so I figured I had a shot, right? Under said logic, Game Two went to me, as I scored 80 and Jamie landed somewhere in the 70s…

Jamie and I were neck and neck for most of Game Three, but I had a pretty solid lead going into the final frame, scoring an 85. Jamie? Well, look at the scorecard…

86! Beat me by one freaking point! Game Four was on, and Jamie was running away with it (especially when I opened with a first frame 0). By the time we got to the 10th frame, I was at 99 points and Jamie, with at least two throws left, was at 91. I sat down, and resigned myself that I was going to go out in four games, instead of going the full five.

Then, a miracle happened! Jamie came up short, getting only 3 out of 10 pins for a final score of 94. 94! I was still in it! And beat to all Hell. As I mentioned in the opening, I was tore up. The walk from Ellis Island the other night had cut up my heel, and I started off bowling with a band-aid firmly in place so that I would stop bleeding through my sock, Curt Schilling-style. On top of that, I had somehow managed to get a blood blister on the tip of my right ring finger, and ripped off a considerable portion of my thumb nail. And if that wasn’t enough, based on my kamikaze bowling style (which ended with me on the ground, or on one knee, quite often), I had pulled a muscle in the groin area, making bowling, let alone walking, quite painful. And now I had one more game to play.

You know what? I bowled my best game of the night, scored 118 and won the best of five… and then ran all around the lanes telling everyone about my accomplishment (which was pedestrian, I know, but I gave my all and… I know I suck, but I left it all out on the bowling lanes and I was giddy about finally, FINALLY winning something).

Now, it’s 5am (again), and I’m back in the hotel room in pain. Luckily I brought Aleve with me, and I plan on giving myself some much needed pain relief. Not sure how painful walking will be tomorrow, but hoping everything is good.

CineVegas, how I love you…

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We had no reason to think that casting Still Green would, in any way, shape, or form, involve the Vice President of Columbia. So I was of course beyond skeptical when Vice President Santos first called the house and left a message for me with Doug’s mom.

Let me fast forward. There is a reason the leading role of George was cast 4 days before we started shooting. The reason is that for months, we weren’t really looking for an actor to play this role. As far as Doug and I were concerned, we already had our George.

The following story will probably strike you as beyond random and completely unbelievable. But filmmaking often turns out to be both of those things.

Our relationship with Vice President Santos began in June when Doug and I were running our production office in his parents’ basement in New Hampshire. Among other things, we had started casting, and every day we rifling through thousands of headshots.

One day an e-mail arrived from an agent named Maria with an actor named Jaime’s headshot attached. The agent had seen our casting notice on Mandy, read the description for the role of George, which was simply “pudgy, funny, good natured” and was sure this actor would be perfect.

But there were a few stipulations clearly listed in our casting notices; the big one being that all actors had to live within a reasonable commuting distance from Naples, FL as we could not afford to house local talent. If a headshot arrived and the actor did not live in FL, their headshot went straight into the “probably not” pile.

This agent said Jaime was from Colombia, which at the time I assumed meant Columbia, SC, which is still not Florida, so I deleted the e-mail. A few days later, another e-mail from Maria hit our inbox again endorsing Jaime. Again, I deleted it. A few days after that, a headshot arrived in the mail. It was Jaime again, except from the return address, I could see that this agent was from Columbia, as in the country. I thought it was a little odd that this Colombian agent would be so persistent, but again, just tossed the headshot.

A week later, Doug and I returned from lunch to find his mom standing in the kitchen looking really confused. She said that a well spoken man with a thick accent had just called claming to be Vice President Santos of Columbia. He wanted me to call him back immediately regarding incentives he could offer me, in exchange for casting an actor named Jaime in Still Green.

Yes, I was beyond skeptical when I called “Vice President Santos” back. But I figured it would be better to waste 20 minutes on a prank call than potentially miss out on any prospect of “incentives.” Besides, Doug’s mom had a feeling in her gut that the man was legit, and her gut feelings have always had an uncanny accuracy.

In a nutshell “Vice President Santos” explained that Jaime was the son of one of his closest associates. Jaime’s big dream was to break into the American film industry. At the same time, the success of Maria Full of Grace had begun to change the world’s view of Columbia as a place, basically, known solely for growing cocaine. Because of this, his press team was beginning to look to the film industry as a way to improve Columbian relations. His press secretary, Maria, had been heavily involved in Maria Full of Grace’s selection into the Cannes and Berlin Film Festival and had handled the marketing for the film in Latin America. If we were to cast Jaime, they wanted to offer the same support to Still Green.

As Jaime was currently in Miami working as an extra on the Miami Vice movie, Vice President Santos had been pressuring Maria to find a production company shooting in Florida that might cast Jaime in a leading role in exchange for these incentives.

Santos admitted it was hard to find leading roles for Jaime as he was hardly the tall, cut, chiseled prototype of a Hollywood leading male. “Pudgy, funny, good natured” was an infinitely more realistic choice for this boy. In a nutshell, Santos said he would guarantee us pre selection into both Cannes and Berlin, 30 million Pesos towards the marketing of the film in Latin America, and the full support of his entire press team.

I admitted to the Vice President that I found it pretty hard to swallow that A-he could really guarantee us all these perks and B-that he was even the real Vice President Santos in the first place. I also explained that while, at this point, I was intrigued enough to schedule an audition slot, the final say on all casting decisions was going to come from our director, Jon Artigo.

I asked him to please put everything he has just explained to me in writing, on government letterhead, and send it to our attorney, who would no doubt be calling with many questions and requests for proof of identification etc. He said he was leaving for Malaga for a press conference in the morning, but assured me that before he left, he would get a letter out to our attorney. He said our attorney was welcome to call his cell or his office at any time, and he gave me both numbers.

Honestly, the man sounded legit to me; polite, educated, and extremely entitled. Doug was convinced the entire thing was a weird hoax from a desperate actor, but agreed to hold off all judgments until our attorney had enough info to make an educated decision.

Doug called our attorney, Kirkpatrick, to brief him on the situation. I called Jamie, to introduce myself and to find out where I should send a script. Jaime’s English seemed mediocre at best, but he was nice and extremely excited about Still Green. I asked him if he knew the Vice President of Columbia was giving this much support to his film aspirations. He said the Vice President was very close to his father, laughed and said “They think I’m going to be the next hot Columbian film star.”

Jon has never been responsive to pressure from anyone to cast anyone in any role ever, which is something I love about him. When I called him, he simply responded that he would cast the actor he felt was the best for each role, including George. He did admit this was a wild situation. Jokes about what we would wear to Cannes were certainly thrown around, as well as jokes about a Columbian cartel coming after us if we did not cast Jaime after all of this.

Our attorney was, of course, also very skeptical. But in three days, a letter from Vice President Santos, offering everything he said he would offer us, as a matter of fact, did arrive, on government letterhead, in his office. By then Kirkpatrick had made enough phone calls and done enough fact checking that after one final conversation with Santos, he called us to say thumbs up. He felt confident in assuring us that, at least in his opinion, Vice President Santos was indeed, for real.

Did VP Santos really have the sway to get us into Cannes? We were not so sure. Was this man really Vice President Santos? He certainly seemed to be.

Sure there were other actors we lined up to audition for George. But given this whole Columbian situation, we had our hearts set on Jaime. When Jaime showed up at our auditions you could tell that in his mind, he already had the role. I was fine with this.

But there was a major problem. Jaime was just learning English. Regardless of how incredible an actor he may have been in Columbia, when it came to the lines in Still Green, he could barely read them, much less understand them, much less understand their subtext, and much less give them any type of inflection or personality. He sounded the way I am sure I would have sounded if someone put a letter written in Spanish in front of me and said, “Here read this.”

Nevertheless, I was still blinded by the potential perks that came attached to Jaime and my hopes were not daunted. I had an incredible amount of faith in Jon as a director, and figured if anyone could make this work he could.

Fortunately, I am not the director of Still Green. And after watching Jamie’s audition, the director of Still Green made it crystal clear that this situation was not going to fly. I begged. I pleaded. I used the words “Maria Full of Grace” a few hundred times. I got nowhere.

As Jon pointed out, Still Green was only going to work if we could suck the audience into the world and dynamics between this group of friends. It just wasn’t believable that Jaime would be in this group. He would stick out like a sore thumb, constantly reminding the audience that they were watching a movie, and killing all their emotional investment. Maybe we would get press all over South America, but we wouldn’t have a good movie.

The day after the audition, Vice President Santos called me. He wanted to know why Jaime had not been cast yet.

I decided to throw Jon under the bus. I explained that although as a producer I could see the perks of casting Jaime, Jon was the director, and he had the final say on the cast.

The Veep did make one call to Jon on Jaime’s behalf, but after that, we never heard from him again.

The more immediate problem was that we still had no George. We found another local actor but by our first read through, it was clear that he wasn’t right. And with every other problem going on around us, this one kept getting pushed onto the back burner until 4 days before we started shooting when finally, we put everything else on hold and focused all our energies on finding our George.

By now, our original lead actress was in town. While we were flipping through trash bags of headshots, the actress asked if she could watch some of the “no” auditions which were still on Evil Tom’s computer. She said it was fun to watch bad auditions. We said fine, whatever, and went back to our work. About twenty minutes later, she came into the living room to tell us she had found us the perfect actor for George.

Mike Strynkowski had landed in Evil’s no footage because he was not right for the role I’d originally called him into audition for, and as I said at the time, we were not looking for a George. But watching him with this new perspective, he was perfect.

Anyone following these webisodes already knows that something major went down on our set that led to our firing of our original lead actress. But I think it was fate that she was brought into our lives. Not only did she indirectly lead to our casting of Sarah Jones as our lead, but she hand picked Mike Strynkowski for us…things happen for a reason.

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Ellis Island. Last year, Don, Jamie and I found Ellis Island at the suggestion of a taxi driver, and the legend of $2 beers and awful karaoke began. We spent one night there, and then quite some cash at the next door 7-11, and vowed to come back this year. Unfortunately, Don left before he and I were able to make it there… which wound up being one day too soon.

See, Monday night ended with an after-party of CineVegas-style karaoke at Ellis Island, and boy was it a blast. But more on that later…

Earlier in the day, I made my way over to the Palms to see “Memorial Day” and “Where I Stand.” The former was one of the more challenging, uncomfortable film-watching experiences I’ve had in a very long time. More in the review, but essentially it is a film that I am happy I saw, but also have no interest in suggesting to anyone else, as it is too intense, in my opinion, for most.

“Where I Stand,” on the other hand, was an amazing documentary, and I was quite impressed. I didn’t know much about Hank Greenspun save his family’s relation to CineVegas, and I was more than impressed in hearing about the life he lived. If “Citizen Kane” was Hearst’s legacy, this is Greenspun’s… and I’m very curious how Rupert Murdoch’s is going to roll out.

After those flicks, Jeff Otto from Reelz Channel and I made our way to the Wynn for the fountain screening of Murakami’s “Planting the Seeds.” Pics below, but basically this event summed up everything you need to know about CineVegas: swanky venue, amazing screen floating in the middle of a lake and the film that screened was about a couple rabbit-like critters shitting on watermelon seeds to make them grow. Yeah, you understand that and you’ll understand why I LOVE CineVegas…

Jeff Otto rocked the fancy drink, and even offered to pay me $50 if I would eat an entire tray of crab cake puffs that were being passed around by the various waitstaff. I was all for it, but they ran short on supply before I could make my champion move. Probably for the best, though I could’ve used the $50…

This was the part of the movie where Kiki the bunny-thing took a shit…

…and this is the scary head that rose from the water and sang that song from the end of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” You know the one, bow bow buh buh buh buh bow bow. Needless to say, but being said anyway, they should’ve passed out tabs of acid prior to this event so that the full effect could be felt.

After the screening, it was time to go party at Blush nightclub and… nothing too exciting to report about that place. It was a nightclub in Vegas so, you know, done that. The real fun was when I was leaving Blush and a rumor about karaoke at Ellis Island was finally officially confirmed. The evening was just getting started…

Ellis Island rocks, as I mentioned before, and it rocked that much more being there with all my friends from CineVegas. As of right now, Mike Plante has some disturbing video of me dancing to “Superfreak,” and Kate Payne took this wonderful picture of me mocking the guy with the gravelly throat trying to “sing” “Jack and Diane”…

Yes, I am pretending that I’m using one of those throat box machines, mainly because, well… that’s what the guy singing sounded like. If he was the low point, there were higher points, such as Dentler rocking some Prince…

This spirited rendition of… you know, I can’t remember…

Childress and I looked on with both amazement and joy…

Then the real capper of the evening hit when Mike Plante and Kate Payne brought the house down with their duet of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe”…

After the karaoke fun was done, I made my way to the 7-11 next door for a Gatorade and some chili-cheese dogs, before deciding that, due to a lack of cabs and an impatient need to get back to the hotel, I would instead walk to the Planet Hollywood… which took me about 20 minutes. Not too bad, I’ve got late night walking stories for almost every film festival I’ve attended, and unlike Sundance it wasn’t freezing. I did cut up my heel a little bit (my Oakley shoes were NOT meant for walking; another reason I prefer Converse).

Tuesday I’ll be seeing “Chelsea on the Rocks,” and Jamie will be in town to pick up some of the slack with “The Cool School” and “Hank and Mike.” I’ve got 5 more reviews to post over the next 24 hours, and then likely another 5 after that. Rolling along…

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When I was a kid, the first thing I ever wanted to be was a special effects artist like Dick Smith or Tom Savini. However, the timing was kind of rotten because by the time I had turned sixteen a little movie called “The Abyss” had come out and shown that CGI could be a more than viable alternative to physical effects. So, literally, it would have been like learning how to forge swords or how to build pipe organs; a nice talent to have but not very useful as a career. As primitive as the effects in Abyss were, no more than shimmering liquidy water, it was obvious that computers would replace craftsmen one day. You couldn’t see the storm, but you could feel the wind.

Still… real, touchable on the spot effects weren’t quite dead yet. Even Jurassic Park, often credited as the film that finally stuck a stake through the heart of old school “FX”, uses a lot less CGI than people think. Stan Winston’s dinosaur puppets were used in a great number of shots. Today, you can kind of tell which shots are puppets and which ones are computer pixels simply because the early CGI jumps out at you and Winston’s stuff still holds up, which proves that what’s real will always look real and what’s fake will only look faker with age.

Which is why it was so terrible for me to hear that Winston died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles.

His death is a huge blow to the art of special effects, and it is a proper art. Not only was he great at his job as a Monster Maker, but he had an innate understanding of what made a movie work and how effects should be used. Most effects guys want as much of their stuff shown on screen without a thought given to rhythm and pacing. However, if you watch Pumpkinhead (The first and best of the four projects he ever directed) you’ll see that it isn’t some effects laden “demo reel” where all he does is showcase the titular creature. There are some really intense emotional scenes and some genuine scares. He knew when to show the creature, and he knew when to hide it. For a man who created creatures for a living that must have required a HUGE amount of humility and self-effacement, something that most people are unable to do. For that alone, you had to admire him.

Now he’s gone, and it’s like losing a Kubrick or a Mozart or a Shakespeare. Not only was he single-handedly an innovator in the field he worked in, but his vision was so unique that it’s irreplaceable. Think of all the experience and the know-how that was lost. I’m totally serious when I say that movies will never look the same again after his death. There are still a few good men working in the field, but Winston was in a class by himself.

Rest well Sir.

Stan Winston

1946-2008

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Oh CineVegas, how you have ruined my internal clock and sleep patterns. I stayed back at the hotel this evening instead of partying like previous nights in order to catch up on some reviews and other coverage and… here it is, 5am, and I’m just now rolling around to the blog entry. I think I need help…

Don has gone, and I miss him already. I miss the way it would be 5am and I’d be posting a blog entry, and he’s be patiently waiting for me to stop typing away… or he’d be passed out asleep. More the latter than the former, I think.

To catch up, Sunday’s big event was the special advance screening of “Get Smart.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was here to promote the screening, specifically because proceeds went to his charity. Does the Rock live up to the hype of being one of the most charismatic humans on the face of the Earth? I think so…

I like this picture because he’s standing right in front of the poster version of himself, and that amuses me to no end. I am easily amused, indeed. Proof? Check out Silas from Collider’s shoes…

Nice, eh? After the red carpet, we all went into the theater for the screening and Trevor Groth introduced the Rock to the crowd. Part of me wonders if Trevor and the Rock got into a fight, who would win? They seem to be about the same height (though I’d give the advantage to Trevor on that one)…

Now, how was “Get Smart,” you ask? I thought it was great. Nothing like what I was expecting, it was hilarious from start to finish. The review’ll go into more detail, but I think what makes the movie work is that Steve Carell isn’t doing a Don Adams’ impersonation, and for the most part he’s actually playing a talented, smart secret agent who just so happens to be very unlucky. It’s popcorn entertainment, sure, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when it is done right.

After the screening I made my way over to HQ to interview the filmmakers behind “Big Heart City.” It went well, and you’ll all get to see it soon enough (when I finish editing the video clips, that is). Sometimes I wish there were more than one me. One to see movies and review, one to go to parties, take pictures and write blog entries and then one to do interviews and then edit said interviews. Oh yeah, one more me to do normal editorial duties. I also wish I could fly, was about 100 lbs. lighter and could play a real musical instrument as opposed to being really good at Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I think all my wishes have an equal chance of happening

Monday is looking solid, as I have a screening of “Memorial Day,” and all I’ve been hearing about that is how absolutely controversial the flick is. Don’t know why, just know that it is. I like that I don’t know, should make it all the more exciting (if that winds up being the word to use). I’ll also be back out on the party circuit, so expect more fun pictures and late night / early morning gibberish in about 24 hours…

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