Falling asleep 38 minutes into “Lars and the Real Girl” three nights ago was a sign that my film-watching patience and skill has dwindled now to virtually non-existent that I have become a father. It’s as simple as this: When you are exhausted from chasing around a toddler all day, the last thing you want to do is watch an art house film and analyze Ryan Gosling’s moustache icicles during a snow storm.

I used to love art house films. Love them. I hated MEN IN BLACK. I hated INDEPENDENCE DAY. I loved things like ED’S NEXT MOVE. I despised any film without Woody Allen’s wit or Chris Farley’s jiggly chins. I had no time for popcorn fluff pieces that flashed across the screen during my single matinee movie going days.

NOW? I want action. Superheroes, Iron Man, Dark Knight… whatever. Something to keep me excited and awake and alive. Something to remind me that once, before marriage and the birth of my child, I was a swinging bad-ass with 9 Playmate’s, two extremely famous actresses and Fergie’s phone numbers in my Ericcson cellular phone. Now? Look at me. I went to see James Taylor at the Greek Theater last night for crying out loud.

Five years ago, I was trading a 22-year-old blonde girl mushrooms for a blow job at a Crystal Method show, and last night, there I was, checking my iphone to see if my 15 dollar-an-hour nanny was texting me while I sat praying she wouldn’t interrupt “Sweet Baby James.”

The nanny, by the way, is the main reason the independent film market is slowly dwindling. Lots of shot, unsold films are out there, collecting dust and withering away on shelves. (I know, as an actor, Im in about 13 of them…)

Here’s my point. Nannys cost $15.00 an hour these days. Movies (especially at places like the Arclight in Los Angeles) can run $14.00 a pop. Add $2.00 for parking, $18.00 or so for concessions and $20.00 for the inevitable post film red wine, and you’re looking at a 4 hour evening that runs you close to $120.00. To see a fucking MOVIE!

It happened to me with I’M NOT THERE - the Bob Dylan flick. Saw the film with my wife, got Carmen, our best nanny, had some sodas and popcorn and went to St. Nick’s Tavern for a post film cocktail. After bitching about how nobody really understands Bob Dylan the way I do (A typical musician thought following this film) I found myself at an ATM gathering 120 dollars to pay Carmen for basically coming over, throwing on the ELMO IN GROUCHLAND DVD and putting my son to sleep. It aint bad work if you can get it.

Now, is $120 worth it to see a film? Maybe, if the film is full of ACTION and GORE and COMEDY and VIOLENCE and SUSPENSE and WONDER. Like IRON MAN. A perfect $120 movie. I’ll say the same for BORAT and THE DARK KNIGHT. IM NOT THERE? Not worth it. Neither are 98% of the films out there today. It’s as if you pay the filmmakers to put you to sleep.

So, when I think about how much I used to love going to the independent films at the Laemmle here in L.A. I remember that it just isn’t worth dropping the cash to see. And, like any patient, broke dad, I wait until my Netflix cue is empty and fill it up with independent brilliance like LARS AND THE REAL GIRL to remind myself that I once took deep interest in artsy, well- written films without any CGI or special effects, super heroes, hot women, cool cars and fast planes.

And then, I promptly fall asleep…

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     There is no new making of webisode on Film Threat this week because Steve is having technical difficulties. He is in the process of sorting these difficulties out and an exciting and particularly dramatic Episode 8 is coming up next Wednesday. But for now, he is stuck in computer hell. The long story short is that his fdfdgdfds was updated and that was not compatible with the new version of this 656rewknsafsa and now his G5 is not playing any video.
 
     This is about as far as my understanding of computers and all related technology goes. Perhaps it is because I’m a tree hugging hippie who meditates on the beach, reads tarot cards, and literally, hugs trees to feel better when I’m depressed, but there is a part of my brain that is completely resistant to the absorption of any and all things technical.
 
     Without the help of Doug, I may not even have a working DVD player, much less a computer, much less ever been on the internet, much less have an edited feature film that has been converted into digi beta, hdcam, and DVD. I can not burn CDs or DVDs. I can not upload, down load, or install software. Yes, I can edit, if by edit you mean figure out what scenes and shots should go where and how a story should unfold. But when it comes to actually pressing a button on our Powermac, even if it is just the “on” button on the monitor, I am terrified. In fact, I flat out won’t do it. I’ll talk you ear off about pace, character build, and viewer perspective, but all talk of mbit, 10adi, and other format related topics come at me like a foreign language.
 
     To say that this has been a sore point in my working relationship with Doug would be like saying that breaking a leg might bother someone on the track team for the upcoming Olympics. Not that I don’t do my part when it comes to producing Still Green. But when it comes to any and all technical responsibility, Doug is on his own. This is something I plan on rectifying somehow before we shoot our next feature. Let me rephrase that. This is something Doug has insisted I rectify before we even think about development for our next feature. But suffice to say this is not my strength, to say the least.
 
     So when it was suggested that I use this most recent computer crisis as an opportunity to bog about the many many many technical issues that Still Green has faced, I felt like someone just asked me to blog about neural sceience or chaos theory or anything that I’m am simply not qualified to talk about. I was never the one up for days trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with out computer before an upcoming deadline of some kind, or burning screeners for festivals, or preparing AIFF files for our sound designer, or splitting the video tracks for the color correctionist or, for that matter, sitting in a studio with the color correctionsist every day for two months trying to figure out why our footage wouldn’t upconvert.  Doug should be blogging about these technical difficulties. He is the one who dealt with all of them.
 
     I could tell all kinds of horror stories, and believe me, we are loaded with them. But they would all sound like this. “Right before the deadline of (insert whatever festival, agent, distribution rep, post production house, publicists etc needed a copy of the movie at that moment) the dsfjsdkfdsml wouldn’t adsklfndlk causing our skdjasdkla to sdkljldskdmsakl and so Doug had to sdlrkdslkfnds for weeks to fix the problem.
 
But here is what I do know.
 
1.     I know that there is a monster inside every Mac computer that eats files. This has happened to us on many occasions and to every other editor I know who uses Final Cut Pro. The fact that a certain shot or sequence was safely saved on your hard drive in May does not at all mean that this file will still be on your hard drive the following January when you realize you want that shot or sequence back into your picture. I can not say that I know a lot about this monster, but I know that he or she prefers a diet of crucial shots or scenes to your film, ideally shots or scenes that your rep has specifically asked you to put back into the movie. It also has a special palate for shots your director has decided he cannot live without. 
 
2.      Your Powermac is psychologically unbalanced. It has absolutely no coping skills for the daily stress that goes into filmmaking much less for the uber stressful times. It should be on Prozac. It should be into deep cognitive therapy. Because very time there is a deadline your Powermac will have an emotional breakdown where it simply does not function. Our Powermac is emotionally equipped to handle daily life’s ups and downs such as small editing changes, or burning screeners…except when there is a non negotiable deadline. Then she crumbles, falls into a manic depressive state, and simply refuses to function. We have to take her to the doctor with her health care provider, apple care, covering the cost and sometimes, she stays sick and in bed for weeks. I do not know what the solution to this is. Every time she comes back from the doctor, she is given a clean bill of health. But come the next deadline it is almost a guarantee that she will have another emotional breakdown. I believe Steve’s computer is breaking down for similar reason…he has a deadline.
 
 3.     Because “my computer is having technical difficulties” has become the new “the dog ate my homework” excuse that everyone uses to justify their lack of completion of anything these days, no one cares about your computer woes. In fact, if anything, it raises major red flags of suspicious. You can almost hear people thinking, “Did your computer really break or were you just out partying all night rather than diligently burning these screeners and is that why I don’t have them?” There is nothing to be done about this either. We all have legitimate computer problems and let’s be honest; we have all blamed a computer difficulty when it was not the case at some point in our lives as well.
 
           But the light at the end of this tunnel is that although computers do have a mind of their own and can fuck your production beyond belief if you are not carefully and even if you are careful, there is usually a solution. It is not usually a fun solution or a quick one but there is one. We have had major computer problems that caused drama in every aspect of this movie post including capturing, editing, test screenings, audio design, color correction, screener creation, film festival screenings and promotion, and now in our sales efforts.  But Still Green is still here, alive, and kicking.

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A week or so back, I started what I hope will be a regular column called “Internet S.T.F.U.” which stands for Internet Stuff That’s Frigging Ubiquitous.” As I said then, I spend too much time in my office at my “real” job reading other sites and blogs and the more I do so, the more I see really annoying trends and topics in the world of film that gain momentum. Yet for this installment, I’d actually like to use my S.T.F.U. platform to ask Drew McWeeny (aka “Moriarity”) of Ain’t it Cool News to please, shut the fuck up and stop being a useless studio stooge.

At the beginning of July, Drew further entrenched himself in the pocket of the major studios (this time, Universal) by coming out to the studio for an “editing room visit” on the third Mummy movie “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” Since it’s truly a moot point by now to bitch about how ridiculous it is to have a site or magazine dedicated to reviewing films visiting sets and editing bays, I’ll drop it. But I will say I simply do not get the point of having a writer come visit your editing bay for a sneak peek of an embargoed film. (Note: Many new release Hollywood films have review “embargoes” placed on them by the studios. While many writers and press get to see films at press screenings, or even ahead of press screenings, they’re asked to not post an official review until the date of release).

Having a writer visit your set or editing bay and then agree to an embargo is ridiculous. Of course they’re going to go back and write about what they saw straight away while it’s newsworthy and that’s what McWeeny did. Plus, since they just got flown out to a set or studio, put up in a hotel and allowed access to a blockbuster…what do you think their response will be? Well, look no further than Drew McWeeny/Moriarty’s review of his visit to the editing bay for “Mummy 3.”

Since nausea and a genuine aversion to ass kissing and self promotion keeps me away from Ain’t it Cool News, I only go there when something somewhere else catches my eye. Today, it was David Poland’s complete bashing of Mummy 3 on Movie City News’s “The Hot Blog.” While I’m leaning towards agreeing with Poland that the movie is atrocious, I always try to avoid early reviews of movies I want to see. I do not want to see “Mummy 3” so I read his blog review in which he says of the film, “I haven’t seen The Love Guru or Space Chimps, so I can’t be sure, but The Mummy:TotDE seems like it has a real shot at Worst Film Of The Summer awards. It was much worse than Meet Dave or Journey To The Center Of The Earth or The Happening. Really special.” Ouch! Now I really don’t want to see it.

Poland allows commenters on his blog and who should be the first (FIRST!) commenter, but Mr. Editing Bay Visitor himself, Drew McWeeny. His comment ends with him calling Mummy 3 “wretched.” This inspired me to seek out McWeeny’s piece on his editing bay visit and what I read turned my stomach, especially since he has gone to another site to express his dislike of a movie he just spent three pages promoting on his site.

In the AICN piece, McWeeny praises Mummy 3 without actually praising it, but instead aligning it against the low hanging fruit that is the fanboy bashed “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Without pulling quotes from his ass-sucking write-up, I counted eight references to the latest Indy film. Eight! In a piece about the Mummy 3! The most irritating and pointless complaint/comparison is where McWeeny makes note of the fact that Vic Armstrong, who was Harrison Ford’s stunt double and who also did the stunt coordinating in the earlier Indiana Jones films, serves as the second unit director on Mummy 3. It seems Armstrong wasn’t asked to work on the new Indy film which hurt his feelings and so Mummy 3 director Rob Cohen hired him. Neat. Anyone want to guess how much time the AICN crew got to spend on the set or in the editing bay for Indy 4?

The sad part is, McWeeny’s trick worked! He successfully reminded the slathering AICN fanboys how much they loathed Indy 4 as well over half of the comments on his story echo the sentiment that, as one commenter posited, “Indy 4 raped my summer.” Other commenters took the bait hook line and sinker and decided Mummy 3 could be good because Moriarty has laid his piece out as “if you hated Indy 4, you might like Mummy 3.”

So in summary…

• Drew McWeeny got to visit the editing bay on Mummy 3 and see much of the first act of the film. He wrote about what he saw way ahead of anyone and way ahead of the embargo date.

• Drew McWeeny then sat down with the film’s director Rob Cohen (who, I neglected to mention, is a total hack) and they talked about how much Cohen loves China and some other frothy topics, all before his official review (or his site’s official review) was to come out.

• Drew McWeeny in his review of Mummy 3 builds the film up as “the anti-Indy 4” in a not-so-secret-attempt to fire up fanboys who hated Indy in order to drive them towards Mummy 3.

• Drew McWeeny went to The Hot Blog where he discussed his disdain for Mummy 3, a movie he praised in his report on his editing room visit.

It’s truly unbelievable that Ain’t it Cool is still around, and not just due to their sketchy tactics. More because it’s genuinely shocking that their readers let them get away with this crap and read it as news or criticism. But then again, Ain’t it Cool is like fanboy porn. These dudes at AICN are like the fat ass pizza guys who show up at the hot chicks door and get invited in to get blown and laid when said hot chick has no money for her delivery. That’s something that porn viewers know will never happen to them just like fanboys know they’ll never get to do all the geeky things their hero writers will get to do.

Regardless of the psychological underpinnings of AICN, I’d like us all to do our homework here. Let’s consider it like a science experiment, shall we? Knowing what we now know about McWeeny’s involvement with “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” and it’s director, his apparent pal Rob Cohen, let’s see what kind of write-ups he or his site give the film. We can all meet back here Saturday to discuss. See you then!

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In about 90 minutes, the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con will be finished and I will (hopefully) be on my way home. This year was success and failure, fun and boredom. Pick an emotion, I probably felt it at some point during this festival. I’ve got tons of pictures, video and more to relate to everyone about the Con… but I’m not going to do it now. Why? Because I am fucking tired and wrecked.

I’ve been working on this laptop in the hallway across of meeting rooms 28 for about two hours now, typing away on emails, working on the general FT fun and the like. People have been using me as a placeholder and/or a visual marker to inform them whether they’ve been down this hallway before. I’ve seen some friends leave, and others arrive. But I’m sitting on the floor, and I’d rather be asleep on it. Therefore, don’t have the ambition to format the pics or the videos right now. Wait for Monday afternoon… or perhaps Tuesday. Whenever I get out of my Comic-Con coma (isn’t that a Massive Attack song?)

I will tease things to come, however. I went to the Masquerade Ball, and saw a Nerd Rave that rivaled the Zion sequence in the first shitty “Matrix” sequel. A freight train broke down on the tracks, blocking me and about 2,000 other nerds from getting away from the Convention Center. I acted as security for Stan Lee. I ate fried ice cream. I watched Elite security almost beatdown a bunch of journalists for daring to be escorted to Hall H. I took many pictures.

There you go. Until I wrap things up with one more blog entry, or a feature of FT, then this is all you get until I can revitalize myself by sleeping in my own bed, far away from all the other nerds…

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I am… recovering, quite simply. Yesterday was insane as far as people go, and I’ll admit that my legs no longer want to stand or walk anywhere. I also find myself extremely antagonistic towards my fellow man, leading me to believe that nerds, when massed in one place, have the curious ability to inspire hatred. I also think Comic-Con should come up with a “Fat People in Electric Scooters Punish-the-Fat-Away” program.

It’s simple, if you’re in a scooter or wheelchair because of some disability, I have no beef with you. However, if you’re so fat that you need an electric-scooter to get around the Con floor without fainting, then you need to fucking lose some weight. I’m a big guy myself, and I don’t think it would be too much for people, if they REALLY want to attend Comic-Con, to adhere to some sort of health regime that doesn’t involve a machine doing all the work for you. If you’re one of the people I’m talking about, then attending the Con would be solid motivation, I would think. Otherwise we’ve got a Con of “WALL-E” citizen proportions.

Anyway, Friday is typically one of the busiest days of the Con, as is Saturday. My Friday started out solid, as I got to see the end of “The Wolfman” footage in Hall H, and then followed that up with “The Spirit.” For the former, the footage actually looked good. For the latter, while the footage was pretty… I wasn’t fond. Simply, when clip three involved what I dubbed “Battle in Shit Creek” between Gabriel Macht and Samuel L. Jackson, while it was my favorite clip, it also was gibberish. Fine, out of context and, admittedly when I lack first-hand knowledge of the comic itself, footage deserves a pass and I’ll reserve judgment. Again, it is pretty. I just don’t know if it will all make any sense.

The panel itself was fun. Samuel L. Jackson was ridiculously quotable and non-PC. His mini-rant about Nick Fury being white when he was younger, but the character having evolved into someone he could relate to, was hilarious. He followed that up by talking about his Nazi outfit in “The Spirit” trailer, and that, between Nick Fury changing skin tones and dressing like a skinhead racist, in America you can truly be anything and that “you too can grow up to be a black man.”

Post those panels, I was to be a part of an interview roundtable with the cast of “Zack and Miri Make a Porno.” However, the roundtable was to start later than planned, so my new friend Arno from IMDB offered to man my voice recorder so I could cut out and get to my next event, an advanced screening of “Pineapple Express.”

Zack and I busted ass to get to the theater 45 minutes prior and… wasn’t good enough. They had capped the line and Zack and I were out of luck. So we instead decided to go back to the Con, and see if we could get into Hall H for the full Kevin Smith panel. After a brief stop at the hotel (wherein we got into an elevator with James Franco and debated telling him about how we had just been shut out of his flick, but were trumped by two other people far more annoying than Zack and I could ever be), we got back to the Con and, miraculously, walked right into Hall H. No line, no stopping, right in.

Kevin Smith Comic-Con events are always big draws, and always a ton of fun. This year, Kevin was joined by most of the cast of “Zack and Miri” and, between himself, Seth Rogen, Jason Mewes and Justin Long, the panel was a blast. The crowd even had a few bits of comic brilliance, with a young boy stating that his Mother was with him, so he was going to pretend he didn’t know who pornstar Katie Morgan was. It was a nice end to the “official” Con bits for the day, as I like to laugh, and Zack and I cut out afterwards to party at Gore’s room. Which we did.

I’m not sure how much I drank, but I was slightly buzzed when Zack and I decided to hunt down food. I think the mistake I was about to make was in filling a Gatorade bottle with half-vodka, half-Gatorade, and then taking it with me. Had I not done that, my evening probably would’ve ended more like “buzzed” as opposed to “drunk.” Anyway, on our way out of the hotel, I ran into Kevin Smith so we chatted about the “Watchmen” footage, his panel and other fun stuff. Then we ran into his producing partner Scott Mosier, so I chatted with him for a bit too, before I then flagged down Brian Posehn to talk to him about his Comic-Con experience this year (everyone agrees: it’s too ridiculously crowded). Still buzzed at this point, but not drunk, and we were all of ten feet from the hotel.

Anyway, Zack and I got on our way again, looking for a restaurant that sold California Burritos (burritos that have French Fries in them). During our walk, I began to drink the Vodka-rade and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed someone familiar eating at a restaurant. It turned out to be “The State’s” Thomas Lennon, and he was eating with fellow “State” alum (and “Reno 911″ co-star) Robert Ben Garant and two female friends. So, of course, I had to ask them if they knew where we could find a restaurant with this mythical burrito and… THEY DID!

I’m sure I annoyed them longer than I should’ve, but Zack and I now had directions and sent off for the restaurant, during which time I finished the Vodka-rade bottle. We we got to the restaurant, Zack spied the listing for California Burrito, but he was upset that it didn’t list French Fries as an ingredient. As I informed him, however, it did list diced potatoes and, well… they’re the same thing. We went in, sat down and ordered… and then that’s when I went from buzzed and tipsy to full on-the-cusp drunk.

The meal is a bit of a haze now. I know I ate half the burrito, I also know I visited the bathroom about 5 times. Not to get sick, mind you, but to splash my face with water because I was overheating like nobody’s business. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I knew I need to fight on, so Zack and I rolled out and back to the hotel.
Once back in the room, I sat down and watched a couple episodes of “Spaced” on BBC America. Considering there was a “Spaced” screening over at the Con hosted by the gang, I began to doubt reality. Perhaps I was asleep at the restaurant. Perhaps nothing was real in this Geek-verse I was inhabiting. These types of thoughts accompanied me to my real sleep.

Tonight is the Masquerade Ball. In Comic-Cons past, Saturday was usually the night for drunken debauchery. Considering I did that last night, I plan on having a much tamer end to my Con experience… maybe. I mean, you never really know…

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I’m going to go out of order, keep this very nonlinear. So, for a minute, pretend I’m Tarantino. OK, here goes:

Hall H is the main panel hall for all the major film and television showcases. Tomorrow, for example, Hall H will be filled with those eager to hear all about “Watchmen,” “The Spirit” and Kevin Smith. Hall H is such a popular spot for geeks attending the Con that people line up well in advance, often times overnight, in an effort to get in. Once in, they stay all day. They sit through panels they’re not interested in to be sure and not miss the one they are interested in. It is insanity.

The last time I was able to get into Hall H was two years ago. At that time, it was possible to wander in rndomly throughout the day. The line was long, but not that insane. Then last year happened, and Hall H was a lost cause (unless you did line up well in advance). This year? Well, look at the following picture. It was taken at 10am, after they had already started letting people into the Hall.

The line you see continues around the Con, off to the right and, at this moment, was only tripled up on itself. When I left my spot upstairs, the line had quadrupled up on itself… and people were still coming. That’s when I realized that, unless a miracle were to happen, that there was no way I was going to get into Hall H tomorrow, Saturday or Sunday.

Oddly enough, this is not a problem for me. Instead of “Watchmen,” I’ll go to the “Spaced” panel I wanted to see anyway. Speaking of which…

This adventure started on Wednesday, with Zack, his friend Eric and I all going to Laser Blazer in Los Angeles for a signing of the new US release of the “Spaced” DVD set. Boasting new commentaries and other content, the value of the set was boosted further by the opportunity to get it signed by show creators Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes and Edgar Wright. Director Kevin Smith was also there, as he not only recorded a couple of the commentaries, but he also was the one hosting the signing (as it was technically being held in Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash, which currently resides in the larger Laser Blazer).

Now, there was a line, but it wasn’t bad. In fact, as far as signings go, this was the quickest one I’d ever been a part of. Save the delay in getting in line 90 minutes before the signing, we were out less than 90 minutes after it started.

Edgar was the first one we got to sign our DVDs, and I was able to chat him up about the possibility that I was going to say “fuck ‘Watchmen’” and go to his Comic-Con panel instead (a discussion that, now, seems to be prescient). His response was hilarious, basically egging director Zack Snyder for being the equivalent of a comic book inker (or “tracer” for those familiar with “Chasing Amy”). I joined in, agreeing with him that all Snyder has to do is hold up a comic book, and his storyboards and visual look are spelled out for him. We both then joked about which one of us would be ballsy enough to say so to Snyder if we ran into him at the Con, and after a brief improvisation wherein I played my best socially-inept geek (you know, the ones who say inappropriate, insulting things to people and think that they’re being charming), we both agreed to keep this discussion secret, lest Zack hurt us both. I obviously haven’t upheld my part of the bargain and thus am due an ass-whupping by both Wright and Snyder.

I have no idea what garnered this reaction, but it sure is a great picture of Simon and Jessica. I have reason to believe that they were reacting to something I said…

…otherwise, why would I be making THAT face? Honestly, though, the brief conversations with Jessica and simon were just that: brief. Typical “love the show, see you at Comic-Con” fare. Nothing spectacular.

But we got our autographs, and life was good. Kevin was in a different line, so Zack and I made sure we talked to him as well.

Kevin was cool to talk to, but he always is. We had a headstart on him as far as heading down to the Con, but he was to be enroute in the evening. He’s probably in town now, and I do hope to run into him while here (I’m supposed to be interviewing the rest of the “Zack and Miri” crew tomorrow afternoon).

Speaking of the Con, here are a bunch of pictures of the first day (these are the ones I promised yesterday).

Silas Lesnick offers me some of his “City of Ember” magic cookie. I partook of said offer, and it tasted just like a cookie should, much to my disappointment.

Folks are wandering the Con with inflatable He-Man swords that the got at this booth: Mattel’s Castle Greyskull!

My ideas of comfort in social situations screams as I take this picture of “The Spirit” booth.

HOLY FUCK-IT-CHU!?!

Who watches the “Watchmen”? Me, and I’ll do it inside Night Owl’s ship, thank you.

This is Flitz. He and I went to the DC Universe party and the “Tropic Thunder” screening together.Flitz is awesome. You will, I’m sure, be seeing more of Flitz if you’re following G4’s Comic-Con coverage.

To fuck with the blog timeline one more time, this is the Masters of Web panel I attending earlier in the day. As you can see, the panel was very, very crowded…

…and very, very well-attended. Standing room only, actually. I didn’t get much insight out of it, but it’s always fun to see what the people who write at all the other movie websites look like. Gives you a frame of reference when you’re reading their stuff later on.

Speaking of later on, I was able to get in on the roundtable interviews for “Push” and “Knowing” today, and I’ll get something together at some point. Got to talk to Chris Evans, Alex Proyas, Camilla Belle, Paul McGuigan and Dakota Fanning.

For the record, having met Dakota now, I must say that for a young kid she is ridiculously industry savvy and well-spoken. More eloquent than most I’ve talked to in my day and… it’s impressive. I’m really hoping she can keep it together as she grows up (we all know how easy child actors can go astray), because she’s got a good head on her shoulders.

I also talked with “Sex Drive’s” Josh Zuckerman, and proved, in my opinion, why I’m not very good at roundtables.

See, I’m one of two things during a roundtable. I’m either the listener, never contributing any questions or I become the entertainer, constantly needing to interject my wit into the conversation. For “Push” and “Knowing,” I offered little to none to the questioning (helped I was sitting next to CHUD.com’s Devin Faraci, and he is a smooth interviewer), while with Josh Zuckerman I was much more interested in hearing what he said, and then joking around with him. I’ve been behaving this way since my class clown days in school, and there may be no saving me at this point… which is why I dig one-on-one interviews more, because I’m able to balance the two impulses better. With roundtables… there’s either crowd to pick up my slack, or a crowd there to entertain. That simple.

Anyway, I’ve got some parties to attend this evening, then we lather, rinse, repeat for tomorrow. The Con is already overwhelming with people, so I can’t imagine Friday and Saturday’s turnout, so I won’t. Instead, I leave you with this picture:

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I have taken many pictures, and I want to share them with you, however my broadband modem, which is supposed to give me service everywhere (and, a couple months ago, worked in Bumfuck, NH) is not working so hot. Therefore, until I can get over to the convention center to use the free wi-fi, this is going to be entirely text-based.

Preview Night at the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con is done, and what an evening it was. I got to walk the Con floor and see all the wonderful toys that I want but will not ultimately actually buy. See, I have a system: Preview Night, I find everything I want and vow to buy it on Sunday. sunday comes and either I forget what I wanted to buy, or it is sold out. In the end, I save money. It’s a mindfuck, but it keeps the rent paid.

Lots of nice movie sites to see. The “Watchmen” booth had Nightowl’s ship, got a nice pic of “The Spirit” area. Of course, the strength will be the panels and such, but overall the Exhibition Hall is representing.

After walking the Con, Flitz (of newfound G4 fame) and I made our way to the DC Universe party, wherein we got to see some footage from the new game. Simply gorgeous. I’m not an MMO guy, but it looked nice.

We followed that party up with a trip across the street to the UA Theater for an early screening of “Tropic Thunder” and… the film will single-handedly save and revive Tom Cruise’s career. Yep, you heard it here first.

Cruise has not been promoted at all as being in the film, and that has to be by design and fear that word of his involvement is bad for the film. To which, having seen it… the man almost steals the whole flick.

Of course, Robert Downey, Jr. is amazing too. All-around, the film is absolutely hilarious. Can’t say enough good things about it, which’ll be apparent when the review is written. “Tropic Thunder,” believe the hype.

Got a full Thursday ahead of me (got a full Con ahead of me, really). Keep checking with the site, and follow us on Twitter if you want the constant, as-they-happen updates. I expect much tweets to be twittered over the next few days. Oh, and I’ll get pics up as soon as I can.

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Zack and I are heading down to Comic-Con in a few, and looking forward to the insanity. To get ourselves in the mood, we’re going by Laser Blazer first to get the new US DVD set of “Spaced” signed by Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Jessica Hynes and Kevin Smith. Sure, they’ll all be at the Con, but there’s fewer people in LA likely to line up for a “Spaced” signing then there will be in San Diego and, since I adore “Spaced,” not going to miss this opportunity.

After that, it’s the long drive south to SD for badge pick-up and then Preview Night shenanigans. There’s one party I’ve RSVP’d to, so hoping to check out some of that geekery, and then a screening of “Tropic Thunder” (which I cannot wait to see). Then tomorrow starts off the Con insanity, and I wish I knew what my schedule was. I intend to really attend the panels and such, for the first time ever committing entirely to the event planning. Really looking forward to it.
Anyway, there will be blog entries, there will be copious amounts of pictures and there will be little mini-blog updates over on the right side of the page. Hope you enjoy Film Threat’s coverage this year; time to get my geek on…

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     Watching this episode where we film the first fight between the characters of Monica and her boyfriend made me think about another reality of production. Some characters do not survive the journey from script to screen. Some get lost in the crossfire of production and post, and in the clashing opinions that inevitably ensue when you have three producers and a director all collaborating on the final outcome of the project; all with their own biases, agendas, and issues.

     The character of Monica was one I’d originally written as a leading role. In the script, Monica was a key player in this group of friends, and the film actually ended with her narration.

     Not everyone is gifted with comfort of expression.  Some people grow up in a certain way, or experience trauma that makes them unable to trust others with their inner thoughts. They may come across as one way, even if inside they are completely different.  This duality was what I wanted to achieve with Monica.  I had written her as a nagging little bitch on the outside. But on the inside, she was soft, poetic, and had a soulful perspective.

     A massive writer’s mistake I will never make again was the choice to partially develop all ten characters through a steady stream of inner monologues.  In the script each character narrates different scenes, and a large part of each is revealed through these inner monologues.  Despite a natural aversion to voice overs in this industry, I had written these voice overs as a deliberate choice as a way to tell this story. And in the script, the voice overs worked.

     But a script is not a film.

     No character had as many lengthily inner monologues as Monica.  In fact, the majority of her lines were voice overs. There were entire scenes where she did not say a word but thought out loud as the other characters talked around her. Cold bitchy Monica spoke and acted. Insightful soft Monica thought things that she didn’t share with anyone.  So when the entire concept of inner monologues running though the film was abandoned, Monica suddenly became a hard character to like.

     The scrapping of the voice over concept started at the end of production. I don’t want to give away things coming up in Steve’s future episodes. But I can say that something really fucked up happened to us on the last day of filming. It left us unable to finish shooting the movie.  About 90 percent of the movie was shot. But we were forced to leave Florida without shooting crucial scenes and unsure of how we were going to finish the movie.

     After we left Florida, Doug and I and headed back to his parents house in New Hampshire. At this point, we were completely out of money. We had an investor ready to come in with enough money for post, including the pickups we would now need to shoot. But the aftermath of this incident in Florida had caused a legal barricade that held us back from getting this investors money. Our lawyer immediately started working on this problem, but warned us that the process could go on for months. We had no way of knowing if this investor would still be interested by the time these problems were solved. We needed a plan B.

     In November of 05, Doug and I took out a loan for enough money to purchase our G-5, and related software so we could edit. Our back up plan was to edit the movie without the missing scenes over the next couple of months. Our hopes were that by the time these legal issues were taken care of, we would  have a almost complete version of the movie that was compelling enough to attract money from other sources so we could finish post and shoot these missing scenes, in the event our new angel investor bailed out. 

     My brother owned a 3 bedroom house in Charleston, South Carolina. In the spirit of support for his little sisters first project, as well as the fact that he was originally slated to score the film, he offered to let Doug and I crash there for free while we edited.

     Doug and I needed somewhere free to live while we edited Still Green. My brother’s house was right by the beach in gorgeous sunny Charleston, SC which was far superior to other two options. Neither the frigid basement of my parents place in Worcester, MA or the frigid basement of Doug’s parent’s house in Raymond, NH were the least bit enticing. Besides not wanting to edit our baby in cold boring towns we were dying to escape from, Doug and I had broken up right around this time and no one wanted to be living with our ex’s parents.

     So we moved in with my brother, found day jobs, set up our new office, and ordered our equipment while back in Los Angeles, Jon captured all our footage. By January of 06, we had four hard drives full of the puzzle pieces needed for us to design our masterpiece.

     As I said, there were originally going to be voice overs running throughout the entire movie. So it didn’t take long for Doug and I to realize that somehow, none of the voice over files had made it onto our hard drives. We called Jon. They were not on his hard drive either.  We had certainly recorded these voiceovers. Jon had certainly captured every bit of footage from every tape. But for whatever reason, every voice over in Still Green had disappeared into the great unknown, leaving us with more holes as we tried to edit this film that was already missing crucial scenes.

     Initially Doug and I tried recording the voice overs ourselves on our crappy little camera we bought for 500 bucks. We edited our first cut of the movie with our own voices streaming the characters inner monologues thinking this could work as a temporary place holder until we had the money to rerecord our actors.

     But between the quality of the recording, the fact that there were only two of us and we sound nothing like our actors, and the fact that Doug and I cannot act, it was impossible to take the movie seriously with our voices running  through it the entire time. Every time one of us spoke, whoever we were showing a scene to at the time would burst out laughing.

     Four months later we were done with our rough cut. By now we had also dealt with the legal battle and had secured our new investors money.  In April of 06, Jon and Andrea flew to Charleston where they would watch our rough cut, where Jon would take our cut to the next level with his own edits, and where we would finally shoot these missing scenes.

     It was impossible for Andrea and Jon to get into the movie with our voice overs. Additionally, Jon insisted that we test screen the movie, even with the missing scenes, before shooting second unit. He made the excellent point that since we were spending all kinds of money on these pick ups, we had better use this time to shoot any extra footage we may need. These needs would be based on holes in the film we wouldn’t catch ourselves. We needed to show the film to a test audience or two, and see what was and wasn’t working for them. And since the test audiences could not be cracking up every time they heard Doug or my voice, Jon edited the movie the best he could to make it flow without any voice overs.

     Between the lack of voice overs, the missing scenes, and the fact that there were major holes we were not aware of, our first test screenings were heartbreaking. No one liked the film. In all honestly, even we didn’t like the film yet.

     Once the missing scenes were shot, as well as a slew of new scenes to fix some of the film’s other problems, Jon edited a new cut, sans voice overs.

     So here was the problem. Now we had a cut of the movie with no voiceovers in it. We continued to test screen the non voice overed movie for the next two months and made change after change based on audience’s feedback. By the time we were ready to  regroup our actors and re record the voice overs, we had made so many changes to the movie that Still Green was no longer a film that could accommodate a steady stream of inner monologues.

     It was decided that each character would get one voice over and that was it. I wrote one new voice over for each character. I had the advantage of knowing what things were still unclear to the audience so that was nice.

     What was not nice was the feeling that I had been robbed of my original vision on how to develop these characters.  Whether the original voice over concept would have worked had everything played out differently is anyone’s guess.  I do not want to blog about the intense voice over battles I had with Doug, Jon, or Andrea but I will say they got ugly, and that I was far from cool about this. Suffice to say that a part of me hated all three of my collaborators during this time, despite the fact that that were all working their asses off to bring a great version of Still Green to life.

     We did bring a great version of Still Green to life, and looking back on it, I believe that everything happens for a reason and that the best version of Still Green did not need voice overs the entire time.

     But there was nothing we could do with Monica’s character except trim her role down.  So this character faded into the c plot of the film and most of her footage will live only in the archives of our hard drive.

     I have heard of many films where the voice overs get tossed in post, and maybe it is for the best. Maybe the look an actor gives or a gesture is better. The independent film audience is smart and insightful and maybe beating them over the head with a shovel is just going to piss them off. They’d probably rather figure some things out on their own.

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Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper Leave “At the Movies”; Replaced by Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz
Source: Yahoo

I was going to write something yesterday when the news first broke that Ebert and Roeper, separately yet convienently within a short timeframe of one another, announced they were leaving “At the Movies” due to a difference in opinion over the show’s direction. I was both sad and curious. Sad because Ebert and Roeper “At the Movies” was truly the only remaining mainstream critical touchstone that didn’t make me throw up in my mouth. I didn’t necessarily agree with what they said all the time, but I respected their years of experience and cinematic knowledge. Besides, Ebert is, and forever will be, a film criticism icon.

I was curious about the direction the show would take, however, and wandered which older, respected critics would move into the prestigious roles. And today, I got my answer: E! critic Ben Lyons and Turner Classic Movies Ben Mankiewicz.

BEN LYONS!?!?! I’ll give them Mankiewicz, but the only thing Lyons has going for him is a quote-whore of a father that he’s more than just a little too comfortable emulating (don’t believe me, watch some film commercials and play “spot Ben’s quote”). Plus, isn’t he, like, 12 years old? This is the new direction?

I guess it was inevitable. Hollywood is always about the younger, sleeker model and why should broadcast film critics be treated any differently? I’ll admit that while I do check in on Ebert and Roeper’s opinions about films, I don’t use them to gauge my own movie-going decisions so having new hosts of “At the Movies” won’t really impact me all that much. Change is just frightening, I guess.

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