Sunday, January 28, 2007

Lynch Mania


The Lynch and Donovan event was amazing last week. Donovan played a full hour. Apparently, up until this year he's not played in public for three decades. He was crazy good, and all about world peace and visualization and so inspiring.

Lynch's talk about his non-profit organization for inner city kids to learn meditation was inspiring, too. Larua Dern was there interviewing Lynch, and they had a really sweet shorthand together. He calls her The Tidbit. Totally brilliant guy. Never paused or said "um" once.

It's always such an honor just to be in the Kodak, and my seats were in the twentieth row from the stage! Crazy to look behind me at the three mezzanines and see all the Hollywood people gathered to support artistic individuality.

The event was taped, so part of it will end up on PBS. I highly recommend watching it.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Rock on

You know what's great about the Academy Award nominations this year?

Five black actors were nominated, and it's not a story.

That's fantastic. It was just a few years ago that it was groundbreaking about Halle and Denzel, and now 5 isn't a headline.

Effin' rock on.

Now we just have to get there with the non-ingenues. This year, it's big news that three women over 50 are nominated. And in a few years...

Big Clanking Balls


I just popped another awards screener into the DVD player. A tiny indie film. Tiny. One of those personal types about sharecroppers where there's no dialogue because they can't afford sound. And before the movie started, it had several screens instructing me to calibrate my TV so I could properly enjoy the tiny indie film.

Ex-squeeze me?

Wow. If your gonads are that hairy, you really should use them for good, not evil. Like something clever that would make me vote for your film instead of both INSULTING AND PISSING ME OFF before it even starts. I mean, seriously. I have a stack of thirty films to get through in the next two weeks before I vote, and you want to giftwrap me a good reason to put yours back at the bottom?

Sigh.

I hope it's the distribution company I should be mad at. Yeah, that's the ticket. The poor filmmakers probably don't even know the dang message is there. Nah, that didn't work. I'm still mad at their film.

Oh, and for the record, my cinematographer calibrated our expensive state of the art TV for me, and it's just fine. So if it's good enough for screenings of John Toll's movies, it's good enough for any Mini DV sharecropping tale with a third world DP. Cripes.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Give me more

Of course someone's got to bitch about theircrappy city being blown up.

Meanwhile on the web, someone else had the right idea and grabbed a shot of what Jack Bauer's face looks like as the world is blown up on his watch:


Saw another spec screenwriter bragging about how they don't watch TV. It just kills me. I mean, if you're telling people you're a storyteller and you're trying to break into the hardest business in the world to break into, you might want people to think that you A) Do your homework B) Pay attention to the business and C) Realize like the rest of us that the best storytelling in the world has been on TV, going on now for, oh, 6 YEARS.

For eff's sake. Oh, and that goes for wannabe actors, too. Pay attention to the craft, and if you're ignorant, don't brag about it. If you're trying to break into Hollywood for the right reasons, you'll actually enjoy renting the series DVDs for 24, Deadwood, Rescue Me, The Shield, Nip/Tuck, Doctor Who, Life on Mars, Lost, The Office, Entourage, Dexter, Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Big Love...and these are just the world class series.

There are plenty of other quality shows that occasionally have outstanding episodes more entertaining than film, from populist Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy to genre-loving Supernatural and Medium. The Class and How I Met Your Mother are growing in strength every week. Hell, even Studio 60 had a great moment with their Christmas episode, and I thought yesterday's Brothers and Sisters episode finally pushed past their twee music into interesting and funny territory, with genuine chemistry between Rob Lowe and Callista Flockhart.

Odds are, if you get a job, it will be in TV, not film. It's time to stop acting ungrateful about it. Make yourself worthy, and realize what a privilege that opportunity would be.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

OMG

Mad TV is on freaking fire tonight! I can't believe how much I'm enjoying this episode. Can't wait for the Medium satire; the first one was so brilliant.

And how terrible was Ebert and Roeper tonight? That woman wins the worst co-host award. Please Ebert, get better fast. It's a disturbing world when Roeper's the only one who makes any sense on the show.

Loving it

Another great site: Fake Gay News...because the real gay news is too depressing

The Dreaded food poisoning

As you know, throwing up is one of my least favorite activities, and one I go to extreme lengths to avoid. I even once possessed an 11-year-no-puke streak. Sigh.

Last night, at midnight, I scavenged the fridge for something to munch on. I'm on the Atkins diet again, so the pickins were much slimmer than I. Spotted some of that store-bought, pre-grated cheese, and dug in. Tasted fine for three handfulls...until the fourth handful revealed a pile of mold.

Arrrgggh!

Faced with the quandry of whether to go try to somehow make myself puke then, or feel shaky all day today and spend an inevitable night on the toilet, I chose...well, it's midnight now, and it's going to be a loooong night.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Vote now

I don't know why I've been so indecisive lately.

Should I keep paying beaucoup money to be an unnatural blonde, or go back to the no-maintenance brunette? (Red's out for awhile; I'm bored of it).

I don't usually jive with the type of people I attract as a blonde, but until I find time to work out for an hour plus a day, it helps me feel sassy in la la land.

Current blonde look here and below:

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Get me Jack Bauer, immediately



One of the many inconsistencies I exhibit is that, though I appear to be easily classified as an UBER Amazon (Urban Bohemian Entrepreneurial Rogue Amazon, coined by brother in the force Mark Melo), I'm also a fighter and a patriot.

This oddity would be the fault of my biological brother, for teaching me how to read on his 1970s Avengers comic books. Which is why my speech is sometimes peppered with gems like, "We will follow you through the gates of hell, but you must lead us." (No, not Cerberus fetched from Hades by Hercules in Greek mythology...but I believe Iron Man imploring Captain America to Assemble).

If you follow the logic line, you can actually discern how I would get from Avengers to Greek mythology to La Femme Nikita to 24.

But because love knows no logic, it is with sad heart that I report I am now off the market forever...as Jack Bauer has taken residence in my heart.

He of the soulful blue eyes, kept promises, beautifully scarred hands, and newly weak stomach, has crawled onto my lap for eternity. I run my fingers gently through his perfect hair and we stare at the mushroom cloud that is Los Angeles and softly whisper "no"...

Oh, I may enter into a loveless marriage that I escape from late at night with my 24 box set. I may bear progeny that are all named Jack; gender be damned. But always in the back of my mind, no matter what hellacious domesticity I am trapped in, I will really be on the freshly mown grass of a shitty Valencia suburb, rocking my broken hero in the cradle of my arms.

As always, check Blogs4Bauer for the latest Bauer Kill Count.

Oh, and lest you think this not be posted by Lis Effin' Fies, Socialist whose first boyfriend was Persian, here's the latest cost of the War in Iraq.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

If you're bored

Copy and paste this into the comments section and tell me a little about yourself.

Jed's Awesome "I'm Bored" 2007 Survey

Two Names You Go By:
1. Lizzie-Mae
2. Lulu

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Christmas PJs with lobsters in Santa Claus hats...get it..."Sandy Claws"?
2. Hero, asleep on my lap. He's been extra-cuddly all day.

Two Things You Want in a Relationship:
1. Free-will
2. Chemistry

Two of Your Favorite Things to do:
1. Watch movies
2. Laugh

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. Money
2. Effexor. Or the sweet embrace of death.

Two pets you [want to] have:
1. Another Pomeranian
2. A cat

Two people who will fill this out:
1. No clue
2.

Two things you did last night:
1. Worked on my freake "Commune" screenplay
2. Watched "Platoon" and "Hellraiser: Hellworld"

Two People that live in your house:
1. Brenda
2. Steve

Two things you ate today:
1. Wheat Pasta with Vodka Sundried tomato sauce
2.

Two people you Last Talked To:
1. Brenda
2. Heidi

Two Things You're doing tomorrow:
1. Having coffee* with Rashaan (* Only I drink tea...like a good Anglophile)
2. Playing pool to raise money for poor kids in Baja.

Two longest car rides:
1. Santa Rosa to Snowqualamie with my first boyfriend when I was almost 18.
2. Santa Rosa to South Dakota with my family when I was 4.

Two Favorite Holidays
1. Memorial Day - love the start of summer
2. Halloween

Two favorite beverages:
1. Egg nog
2. Sake

Two Favorite movies:
1. "Terminator 2"
2. "sex, lies, and videotape"

Two Favorite places
1. a movie theatre
2. Glastonbury Tor with my magical, hot taxi driver (No, ladies, the steamy tale's still not been made into a Zalman King/Showtime spectacle...sorry to dissapoint. But I am taking donations for plane tickets if you want a sequel).

Top 10 Gayest Moments

I usually hate these year-end round ups, but this one is fun.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Just Wondering

Is anyone else feeling curl-up-in-a-ball-and-suck-your-thumb depressed that it's 2007? Seriously? Seven years already after all that hoopla about the new century? My life is flying by with alarming speed.

And Keisha Castle-Hughes is having a baby at sixteen?

Bryce Dallas Howard is knocked up, too? Now, I've been rather outspoken about not having the traditional values/desires of American women, but this is a little much to hear at New Years. Reminds me of getting to UCLA and finding out everyone there has a 4.0 and an Emmy or Olympic medal already. Overachieving bastards.

Never mind. I've got grey roots to dye.

By the way, if you're thinking staying up until 4 am watching "Black Hunter, White Heart" again will cheer you up, skip it, sister. I tried. It doesn't work. Even with Clint's dreamy impersonation of Huston.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

2007



Now let's go kick some ass.


I can't believe I missed this.