New Goal Deadline

The Christmas goal of self-publishing Mom's book is Sunday...and I'm changing the goal and the deadline. We're reaching higher, people.

I'm still going to finish editing the book, gather blurbs, and have a dust jacket designed...but for the purpose of submitting to a half dozen publishing houses by the end of January (giving Abrams first crack, of course.).

I've received too much feeback and coaching from people that self-publishing is not the way to go with this book. Between the perfect tie-in with Mom's Cancer and the Legendary Author who may very well give a blurb, we're shooting for the stars.

Mom would be very pleased.

Admit It

How many of you have been downgraded on your Holiday Cards from "love" to something effed up like warmly or fondly...

Something that really takes more thought than just putting love, for chrissakes...

Don't be stingy with the love, people.

Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck, Nip/Tuck!!!!

Snip, snip, sweetheart.

Two seasons of waiting finally coming to an end. Who is The Carver?

I'm saying Christian. Julian needs a movie career, after his stellar work on The Profiler, Charmed, and now Nip/Tuck. Which would mean no more naked Julian...sigh. But I would only be shocked if Team Murphy don't shock me yet again...is Merrill alive?



Is The Carver:



It is wrong for me to get this much enjoyment out of life. Wrong, wrong wrong. Must go hit myself with a Bible a few times to atone.

Internet Searches...

That brought you here today:

Tawny Kitaen
Urban Bohemian
Creative Screenwriting
I'm Super Thanks For Asking
Writing Description a Poor Middle-Aged Man
Kid Girls and Kid Boys Having Sex

...And you still haven't found what you're looking for.

Hmmnn....

I've been thinking today about fashion and how what you wear reflects who you think you are, and how I usually wear Anthropologie/Free People/vintage-shabby chic-type things, often with hats, and how pleased I was to see Charlize Theron in several of the pieces I own on Arrested Development until it was revealed that her character is mentally retarded...

Wowza

I have a really good, solid lead on getting a blurb for Mom's autobiography from her favorite Bigshot Legendary Author. Can't even believe it. Beside myself with joy. If this happens, you could pretty much run over me with a car the day after and my life would be complete.

Inspiration

Another friend has joined the blogsphere. Check out HeidiWood. That's now two friends I've corrupted into our evil web of words.

By the way, all you people whining about "When are you going to post your short film?" can SUCK IT. It's been there for days now, and RM's the only one to view it and comment. Fickle public. Griping nothing's good on, and when there is you DON'T WATCH.

Kong A Masterpiece

IMHO. My viewing companion wasn't as enthusiastic, but I loved every frame. See it in the theatre.

Get Your Hi-larious Short Movie...

Please feel free to PASS ON THIS LINK! Or...THIS LINK! Whichever you prefer, really. Makes no difference to the clams.

Aberrations Vol. IV

As promised, here is our short film. Hope you enjoy it! If not, it's only 5 minutes and 18 seconds of your life.



Thanks for the streaming help. Anyone know what I need to add to the html code so that the Quicktime controls show? This is the embed tagging I'm using:
(EMBED SRC="aberrations.mov" WIDTH=240 HEIGHT = 196 AUTOPLAY=true CONTROLLER=true LOOP=false PLUGINSPAGE=http://www.apple.com/quicktime/")

Okay, Okay

I'm set on the hyphen usage. Thanks, all.

Mom's 358 page book is off to India to be typed by flying fingers...I just wasn't getting it done. Too hard. It will be back next week, and I'll be looking for two groups of people who want to volunteer to:

1. Proof-read part or all of Grandpa's Girl.
2. Read a chapter or two and contribute a promotional blurb for the back cover, etc.

The book is an autobiography of the year leading up to her one-year stay in a sanitarium at age seven. It's very sweet, and has lots of folksy details of growing up in South Dakota during WWII. Also poignant and full of life, just like Mom. Brian is drawing the cover; a picture of Mom sitting on her beloved Gpa's lap. (He was also featured in Mom's Cancer.)

Anyone interested? Much obliged.

The 40-Year-Old-Virgin

Or is it The 40 Year-Old Virgin...or The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Those dashes have been just about everywhere. Different uses in the official ad campaigns, even the various mentions in the LA Times. No one can agree, and this is coming from the camps who should know where to put a dash.

So my question today is...how DO you decide where to put a dash? Is there any official rule? Handbook? Is there an evolution of dashes in our culture vocabulary?

This issue has been bugging me lately because I'm editing Mom's autobiography, and she is a dash user. Multiple dash user on every page. But I can't necessarily say she's wrong. And staring at the words doesn't seem to help. So how do I decide?

Final Cut Help

Anyone know the correct codex to use for converting your final cut file to a quicktime small enough to stream well online?

Mixed Feelings About Narnia

UPDATE: I want you to like this film and to take many many people to it. Please read the far superior reivew at AICN. Oh, and the whole Christian thing is so blown out of proportion. No one writes articles on how "The Game" and "The Matrix" affected the EST community, or how "Star Wars" converted people to Taoism. Freaking ridiculous.

I really wanted to love it. Me and this film have BAGGAGE, from my memories of reading it with mom in third grade to the poster I brought from comic-con straight to her hospital wall, to the anger that she's not here to see it with me. Not sure if I wasn't able to suspend disbelief on the first viewing because I know the source material so well, or because the FX were unconvincing and a tad awkward. The script was fine; definitely covered most important moments of the book. The kids' acting was a little uneven, but better than most.

My biggest problems were the talking animals looking strange, and that the majority of digital shots were during the day. I kept coming out of the movie, looking at the shortcomings of the digital art. And I hate to say it, but I didn't believe Aslan. It really bugged me that his right side of his face looked a little smashed in, and that he wasn't white. REALLY bugged me that he wasn't white. I just don't understand the choice. The digital polar bears and unicorn were white and looked much better, so it must have been some misguided choice not based on technology. He needed to be more special, emanating light. A regular lion was too easy to compare to a real one, or even a cartoon one like The Lion King.

Lucy was fantastic, and so was Mr. Tumnus.

Tilda Swinton was her usual effing amazing, badass self. Girl crush. She was just killer.

I'd like to see the movie again with a crowd of children. My preview crowd was adults grumbling about how they hadn't read the book. Some jackass behind me compared it to the Little House on the Prairie series. Wanted to leap over my seat and throttle him with a lion's roar.

The other thing I keep thinking is who is their audience? Seems like it's exclusively for ten year olds. Not the filmmakers' fault really, because they were faithful to the book. Giddily, awe-ishly faithful. Never seen grown WETA men cry at Comic-con presentation before. But the first half of the movie is too childish for eleven year olds and up, because the ones I know are watching Lord of the Rings and Resident Evil. And anything younger than ten would enjoy the first half of the movie, then probably wet their pants when Aslan is stabbed to death on the stone table and Ed and Peter lead the battle against the extras from Lord of the Rings. And if parents were so worried about the death in Goblet of Sex, then they maybe should be prepared for Ed to get "killed" on the battlefield.

I don't know, I don't know. I'm fretting. I'd really like to see the movie do great.

It's hard though, because some of the most vivid memories I have of the book are things like the description of Lucy riding Aslan, her fingers intertwining in his mane as she buried her face in it and just felt safe and protected and loved by her god. That just wasn't there in the movie, and really, how could it be? But it's so important.

Emotionally, I didn't lose it. Pretty proud of that. Thought of mom a few times, mostly of her comment to me on her last day that she was ready to grab Aslan's mane. He was totally her spirit animal.

Got a small fishie from her. The Laura Engle jackass behind me wouldn't stop talking about how he'd just gotten back from visiting his uncle dying of terminal cancer, and what the "last hospital he would be at" was like, and how suprisingly lucid he was. Kept talking about it right up until the curtain opened for the credits. Come to think of it, that guy was lucky to get out of there alive. You never know what unstable nutjob blogger is sitting right in front of you during a movie, grieving her orphaned status.

Harry Potter & the Goblet of Sex

Has anyone else seen Harry Potter? NO WAY I'm letting some little kid of mine see that. Holy freakin' Cinemax for hormonal teens.

Preview Copy

Of Mom's Cancer arrived the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was great timing to be able to show my cousins and aunt. It looks beautiful. Can't figure out how they were able to put such a reasonable price on a cloth-bound hardcover. If you're in LA and see me, ask me if I have it on me...I'll try to carry it around until March when you get yours!

Brian wrote nicely about the whole mixed bag of emotions of receiving it. Look under his November 26th post.

Helpful Entertainment Tips

RECOMMENDED MOVIES
Must see "Walk the Line" and "Prime"...in the theatres.

Though I would love to find that jackass' review who stated Johnny Cash would never have had a drug problem if Rose had just married him to begin with. Ex-squeeze me? And all the negative reviewers of Prime can kiss my white butt-cheeks. My audience laughed the whole way through and clapped at the credits. 'bout time we had an authentic rom-com.

Reserved recommendation of "Jesus is Magic"...matinee or rental. Still think Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin are vying for Funniest Woman Alive, not Sarah Silverman. No comment on sad state of affairs that "woman" still has to be inserted in that title.

REQUIRED TV
If you haven't seen or finished "Rome", for Zeus's sake, what the hell are you doing? Must go see it now. HBO on demand. Soooooo great, and not just because Ciarin Hinds has been a god to me since "Persuasion" and Broadway's "Closer." WHAT ENTERTAINMENT. Holy crap that was good. Can't believe they're waffling on renewing. Guess it was the 100 million dollar price tag. But really worth it HBO, really!

"Invasion" continues its slow-burn. Stephen King was right; this is the "Lost" rip-off to beat. Never would have initially predicted it. But how do you top a born-again Christian vet hacking off his newly regenerated left arm with a chainsaw to prove his worthiness to Xenu?

How? You watch any single minute of Nip/Tuck. Holy freakin' "Oops I crapped my pants." This show is insanely riveting. When it ends every Tuesday at 10:59, I just want to run around the house flapping my arms screaming NIP/TUCK!!!!! like a nutter. Haven't been this excited by a show since "Twin Peaks." Freaking fanstaaastic. Can't believe I don't know anyone watching it. Losers. So for the record, I'm clearly wrong that the Carver is Liz. That was a man's body last episode, and a tall one at that. So that eliminates half the men and Gina, and we know it's someone they all know. Gotta say, I'm going with Christian. I think he's a schizo masochist, and the scene we saw of him getting carved was some kind of "A Beautiful Mind" ploy. Why? Kimber's reaction when she was kidnapped, and writing the letter. Poor, very dead Kimber. Oh my god, and the Neo-Nazi plotline? Brilliant!

"The Shield" marathon is this weekend, so catch the Farmington goodness and Glenn Close. Soooo amazing, even the uneven episodes. Vic is Tony Soprano cubed.

RECOMMENDED READING
"Zombie Tales." And not just because Ron Lim is a convention buddy, and I had turkey with just about everyone else. It's a great read for anyone jonesing for some more undead. The short form is really fun; you're bound to find something for you.