WEEKEND RECAP

FRIDAY

Jacob met me at the office around 4:30, suitcase in hand, and we blew on up to the Hill. Dom, Jacob and I got some delicious Thai from a place around the corner from the Zookster pad, and then we met Faye at her place to be really geeky and get to Pacific Place early enough for The Devil’s Rejects. We got temporarily distracted by the broadcast of “Firefly” on Sci-Fi, but managed to tear ourselves away around 7:45 for the 8:30 showing of the movie. We never know what to expect for these things. We’ve been shivering in anticipation for months for this movie, but we have no way of knowing if the rest of American feels the same way. It ain’t Harry Potter. Still, better safe than sorry. When we got to the theatre, there were only about 20 people already seated. However, as 8:30 drew nigh, more and more people (and by people, I mean teenagers) trickled in. One guy even came dressed in a spot-on Captain Spalding outfit. He was talking like Captain Spalding too, which prompted another audience member to tell him to “Shut the fuck up”. We were subjected to the usual billions of commercials, followed by quite possibly the WORST set of trailers ever collected (including “The Cave”, that moto-cross movie and, of course, “The Skeleton Key”, which is quite possibly the WEIRDEST ad campaign for a horror film I’ve ever seen). By this time, the theatre was getting quite full (though still not packed), and we were definitely among the oldest people there. Let me put it this way; to look at the audience, you’d think Hot Topic was the official clothier of The Devil’s Rejects audience.

But then the movie started. Despite the fact that some bonehead left the house lights up until around 10 minutes into the damned movie, we were enraptured and immediately sucked into the world of Rob Zombie. The movie did not disappoint. At all. It was quite possibly one of the most violent movies I have ever seen. It was hilarious and moving and disturbing all at the same time. Now, I HATED “Natural Born Killers” (and not because “it glorified violence” or anything, but because it was supposed to be this big parable, but the main characters were so irritating that I just didn’t care what Oliver Stone had to say), but Rob Zombie made these characters so complex. Sometimes you really did forget that they were cold-blooded killers and you wanted to see them win. Other times, you couldn’t possibly root for them because what they were doing was so horrible. And then he made The Law into the most vicious character in the movie. Kudos, Mr. Zombie, for making a film that was fun and also made you think. Not about “society and media” but about the many levels of these characters that you have created. You have made a damn good, solid film. And when that girl got splattered all over the road by a truck…well, that was pretty sweet too.

After the movie, we were giddy and exhausted. We met Borgia and headed back up the Hill to the Six Arms. After one beer, Jacob, Dom and I were ready for bed. Faye and Borgia stayed out so I don’t know what hi-jinks ensued after that.

SATURDAY
We slept in for a very long time. Jacob and Dom watched “King of the Ants” (very good movie) on DVD while I flitted in and out and dyed my hair. We called Faye, but I guess she must have stayed out pretty late because she was in no mood to make decisions about the day. Jacob and I took matters into our own hands and went out to get some coffee and rent the new “Constantine” DVD with 18 minutes of deleted scenes and an alternate ending. We did enjoy “Constantine” quite a bit (not Shakespeare, of course, but it was a fun movie), but because the original ending of the movie was kind of dumb, we thought perhaps the alternative ending would make the entire viewing experience more satisfactory. Now, since I saw “Constantine”, I took up reading the Hellblazer comics from which the character was taken, and have grown quite fond of the story. Of course, the specific Hellblazer story that the movie is “based on” is pretty much nothing like the end result, and is, in fact, far superior. But if you forget all that when you watch the movie, it’s still a good way to waste a Saturday afternoon. Especially the part where the Gavin Rossdale demon dies. And I always like me some Shia LeBouf wackiness. The deleted scenes, however, were weird. Apparently, they had another character entirely in there (a demon with whom Constatine has a sexual past; a character who actually is in the comic), who they cut out. The dialogue is still the same. They just re-shot the scenes for the movie without her character in there. I guess they thought the notion of Keanu Reeves having sex with a demon was too horrific, even for a PG13 audience. Or something. And the alternate ending is SO GODDAMNED CHEESY! SPOILER ALERT So Shia’s character (who, in the comic, is actually a 35-year old man with a wife and kid; not the rookie apprentice they made him in the movie), dies (of an instantaneous concussion, I guess) and it’s all sad and whatnot. But they leave it at that. In the alternate ending, Constantine visits the cemetery with his new girlfriend, and as they are leaving Shia’s grave, Constantine turns around to see Shia’s ghost sitting on top of the gravestone. But then…get this…he sprouts motherfucking WINGS and flies up to heaven. I’m not kidding. So. Lame. Give me Keanu on a rooftop looking broodily out onto an L.A. skyline and then popping some nicarette any day over that “Touched by an Angel” bullshit any day. I guess that’s what the test audiences thought too.END SPOILERS. Also, END RANT.

We touched base with Faye at this point, still trying to keep the location of the evening’s belated birthday party a secret, while still coaxing her downtown in time. The plan, we thought, was for me, Jacob and Dom to hang around downtown while Jacob checked out some sales at the “overpriced cotton dress shirt” store, and then to meet Faye, Borgia and Sherrard at the Noodle Ranch. But because Faye didn’t know where we were going to end up later, she though the Noodle Ranch was too far away. Plus, she’d already eaten a big snack. So we waited another hour (at Von’s which Sherrard described as an upscale TGI Fridays. I agree. Worst $7 martini ever). Sherrard hooked up with us and we met the attractive couple at Bambuza. I’d always wanted to try it. The meat dishes are a bit overprices (undoubtedly due to the word “bistro” in the name of the restaurant) but the vegetarian dishes were pretty normally priced, so we just got 5 or 6 of those to share. The food was AMAZING. The long beans were succulent. The noodles were heavenly. Highly recommended.
During dinner, we witnessed one of the most priceless Sherrard moments in history. Bare in mind that we were still trying to keep the evening’s events a surprise for Faye. At an unexpected interval, Sherrard announced to the table “So, I’m really excited to go to Gameworks”. The table fell into dead silence for a moment as everyone stared blankly at Sherrard. “What? Do I have something on my face?” he asked. I turned to Faye and said “Surprise! That’s where we’re going” and everyone irrupted in laughter. Sherrard was very embarrassed but we were all just really amused. It was a priceless, cinematic moment. And besides, Faye apparently already had a pretty good idea where we were going anyway. There’s not that much to do downtown. Still, I had really wanted to play a joke on her by leading her into the Fox Sports Grill and shouting “Happy Birthday”.

So with full bellies, we wandered over to Gameworks. We began with a drink and met up with Kayobi, Matt and Legolas (I can never remember his real name). Later, Adam showed up. Later still, B-Rex and B-Rex-ette (I guess I’m bad with names in general, and she doesn’t resemble anyone in LOTR). With a nice buzz going (for some of us), we retreated to the floor to get our game on. I haven’t been to Gameworks in quite some time. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that there are a lot of interactive games now that are almost like working out. There’s air hockey, which I’ve always enjoyed immensely, that is pretty intense, there’s a bicycle race game where you actually have to peddle, there’s the basketball and baseball games in which you actually swing and shoot respectively, and there’s even a soccer game where you have to kick a ball. Best of all, of course, is Dance Dance Revolution. I had never played before. I was always a little wary of it due to my extreme lack of coordination. But Kayobi talked me into it and, after two games, I was completely hooked. By the time we left, two hours later, I was sweating. Gross. But fun. Fun as hell. Apologies to Faye for keeping her there longer than she wanted so that we could get our DDR Ya Ya’s out. Hopefully Faye still had an OK time.

Then we headed back up the Hill to Bill’s. Lily Taylor the waitress was back. She was her usual giddy self. We replaced our burned calories with cheese pizza and beer and then headed home to sleep.

SUNDAY

Sherrard joined Jacob, Dom and I for breakfast at the Canterbury. We were going to try Coastal Kitchen for once, but when we got there, we realized why we probably never tried to go there before. There was a 30 minute wait for a table. On Sunday morning, you do NOT want to wait for a table.
At Canterbury, we had a top-notch waiter who was cool, polite, and attentive. Best of all, he when the cook got our order wrong, he corrected it in less than a minute. I wish he has been there when Mark was there instead of the lazy, lackadaisical waitress. Breakfast was perfect and hit the spot. Following that, we needed some TV time. We finished up the last episode of Buffy (I still can’t help but tear up at several moments in that damned thing. Especially when Andrew tells Xander how Anya died and Xander says “That’s my girl. Always doing the stupid thing”) and then put in some The Office, Season 2. Jacob and I had planned to go to yoga, but it was just too beautiful a day to ruin with indoor exercise. So we went downtown so Jacob could check out one more sale, and then we finished off my Gameworks card for a few more matches of air hokey and one more round of DDR. We returned home where I prepared a glorious nacho orgy, and then we had a PLOTD meeting. The meeting part isn’t the most exciting way to end a Sunday, but it had to be done. Besides, we were discussing our dream cast for PLOTD, and that was kind of fun. Even if I know there’s no way in hell we could get Steve Coogan. –sigh-

Thanks, Jacob, for coming up this weekend. It was a rare treat to see you two weekends in a row!

PS: Who wants to catch another showing of The Devil’s Rejects sometime this week (possibly Wednesday)?

July 25, 2005
Categories: Dear Diary, Filmpinions . Tags: weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

WEEKEND RECAP

Friday

The Troika (being Dom, Faye and myself…I decided I needed a nickname for us because I'm usually writing about the three of us. What better nickname then a reference to three slightly evil geeky villains from Buffy?) arrived at the Rendezvous for the “Opening night Gala (or Gayla, depending on how you pronunciation preference) for STIFF. We had no idea what to expect. The program suggested that it was 5 hours long and we thought they couldn't be showing movies for 5 hours. Turns out they WERE showing movies for 5 hours. Since we were very hungry and tired and seeing a midnight movie that night anyway, we opted for being social and fed. I think we made the right decision. After all, I would have had to share an audience with my nemesis, Fan Boy. And that would have done no one any good.
We left around 10:00 to go to the Neptune to see “Night of the Living Dorks” (or however you say that in German). Even though I had consumed 5 ciders, I had only the slightest buzz. I think I may be regaining the Karen Allen in Raiders-esque alcohol tolerance that I possessed during my 8 boozy months of living abroad. Hmmm. Good or bad? Anyway, we got in line for the movie and Dom and I passed out “Snow Day” postcards promoting the screening the next day. We, in turn, received free energy drinks from the Jones Soda crew that I will NEVER drink. Every time I think of ANY energy drink, it reminds me of Red Bull which I've only had once in conjunction with too much vodka and an early-morning three hour charter bus ride. Suffice it to say, I will never drink Red Bull again and don't even want to be reminded of the taste, smell, texture or concept.
Moving right along…we took our seats for the movie, armed with a last hoorah of carbohydrates. We were treated to a short before the feature. When I say treated, I actually mean we were taunted because this “little” short about a high school geek who makes a pact with the devil to be good at basketball was ALL special effects and nothing else. THIS is the kind of thing that SIFF accepts as independent? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Almost every festival with the word “international” in it is basically a hollywood-sponsored dealy. But I was surprised. And jealous. But that was nothing compared to the sheer disgust that all three of us felt once the feature started.
I don't know who these guys are that made this movie. I did a little internet research and from what I can tell it's two old German men who basically make American-style teen sex comedies en masse. So why they needed the help of an “independent” American film festival is beyond me. But that said, I think they will do fine because the audience FUCKING LOVED it. The film was essentially a cross between American Pie and Idle Hands. (The latter of which I marginally enjoyed). The audience was chalk full of eager beavers who ERUPTED in laughter at every stupid cliche boner or weed joke. I also realise now that the so-called geeky protagonists WEREN'T EVEN THAT GEEKY. They smoked pot on the way to school, they got laid and they were even marginally attractive. In fact, the “geeky” goth-girl love interest was EXTREMELY attractive (and don't even get me started about the gratuitous scene involving this alleged high school virgin sleeping in lacy underpants and a tight t-shirt). As for the horror aspect of it, well, it was luke warm. There were more gross-out moments involving excrement and jizz than there were gorey moments. It's like they threw the whole zombie bit in there as an afterthought; some cheap way of making the otherwise cliche “losers-get-laid” plot stand out. Awful awful awful. But I guess we were the only three people who thought so. I just hope it was because it was a drunken midnight movie audience who was eager to laugh at anything. Because I was actually EMBARRASSED when the audience shrieked with glee at a reference to Seattle and Kurt Cobain. (Although Faye has a theory that they actually change that line to be city-specific. So if it's playing in Lubbock, Texas, the line is “If this spell works, we can fly to Texas and resurrect Buddy Holly” WOOOOOHOOOO!). After all that mental exhaustion, I went home to sleep the sleep of the sex-crazed, dorky German zombie.

Saturday

Faye and I headed down to the Seattle Art Museum around 1:00 to catch the screening of all the Weekend Film Challenge films. In particular, we wanted to see the one that Dom, krk, Ben, Borgia and Jef made on the big screen. For the challenge, several teams got a prop, a genre and a line of dialog on Friday night and had to complete a film (written, shot and edited) in 72 hours. The prop was lotion. The line of dialog was “Basically, everything that comes out of my mouth is good” and the genre, for our boys, was sci-fi. The short that they created from those criteria is nothing short of comic brilliance. I can't even begin to describe it, but I will definitely link to it when it appears on Storypipe later. The rest of the films were pretty funny too (except for the one that wasn't), but I still think “Future Good” was the cream of the crop.
After the screening, Faye and I got interviewed for Storypipe which was weird. I'm still not used to being in front of the camera. But we did get to tell “bad date stories” (in our ongoing effort to extinguish all stereotypes about women filmmakers).
Dom had to run off to interview some legitimate artists, so Faye, Borgia and I killed time at Shorty's before our screening at 6:00. I have never played Lord of the Rings pinball before and I have to say it is ABSOLUTELY my favorite pinball after South Park pinball. If for no other reason than the moving Balrog piece.
The screening went as well as can be expected for a space that only holds about 30 people. I can't wait till we can get this thing in front of a horror audience though.
After the screening, we hung about the Rendezvous for a while longer and then headed over to the Nite Lite to take over their juke box and keep it Garth Brooks free for a while.

Sunday

I was utterly useless. Except when I was stricken with my monthly bout of guilt for living in filth, and cleaned the house.

June 6, 2005
Categories: Dear Diary, Filmpinions . Tags: weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

WEEKEND RECAP

Friday
Faye, Borgia, BennDunn, Erik and I met at the Wok and Grill which used to be a nice quiet place to get a drink and a good meal on a Friday night. We reveled in their cheesy New Wave/80’s hits juke box selection. Those days may well be over. Around 9:00, a DJ showed up and started playing The Smiths. While I count myself a person who generally enjoys the Smiths, I do not enjoy them on a Friday night when I am trying to stay awake and upbeat. We decided to leave at the end of our round and find refuge elsewhere. We lost (Erik) one but gained 3 (Sherrard, Dan and friend, a lovely girl called Marie) and set ourselves up at Bill’s Off Broadway where the music selection was decidedly more party-like. A few pitchers later, we were happily drunk enough and ready for bed. BennDunn crashed on my couch. He was kept warm by the thoughtful Tobe who volunteered himself as a blanket. What a considerate cat.

Saturday
This was probably the first Saturday in recent memory that I didn’t have ANY commitments or work to do. Nothing. Bliss. Dom and I ate breakfast at Julia’s (delicious French toast but lackluster potatoes). Then we went to get some afternoon movies. We rented a “short” film (40 minutes) called “Being Ron Jeremy”. It was a parody of “Being John Malkovich” which was saved ENTIRELY by the participation of the titular actor. It was written/directed and starring a lanky, pale Jewish man who bares a striking resemblance to Matt Stone. This guy apparently went to film school in New York and is slightly younger than me and I was immediately jealous of his having been able to get Ron Jeremy to be in his movie. Most of the jokes are pretty obvious and cliché, but The Hedgehog is always so enjoyable to watch that I forgave the cheesy dialogue.
Note to filmmakers: There is almost NEVER any reason why a short film should be longer than 20 minutes. 40 minutes isn't short. But thank you for cutting out the scene where you, the nerdy lead actor/writer/director are in a hot tub with 2 porn stars. We all know why you wrote it. You were wise to save it for the deleted scenes.
After Dom left for his show, I watched the other movie I’d rented. I have been trying to get people to rent Saw with me since it came out on video but to no avail so I realized I would have to watch it on my own. The downside to this is that there was no one there to wake me up after I fell asleep halfway through. Is that a testament to how dumb the movie was or to how run down I have been lately? The world may never know… (My money is on a combination of the two).

Sunday
I was stricken with a sudden shame over how horrifically messy the apartment was. Seriously. Dom and I are disgusting. Why this only bothers me once every couple of months is beyond me. I decided that as soon as I came back from yoga, we would clean. And clean we did. It really wasn’t so bad and now I feel so much better about my living space that I wonder why I waited so long. Of course, we’ll see how long this attitude lasts. I’m sure I’ll be back in the same lazy headspace in no time.

May 9, 2005
Categories: Dear Diary, Filmpinions . Tags: weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

WEEKEND RECAP

Friday
Well, the long awaited, much fretted over day was upon us. I headed to the Cinerama straight after work to meet 1 Ben Dur and get in line. I am that much of a geek. However, since Ben and I were the first to arrive, we decided to lay low in his car until a line began to form. This is after I got a dirty look and an eye roll from the girl at the ticket counter. Hello, Cinerama employees. Do you know where you work?
Anywho, Ben and I pulled out our towels and waited. People began to trickle in, many dressed in bathrobes, many more with towels. This would have been fun were I not so damned nervous.
We got our seats in the balcony, which I will never sit in again. I didn't realise that they are designed for people over 6 feet, as there is a giant bar right at my eye level. So I knelt on my feet and prepared for the movie. I was hoping for a Serenity trailer but instead got “Monster in Law” and “Herbie: Fully Loaded”. Interesting demographic.
Spoilers contained herein.
The movie started and I was genuinely excited. I loved the dolphin musical number. I loved Martin Freeman as Arthur straight away. I also loved Mos Def as Ford and immediately forgot about the accent. He was perfectly awkward and quirky.
When the Earth blew up, I got chills. Fantastic. But they started hammering home the love story hooplah from the word go (a camera phone picture? Come on! Arthur is NOT that sentimental). I'll just go on the record right now and say that not only is Trillian not the love of Arthur's life (it's Fenchurch, as annoying as she was at times), but that the whole idea that Arthur would fall in love with some girl he met once at a party and harbor “feelings” for her after all these years is ridiculous. Furthermore, it's directly in opposition to the character of Arthur who is presumably so level-headed that he would never suspect his best mate to be an Alien. So un-romantic that it took him ages to work up the courage to do anything heroic. This is not a man who would hold out hope for a fleeting crush. If anything, Arthur's fixation on that party was more the fact that his manhood was called into question by Zaphod than a love-at-first-site situation.
As for Zaphod, well, I was TOTALLY buying Sam Rockwell’s performance…until that fucking second head popped up and I realized I would have rather had them have NO second head than do what they did. That flip top, Pez Dispenser thing looked cheap and was very distracting. That moment where chaos breaks out on the Heart of Gold and Zaphod runs around like an idiot with his head popping up and saying things is so horrible. Once he had the head removed, I could deal with Zaphod again.
The Humma Kavula episode was boring and contrived. I know they said Douglas Adams wrote this part himself but I can’t help but think that what he wrote was vastly changed post-mortem.
That strange woman who was in love with Zaphod was also boring and contrived.
Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast was probably one of my favorite parts. He was perfect and he reminded me of Jennifer Saunders from AbFab which was a take on that character that I never would have thought of.
Alan Rickman as Marvin was aight. Marvin just didn’t have much to do is all.
The ending made me want to vomit.
All in all, and I’ve thought about this quite a lot, the movie wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But it also wasn’t nearly as good as it could have been. I know that they had a lot of pressure to cater to the fans and also to a new audience, but unlike Peter Jackson, they chose the wrong things to take away from the story, leaving it an empty shell of a film. I realized after my post-film drinking binge, that most of my favorite parts of the story are Douglas Adam’s little philosophical tangents. I love how he dis-proves the existence of God. I love the bit about the 3-breasted whore. I love all the stuff about Ford’s past and how he is just basically this mooch who likes to get drunk and hang out with women. You don’t see any of that stuff in this film. I suppose, it’s to be expected because it’s a Disney film. But still, that darkness is part of Adam’s humor and, if you ask me, a very important part of the essence of the story. I don’t see how they could possibly made a decent sequel or sequels to this film without all that darkness because it only gets worse in that world for all those characters. Faye was right. Seeing this film, for me, was like seeing Fellowship of the Ring for her. It was more painful and stressful than just a fun movie-going experience. I need to see it again to solidify my thoughts because right now they are more emotional than reasonable.
And that’s all I’ll say about that. For now.
End of spoilers.

After the movie we went to the Nite Lite to drown ourselves in Journey sing-a-longs and beer. Aaaaah….

Saturday

Tobe went to the vet in the morning and we learned that he has gingivitis but is otherwise fine. We also learned that when he’s nervous, he has the ability to shed his bodyweight in fur.

After that, Faye and I took naps because we were HUNG OVER. Then we finished the script that we have been working on for 3 and a half years. Hoorah!

By that point, our brains were too fried to do anything but rent “Wild Things 2”. And thank god we did. Comedy. Gold. Faye is writing a review for it as we speak.

Sunday

Yoga hurts.

May 2, 2005
Categories: Dear Diary, Filmpinions . Tags: weekend recap . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment