Inside the noodle of a neurotic man

The "Eyes" have it

2004-10-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

So the film is underway! We have the money in the bank and are on our way. Over the past few weeks a lot has been happening. Constant meetings and planning and this is only the beginning. We have gone location scouting several times and will be going up to Zaca Lake this weekend to hopefully finalize our spot. We just signed our special F/X team last night and I am extremely happy with that part especially. Maybe it's the kid in me or maybe it's because I always wanted to do movie F/X but was shunned for it by my supporting pops, but this is truly my favorite part of the film experience. The F/X crew is incredibly talented and they bring a huge chunk to the table. Additionally, the F/X crew are bringing us a special treat, they got us "Dr. Satan", a horror movie icon, to play our Creature. We are giddy like school kids over that. We just posted our casting auditions and will begin casting Nov. 11 & 12th. The official shoot dates as of now are Nov.30-Dec18th...It seems only fitting that Halloween is right around the corner and our horror dream in underway...
"Never thought I could make it this far..."

Just stopping by to say hi

2004-10-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

So I am finally posting again...It's been a while and quite frankly I'm just not good at this. It requires way too much time and attention, both of which I don't really have. But, I try here and there...so there.
Things have been very busy but mostly in the good kinda way. We got the green light on our movie and have secured funding. We will start shooting the end of Nov into Dec for about an 18 day shoot. I am very excited and at the same time cautious. In this industry I think you learn very quickly to not trust anything until the money is in the bank. Well we have that, but I am still being cautious until I find myself on set in the middle of the woods. But on the lighter side of it we are all very thrilled to see the project actually happening. We have started pre-production and are working with our story board artist and special effects team right now. We will start casting at the end of this month and set up the website shortly. Everything is really moving along smoothly so I cannot complain...just keeping fingers crossed. Aside from the film, I have been very busy writing and working on other projects. We have several cartoons in the making and several other scripts being prepped. I also have a very big meeting this weekend with a dark children's book author and illustrator to pitch him a horror movie idea based off one of his books. I am very eager to see what he says but am staying open to the whole idea.
Things outside of my writing cave are cool. I am enjoying life with the most incredible woman in the world and our Godzilla-cat side kick. Things are good. Like the saying goes; "The trick is to surrender to the flow..."
That's all for this day....

Tuesday Trivia

2004-09-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

It's only Tuesday and we all wish it was Friday about now. So to get through the day here are some movie quote brain teasers. Good luck and rock on.

1) "All my life people have been saying, you're too short, you're too slow...give up your foolish dreams, Steve. Well I don't have any other choice, I have to win."

2) "I could really use your help Jody. Last year you were great on crowd control and this year the ice creams gonna be flying fast and furious."

3) "But I don't want to go among mad people.
-Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. You, me...You may have noticed that I'm not exactly all there..."

4) "My name is Antonio Mantoya, you killed my father...prepare to die."

That's all.

To be or not to be...A good Jew

2004-09-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

So, this week brings the New Year to all our Jewish friends. Thursday marks the second largest Jewish holiday of the year heading a week before the largest one (Yom Kippur). I recently asked my office manager for Thursday and Friday off of work in observance of my holidays. She informed me that the office does not give days off for that, but I could take a few personal vacation days for it instead. Just a pointer, about 95% of the attorneys in my office are Jewish and will have those days off, paid of course. I am all out of personal days and vacation days here at the office, I told the office manager about this and she informed me that I could then take those days off, unpaid. Now, after some recent heavy financial catching-up at home I cannot really afford to take 2 days off work unpaid. Additionally my dear girlfriend, Flipsy, is in a similar situation at her job as well. So that would be 4 unpaid days between us both and would spell a very tight month indeed. Oy, what's a good Jew to do? Why is it that taking a holiday off for a Jewish day is so frowned upon? C'mon....show us the money! hehehehee. Ok, seriously though, if I go to work then I am saying that I think the money is more important than "the Big-Guy." If I stay home and rock the holiday, then we will be hurting financially....hmmmm. It's a toughy. In the end I think that we need to let our beliefs bring us through the hard times and know that it will all work out. We will reap the fruits of our karma if we are good peoples and all.

And the envelope please...

2004-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, the answers for this weeks obscure movie quotes are...
1) Night of the Creeps
2) The Lost Boys
3) American Psycho
4) My Blue Heaven
Congrats to flipsycab for being the only one brave enough to try to guess. She got 2/4 which is pretty darn good considering the film titles. She wins a date with a private escort tonight. Go Flipsy! Enjoy your date.

And now 2 more obscure quotes to get through the weekend:
1) "Ever dance with the devil by the pale moon light? I always ask that of all my prey..I just like the sound of it."
2) "It's like if you were going to rob this rich guys house. Only when you get there you find that all the good stuffs already been taken. Well I got there first Steve, I got the loot!"

That's all, good luck!

Obscure film quotes...just because.

2004-09-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

A few random movie quotes that are sure to stump you. Enjoy and best of luck...

1) "There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is they're dead."

2) "No T.V? You know what that means? No T.V...no MTV."

3) "You know what Ed Gein used to say about meeting a beautiful woman?
-Ed Gein the maitre d' from Barfly's ?
No, serial killer from Wisconsin."

4) "Although you two are probably Yankee fans. It's been my personal observation that most people involved in underground crime are Yankee fans."

That's all for now. Good luck....answers to come.

Back in Black

2004-09-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

"We may be going to Broadway..."
So, I just found out that an indie horror movie script project of mine and the Italian Stallion may be back baby! The project has been dormant for close to a year now when our funding fell short of our goals and the whole thing fell apart. We were working closely with an indie producer, Miguel Valenti (Valenti films, Inc.) of such films as "Lost skeleton of Cadavre" and "Last Supper". We were all saddened and dismayed when we couldn't pull it off due to insufficient investments. Yesterday, the Stallion got word that a friend with a very (let's say extremely) wealthy relative was looking to make their first film as a upcoming producer. When she got word of the Stallion's writing abilities she quickly took interest. One thing led to another and now she wants our script to read as a high consideration for her project. This would of course be huge for us and would mean the completion and release of our "baby". Still keeping fingers crossed and not holding our breathes this time..."Like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty river, just go with the flow..."

Finally a horror movie to look foreward to (that might actually be good!)

2004-09-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about the upcoming release of "Saw". A new horror movie of a most delicious nature. This thing looks creepy. As a horror movie geek / lover it takes a lot to rock me or scare me for that matter. This film has heart pounding written all over it. It just may even get me and the Italian Stallion to sleep with the lights on...I can only hope.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387564/trailers

Full Moon brings doom...

2004-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

So the full moon earlier this week really packed a punch. Sometimes it comes and goes without so much as a whisper...Other times it really let's you know it's up there. This week that good ol' moon brought heavy bad luck throughout the land. Tuesday was a very busy day here at the law firm where I work. The usual stress and craziness that goes hand in hand with the industry. It was after work where all the fun began. I came out to my car (my new baby, "E.G." /aka:Gustav & Uvre...don't ask) only to find the moon had bestowed upon me a flat tire. No biggie, what are you gonna do, right? So I rolled up my sleeves and got to it. Spare comes out, tools line the floor and the jack is in line. I wait 20 minutes for the car next to me to move cause the guy parked a bit too close. Now with open room I commence the jacking of the car. Up, up, up, up goes my baby. I remove the unbelievably tight bolts and take off the flat. I begin to align the new tire and hoist it up in place. As I do, wouldn't ya know it , Mr. "I have to drive a huge behemoth car cause I have low self esteem" drives by my car in his over sized pick-up thing (we park on the roof and every step is felt through the vibrations). So, as he does my car inevitably begins to shake with the rumble of his boat, I mean truck. I look over just in time to witness my car shaking...rocking...and of course...begins to slowly teeter backwards. Panicked, I drop the spare and thinking I am the Hulk, I try and hold up the car. Fat chance. My baby, rocks back, snaps out the jack from under it like a twig and falls back onto the bare rim, the very sound crushing my heart along with the pavement. I stare for about 5 minutes in shock. I then grunt and call Triple-A. Of course it's their busiest night in years and I must wait another half hour to speak with a rep. Oy. While waiting I prop "E.G." back on the worthless jack and support it with the useless spare. I just couldn't sit and see the car resting on pavement like that. So, tow truck kid comes, and I do mean kid, he checks out the damage and gives me the thumbs up. No major damage at first glance. Cool. He patches the flat tire and re-sets it. Back goes the spare and tools and off he goes. I start up me baby and reverse out of my spot. Yay, finally..."Boom!" explodes the re-patched, now re-flattened flat tire. I get out and view the flat ex-flat tire. I then run like a madman after the tow truck kid. Down 5 flights of stairs and across Santa Monica Blvd, up two blocks where I catch him at a light. Back to the car, re-jack it, put on the real spare this time only to find it is flat and the driver is out of air. So I crawl down a busy street on a flat tire complete with jerks beeping at me up to the gas station, fill up all tires and start driving home. Drive home with a tire that is now making a sound like a broken beer bottle being scraped against a dull chalkboard. And yes, everyone turns and stares at you when you are the guy with a car making a sound like Freddy Krueger in heat. I get home and find that poor FLipsy had also had a long hard bad moon mojo day...and so did her boss. Call a few friends and find that it's been going around all day. Oh moon, why do you toy with us as such??

Halloween...A tradition.

2004-08-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

Ever since childhood Halloween has been my favorite holiday. It molded perfectly with my strange fascination for horror movies. Even scared out of my wits, I still loved it deep inside. Fast foreword to 5, 6 or 7 years ago ( I would require the assistance of Flipsycab to recall specific dates) where upon I met one of my best friends and fellow horror movie geek, the Italian Stallion (thanks for the name baby). To skip to the point, we began a tradition that shared our love of the holiday and our love of horror movies...a 24 hour sin-fest of nothing but horror movies, bad food, and cheap beer. Along with our close friend, "T" we indulged in the nerdiness of our holiday and shut out the outside world as we laughed and spoke intellectually about our favorite horror movies. We held long discussions about the superiority of horror legends such as Freddy Krueger and Jason. We debated the kill ratios of horror spooks from Pinhead to Leprechaun. Yes, we reached maximum "Trekkie" status.
The tradition came to a halt several years ago as Flipsy and I decided to rock out with the String Cheese Incident Halloween show instead, making it our own mini-tradition. We did this for two years and loved every minute of it. Did I miss my days of old? Sure. But then again, it was an even swap. One love for another. But now this year we just found out that all our favorite Jambands, including SCI, are not playing the West Coast for Halloween.....Soooo, this year's Halloween shall mark the return to tradition! I will dig deep into my roots and dork out with my friends to the classics like, "Dawn of the Dead" and "Phantasm". It will be a night for all horror nerds to remember. A night where ghouls and geeks walk hand in hand. For after all...It's Hallows Eve.

"the mighty GUT"

2004-08-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

So here I sit, alone at my desk, with nothing more than a large, full, protruding GUT. It's definitly something about Indian food that you just don't know when to say when. It fills you up so fast but stealth-like that you barely notice it. Soon enough though, you cannot eat another bite, cannot think of food at all. And now you sit there, alone with your GUT. I need either of two incredible concepts for the GUT that my girlfriend, Flipsycab, and I have come up with. The first is a "walker" type crutch with four metal bars and four wheels, just like a standard walker. But our walker has two rubber hand-like pads that are adjustable to tuck just beneath your stomach so you can walk around with a full belly assisted by two comfortable hands holding up that attractive gut. The second concept is the aid of our "pushers". These are small, "Jawa" or "Oompa-Loompa" looking people that hide in your closet and assist you at the sound of your clap. They can be used for everything from massaging and holding that stuffed belly to assisting as "pushers" (they do all the physical work as you just lay there in a fat comatose daze) during after big meal sex.

An intro to get started...

2004-08-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

So I figure the first post is the hardest so I'll get it over with nice and painless. I'm challenging myself to try and "blog" here and there to get my general thoughts out and on paper. As a primary screenwriter my thoughts are usually geared to storytelling and are usually manipulated to fit the character voices or story. But here I can speak unfiltered and clean out the attic, so to speak. I follow my girlfriend's blog page and am very impressed by her ability to write such great blurbs and fascinating storytelling ability. It has actually inspired me to try and write as much as i can whenever i can...so that's that.