This blog goes great with malbec

By now you may have deduced I am frequently inebriated while creating these posts (if you could call this creation). Perhaps you noted the ephemeral nature of of post topics or the (meta)physics-defying leaps of logic that occur. What you may not already know is the drinking extends to school work.

This is a problem.

Though, it's likely not what you're thinking. Dionysus, for the the uninformed among you, has long been the writer's friend. She takes those austere, white-washed halls of academia and molds them into something nebulous, luminescent and full of possibility. Mind-altering agents will make a lateral thinker out of you. Consider that Francis Crick was doped out of his mind when he granted the spontaneous revelation of the DNA double-helix model. When you're a genius like Crick, a night of partying means you wake up with a Nobel prize in your lap. When you're me, it means walking up in class as your professor explains how they loved your dissertation on the parallels of agrarian economics and Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz and you should totally do a term paper on that thesis because it's just so damn fantastic!

It's an irritation, certainly, but what's perhaps worse is reading the paper (that you wrote) and being convinced of a case you previously thought ridiculous. Convinced by yourself. It's difficult not falling victim to intellectual nihilism at this point. If one could make a case for the secret agenda of a Judy Garland film, one could certainly explain vaudeville as an allegory for 19th century social theory, or justify moral outrage at the crude trappings of Rocko's Modern Life, or even state, without irony, that Birdemic is the single greatest film in American history.



And it is. Birdemic is the single greatest film in American history.

What makes a film great? Ask that question of any number of your peers and you'll receive any number of different answers. In light of this confusion, let's indulge in a thought experiment. Imagine a friend were to approach you, giddy in the afterglow, and inform you of one of the single most memorable nights of cinema in their life. They gush about the theater being packed to capacity, a riveted audience that never stopped laughing for two solid hours. After the film had ended, they could hardly stop talking about it. Indeed, weeks later, the excitement still hadn't died. This friend tells you, "I would watch that movie over and over again. I've never had so much fun at the movies." Could we agree this person is talking about an incredible film?



That's exactly what people are saying about Birdemic. I can declare truthfully that it has forced me to reevaluate everything I thought to be true concerning movies. Here's a dare. Go watch it, and see if it doesn't change your life.

I haven't slept in a long time

Creating a short film for the Reel New Haven Festival has taken its toll on my mind and body. I’ve lost no less than 10 pounds of muscle mass, and my faith in God has been severely shaken. Nonetheless, we do have a film submitted for consideration, and the New York festivals will follow shortly. Top prize at the Vimeo Fest is a $25,000 grant. Does my entirely improvised meditation on urban loneliness, heartbreak, and pop culture have what it takes to bring in that money? Probably not, but at least I learned a great deal in the process, like how hard it will be to finish a feature by the end of August. El Mariachi was a crazier idea, and look how well that turned out.

The internet remains a luxury revoked but not forgotten in this household. With its continued absence, a lurking sort of madness has seeped into the mind of my incredibly attractive housemate. There is a reasonable concern that this mental contagion is spreading. Today my work was interrupted by the braying of the uneducated, a common occurrence in this neighborhood. It would have passed without remark if I hadn’t been situated advantageously by our large living area window, and was therefore able to spot the source of this revelry. Two drunken hipsters made their way past our building with great effort. Their movements a sort of exaggerated slow motion, as if they were literally wading through the summer humidity. Listening to the hateful language of the lower classes sounding forth from the mouths of two jaded trust-fund babies was unsettling. It took the seams of my reality and began to stretch them to an uncomfortable point. Is this a dream? Or has everything up to this point been the dream?

On the subject of dreams, Inception was a passable film. My thoughts leaving the theater are listed here in descending order of intensity:


1)Joseph Gordon Levitt is one spindly little bastard.
2)That movie was not complicated by any sane definition of the word.
3)Really though, he’s so spindly. It’s incredible.




I struggle with thoughts on filmmaking. The Hong Kong action films of yesteryear have lost their divinity somewhere along the road. All that remains of those once holy structures is the architecture, notably perfect, but worn and dusty from neglect as congregations slowly dwindled over the years. Have I simply grown older? More mature? Is film not the medium I believe it to be? Perhaps the power is imagined. These are the kind of questions that will keep me awake at night. They are fruitless, labyrinthine paths of thought that I ought to avoid in the future. As it is said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is shaken by violence, and the violent take it by force.” Let us be violent.

A Better Today, Part II

The battle continues, but, this time, it's personal.

Insert Funny Chuck Norris Fact

It's Chuck Norris month at Insomnia Theater.



I used to think Chuck Norris was really cool. I don't mean in the post-millennial-satirical way either. I certainly don't mean it in the 90's era cowboy-culture way. No, like most New Englanders, to me, the south is a troubling reality I can't blot away, an inconvenient truth. What I'm trying to say is I thought Chuck Norris was cool in a Delta Force kind of way, a Lone Wolf McQuade kind of way, even in a echoes-of-way-of-the-dragon kind of way.

An anecdote: when I used to take tang soo do lessons (from which Chuck Norris developed his own deadly style) my cousin was the envy of the dojo for sharing a surname with the bearded badass.

If pressed, I'd tell you my favorite Chuck Norris movie was Sidekicks.



The movie is largely a ripoff of The Karate Kid with Chuck Norris poking fun at the warfare of old. This was the cinematic equivalent of Jesus ushering in the new testament (I'm not comparing him to Jesus, this isn't that kind of Chuck Norris post). The times had changed, and film had changed with them. The flick was released in 1992, a new decade, and one without room for heroes who were unapologetically awesome. Irony was the new weapon of choice. Hipsters ruled, and a dynasty of machismo fell.

The film mirrored my own transition into adulthood, and, much like that metamorphosis, there was no returning once the threshold had been crossed. The shift paved the way for our modern day gritty action stars, ones with realistic psyches who feel the burden of killing on their souls.

We all have to grow up eventually. It's not a bad thing. Still, I can't help thinking wistfully at times of fishing trips, summer vacations, and Chuck Norris popping out of the murky water to murder thousands and thousands of people.

The Good Old Days

Remember when they made movies that didn't suck? I do.



I really am more-or-less this impressionable.