When I’m not busy being a Halifax film star, I have to pay the bills by working at a job (just like a regular person), and a few weeks back, I had a couple job interviews for a position at Video Difference on Quinpool. Unfortunately, two days ago, I received in the mail a letter informing me that I did not get the job. Enclosed were two free rentals to cheer my poor ass up.
Fast forward to two days ago for the silver-lining when I learned that I won The Coast’s Oscar Prediction Pool.
My prize? $100.00 in Video Difference Gift Cards!
One hundred dollars worth of free movies that would have been worth dick-all if I got the job.
The following is three projects that I have to tell you about because if I don’t, I’ll be lazy and I won’t do them. So here are three things that if aren’t done, you can express your heartfelt disappointment in me.
My fear of you is my motivation!
1. THE BEAT, A MUSICAL. First off, this isn’t in danger of me not doing it, I just really wanted to tell you about it!
Therefore: The buddy Cop film is currently being written by the caring hands of Matt Chisholm, Chris Fitzgerald (both of whom I met while working on Attention-Span TV) and myself. The wonderfully talented Kevin Fraser is going to be taking care of Director of Photography duties. Zac Efron has yet to get back to us though. What a dick.
We’re hoping to start shooting this Spring. 2. ZOMG! for Bit of a Bully Productions. Now that I’ve had my fingers bitten off by a zombie in Colin MacDonald’s Code 10:15 Civil Disturbance, I want to kick some zombie arse. ZOMG! will be my directorial follow up toDinner Etiquette Correctness and will feature myself & Streets of Domination co-star John Han.
Shooting & loving in the Spring…
3. A FRINGE SHOW. This is the project that runs the most risk of being abandoned. Therefore, I put it on here. I have an idea for a show to be a part of the 19th Annual Atlantic Fringe Festival, but that’s all it is right now, I haven’t written a script yet.
I’ve never created a show, so if I do, it’ll definitely be a part of the Fringe festival. I was in a show as part of the Fringe fest a couple years back and the festival does a wonderful hodge-podge job of throwing together an awesome festival that supports all genres.
There! Three projects that you have permission to hassle me about! I look forward to your intimidation.
In other news, I’ve reviewed two more movies for CREAM OF THE CRAP… GYMKATA (1985) & THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984). Watch the movies, join the group and chuck your reviews up on there!
Last week, I uploaded a few stills from Colin MacDonald’s (Foster Avenue Productions) Code 10-15: Civil Disturbance, well here’s the film! Have yourself a gander…
First on scene to a routine distress call, Officer Rhodes (Glen Matthews) realizes this night is anything but routine when he finds himself fighting for his life against the walking dead.
Last night, I had the pleasure of experiencing my first two films with the wonderful Cream of the Crap group; their Facebook group info is as follows…
The preeminent Facebook group solely devoted to the love and preservation of cheesy, shitty B-Movies, cult classics, grindhouse flicks and genre films. We take a risk on each one of these movies; It could be a masterpiece – or it could be crap.
Our mission: to view, review and survive…The Cream of the Crap. Do you have what it takes?
The two films we watched were Rabid Grannies & Undefeatable. For the group, this was their 97th and 98th films watched and reviewed since their beginning in June ‘07. That’s a lot of crap!
Review: Rabid Grannies (1988) They love their grandchildren… well done!
This film has me a tiny bit torn –perhaps my standards are still a bit too high for Cream of the Crap, but the film took too damn long to deliver on it’s namesake. Early on you’re treated to some over-the-top British acting accompanied by some clunky American voice overs that are there to make it seem less British (thanks American distributors).
Once the grand-ladies make their villainous turn, the film kicks into gear with some pretty amazingly cheesy & brutal special effects. The time spent away from the ladies is boring, and there was even a lesbian sub plot that didn’t deliver! Shenanigans!
Coronation Street meets Evil Dead?
While the film was not the smoothest of rides, when it was going good, it definitely supplied enough gore and laughs for me to personally give it a recommendation.
STATUS: Recommended.
Review:Undefeatable (1993) Out of the ring, into the fire… in a fight to the finish! I honestly don’t know where to begin. I finished this film about two hours ago and I can still feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins.
Some background on the film: a clip from one of the film’s climactic battles has been arguably titled one of the best fight scenes ever, something that I can agree with. Here is the clip in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxkr4wS7XqY
The film features Stingray (Don Niam) as the nemesis, a man whose professional street fighting career is ruining his home life, so much so that he rapes his wife then pretends it didn’t happen, prompting his wife Anna to leave him, thus turning him loco. He becomes a serial kidnapper/rapist/murderer of any woman that looks like his wife; oh, and he steals their eye balls because it’s fucked! It’s up to Police Officer Nick DiMarco with the help of the fiery street-fightin’ redhead Kristi Jones (a Kathy Griffin lookalike) to stop him.
The film is right in all the wrong places. Some pretty decent choreography, some absurd dialogue and one of the best endings to a film EVER.
If you want 5 high fives at once, then go watch this movie!
FINALLY, Jason Eisener has uploaded the Streets of Domination Teaser online! The release of the film is still likely years away, but here’s the teaser to one of the most ambitious independent films ever made filmed!…
Here’s an old trailer John Davies and I created quickly before a screening of Fist of Death a couple years ago. We shot this film before Hobo with a Shotgun and Treevenge. But we haven’t been able to find the time to invest in editing this beast. I’m posting this to help keep the spirit alive, hopefully she’ll get finished soon.
This baby was our film school.
This film for me was an incredible experience; my first endeavor into acting for film, and probably the single greatest influence on which direction my life has taken. I hope you all have as much fun watching the teaser as I did acting in it. I gave a lot of myself to Streets of Domination, and it feels absolutely magnificent to have people seeing a minute and a half’s worth of it.
Don’t get too excited though, Eisener has a little thing called Hobo With a Shotgun to deal with before he can even think of Streets again.
Yesterday, my tiny actor heart was broken when it was announced that after years of back and forth deliberation, Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary would begin production in Puerto Rico next month (see: http://www.slashfilm.com/).
The Rum Diary has been one of my favourite books for a little while, and as a self-indulgent actor, I couldn’t help but try and cast myself in a role or two in my mind. Johnny Depp is set to play the lead role of Paul Kemp, a toned-down version of the Hunter S. Thompson we all know and love.
Now I have no illusions of grandeur or fame, but I do have a horrible case of wishful thinking. Over-optimism at it’s very worst. The thought process (as ludicrous as I know it is) goes as follows: (1) pre-production for The Rum Diary continues for years, (2) people forget about it, (3) someone remembers it, (4) producers remember it, (5) it gets greenlit again, (6) cancer is cured, (7) Johnny Depp is determined to be too old to play the role, (8 ) they hire up and coming hipster/actor Glen Matthews to play the part of Paul Kemp and live out one of his (Matthews’) wonderful dreams.
Until that alternate universe crashes into this one, I will concede that Johnny Depp will likely put more butts in the seats than Glen Matthews; that, and he probably knew Hunter S. Thompson a lot better than I.
But it still doesn’t stop the hurt.
Here is a short list (isn’t that what blogs are for?) of other production-announcements that will undoubtedly break my heart…
The live-action Star Wars TV series, which George Lucas described as “Deadwood meets The Sopranos in space”.
Hey there, I acted in a short film a couple weeks back for Colin MacDonald. In the film, I played a Police officer investigating a domestic disturbance call, and I have a goatee. Spooky…
The film should be online within the next few weeks.
A nifty little website called Vimeo.com started up a few months back featuring high-resolution video uploads. Basically it’s like Youtube, but with better resolution and a nifty interface.
So now you have the option to watch my videos (at least the ones from my What Went Wrong DVD) in higher resolution than ever before. Have a gander!…
I don’t know how this site is around, or how it has been around as long as it has; I’m tempted to not tell you about it in fear of it being found out & shut down. What is it? A website where you can stream live television sporting events such as NHL, NBA, MLB, Soccer, and tonight I noticed they were featuring an episode of Lost!
Slight Improvement: This website has allowed me to fist-pump and scream with my headphones on while I tracked my Buffalo Sabres’ rise to 8th place in the Eastern Conference! I’ve shed tears for my Sabres before.
Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get all pervy here! Not to say Felicia Day doesn’t tickle any fancies, but her physical appearance is not the reason that this lady is on my list.
Slight Improvement: This lady is an actress who has taken her career by the ovaries, and has created a loyal fan base as a result of her nerdy ways. How? She was in season 7 of Buffy, and then that ended, so she was just another actress floating around Los Angeles; in her spare time she started playing World of Warcraft (or WoW for you fuckers out there), which lead to her playing it all of the time, thus followed by a full-fledged addiction.
Eventually, she kicked her addiction (seriously, it’s an addiction) and wrote an idea for a show based around people who get immersed in online gaming; this would become The Guild (available @ http://www.watchtheguild.com ). An internet-based show that has done nothing but pick up more and more steam as it continues, it even got her a starring role in one of my favourite things ever: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog (directed by Joss Whedon).
While she’s not on the top of Hollywood or any of that nonsense, she has created her own work, all of which is awesome, and for that, I have so much respect.
MY MUSICAL HOMEWORK
You ready for some top-secret-upcoming-Glen-Matthews-production-news? I’m working on creating a musical with Matt Chisholm & Chris Fitzgerald, both of whom worked on Attention Span TV, where I did “The Landlord With an Addiction to Eviction” skit!
Slight Improvement: As a result of our frankenstein, I am going out of my way to watch as many musicals as humanly possible. “I Got Life” from Hair is currently ringing in my ears ever since I downloaded the soundtrack. I can safely say that High School Musical genuinely let me down, it’s as if they only went half-stupid, if you’re gonna go half, just go the whole way! On the plus side, it did finally motivate me to track down that photo of Vanessa Hudgens. She’s 20, I checked.
Please pass along your musical recommendations!
TOM JONES & RONNIE MILSAP
Music that my 15 year old self would have kicked the shit out of me for listening to.
Slight Improvement: Here’s an excerpt from Ronnie Milsap’s Pure Love:
“Pure love, baby it’s pure love, Milk and honey and Captain Krunch and you in the morning, Pure love baby it’s pure love, Ninety-nine and forty-four one hundreds percent pure love.”
…What?
He also has another song called “Daydreams About Night Things” where he sings about masturbating at work! Together, Milsap and Tom Jones are collectively blowing my mind. I don’t know what either of them were thinking, but I know it was brilliant and I love them both for their sacrifice, and contribution to the life that I live.
Do yourself a favor and downloadpurchase the Tom Jones Best Of album and let the melodrama wash over you like a tidal wave of 70’s machismo.
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, yesterday a sound file from the set of Terminator: Salvation was leaked to TMZ.com who posted it online. The clip featured a four minute tirade by Terminator star Christian Bale, who was heard screaming at (director of photography) Shane Hurlbut for disturbing his focus during a scene.
Following the release of the sound byte, a tidal wave of internet hell-fire & hate was directed at Bale…
This man deserves a standing ovation and a footrub from every actor on this planet. He is a martyr for our art.
The openness, intimacy and concentration required for me (personally) to act in a scene leaves me with a feeling of complete vulnerability. There is nothing more infuriating than having a crew member destroy any sense of atmosphere for the scene being worked on, by either cracking a joke, yawning, or wandering behind Bryce Dallas Howard and staring at a light, you name it.
Respect for acting. That’s what it comes down to. It sounds so lame to say, but it’s true. From my point of view, Christian Bale was the kid who beat up the Bully in the schoolyard. The Bully being the collective ignorance of crew members around the world.
Don’t take this is a bitchfest, 95% of the films I have worked on have been wonderful, constructive environments to create in, but there’s that 5% out there, that really makes me want to go Christian Bale on your ass.
