“ROOM SERVICE” NOW ONLINE!

After its extensive film festival run, ROOM SERVICE (2012), the first short film I wrote and directed, is now online for your viewing as part of The National Screen Institute’s Online Film Festival.

A woman (Vanessa Walton-Bone) confronts her husband’s mistress (Molly Dunsworth) in a motel room with unexpected results…

The film has had one heck of a journey, being a finalist for CBC’s national competition, Short Film Face-Off, being named First-Runner Up for Best Short Film at the Cleveland International Film Festival, and more, all for a short that was made for $750.

Very proud of this film, and all of the hard work that so many incredibly talented people put into it, so, if you haven’t had the chance yet, please take five minutes and enjoy ROOM SERVICE…

Late last year we unfortunately lost Vanessa Walton-Bone to cancer. She was an incredible performer and even more so an incredible person. If there was one thing I can take away from this experience and be thankful for, it’s the chance to have worked with a true beauty, in every possible meaning of the word. I’m thrilled to throw this film onto the giant pile of “things that Vanessa was awesome in”. Much love.

Hope I didn’t make you sad there. It’s a celebration.

Thanks for watching.

Link to the NSI’s page for ROOM SERVICE: http://www.nsi-canada.ca/2014/02/room-service/

TOP 20 IN N.S.

D’aw shucks, The Chronicle Herald has named me one of Nova Scotia’s “Top 20 Twenty-Somethings” in their annual round-up of young folks in N.S. who are kicking some butt.

I’m actually really honoured by the selection and happy to have had a chance to tell the Halifax film community how awesome I think they are via newspaper article…

TAPPING INTO FILMDOM’S WILD WEST

by Elissa Bernard

Filmmaker and actor Glen Matthews, 26, moved back home from Toronto to be part of “the real emergence of quality films that are coming out of here.”

“I was missing all these great roles!”

The Halifax-based, Lunenburg actor starred in Josh MacDonald’s The Corridor, a hit on thehorror/fantasy film festival circuit, and in all three of Jason Eisener’s films, the cult favourite Hobo with a Shotgun, the earlier Treevenge and Eisener’s first film Streets of Domination, which has never been released.

Matthews is editing it. “I think Streets of Domination is the most [ambitious] no-budget film made.”

Matthews shot videos with his friends when he was a kid dreaming of being a pro wrestler. “I moved to Halifax at 19 to pursue a career in graphic design and started taking classes at Neptune, and I met Jason Eisener and he put me in a film, so acting just happened to me.”

Down on his luck in Toronto, Matthews wrote a short film, Room Service, which he shot in Halifax in 2012 with actors Vanessa Walton-Bone, Molly Dunsworth, Samantha Wilson and Mauralea Austin.

“It was an amazing experience. I cast people I respect and know. I plan on having two more shorts in the can by next fall and the dream of dreams is to do a feature eventually.”

Room Service, the tale of a middle-aged woman confronting her husband’s mistress with unexpected consequences, premiered at the CBC Atlantic Shorts Gala at the Atlantic Film Festival in September, and won best short film at the Parrsboro Film Festival.

“The next couple of short films I’m playing with are absurdist, a little bit. Holy Motors, that was probably my favourite film this year. I’m hoping there’s a resurgence of really fun but arty films.

“I follow the Walter Gretzky quote, ‘Don’t go where the puck is, go where it’s going to go.’”

Matthews will be on stage next spring in Poem for the Smallest Boy, written by his girlfriend, Halifax actor-writer Kristin Slaney.

“I love Halifax because I’m in control of my own career. Here, it feels like the Wild West. I can talk to filmmakers. There’s more of an open dialogue between everyone.”

(ebarnard@herald.ca)

Direct-link: http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/317513-tapping-into-filmdom-s-wild-west

*Photo by Ted Pritchard.

STREETS UPDATE + CONTEST

Believe…

After five years sitting on the shelf, Jason Eisener‘s first feature film, STREETS OF DOMINATION, is inching leaping closer to completion!

The film has sat on the shelf for so long because STREETS’ writer John Davies and its director, Jason Eisener had to go make that HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN film. Spare time quickly became, and remains to be, a rarity for these two gents, which pushed STREETS to the back-burner.

Enter Glen (in hero stance).

I have taken on the task of editing a first-pass, rough-assembly of the film, which I will then hand off to Eisener for him to finish. This process is also known as movie magic.

So please, be excited. Lord knows I am.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I’ll be giving away 5 HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN comic books to readers of this blog! Simply head on over to the Contact page and drop me a line (be sure to include your email address)! Contest closes Monday, November 26th at 11:59pm EST and is open to residents of Canada and the USA.

Fun, right?

Check back on Tuesday, the 27th to see if you’ve won yourself a copy!

In the mean time, check out the STREETS OF DOMINATION teaser to whet your appetites:

Update – Nov. 27, 2012: WINNERS OF THE HOBO COMIC CONTEST: Stephen Piercey, Colin MacDonald, Tarra Hughes, Erin McGuire, Jessica Golding. Congrats, folks!

For all of you unfortunate losers the comic is currently available at all three Stange Adventures locations, The Last Game Store, Obsolete Records, Quantum Frontier and more for a mere $2.99!

FILM VS. DIGITAL

You may or may not know, but there is a war being waged at this very moment. The two sides, battling over the future of filmmaking, arguing which is better: film or digital.

There’s been a whole heap of articles written for each argument, but recently, Karim Hussain, the director of photography for HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN and the upcoming film, ANTIVIRAL (playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival), had this to say…

Here’s the LA weekly article on the death of film and Christopher Nolan’s plea to preserve 35mm (http://www.laweekly.com/2012-04-12/film-tv/35-mm-film-digital-Hollywood/). I’d happily agree with him, if it wasn’t for the fact that labs and cinemas have been letting their 35mm / 16mm processing, dailies transferring and printing go to shit, laying off staff and ultimately screwing the filmmakers with countless headaches and worries due to sub-standard quality.

When you have an inexperienced kid transfer your rushes and you get a different looking film on set every day, or the lab snaps your negative in their developer, ruining tons of work, digital starts to look good. When your 35mm print is projected in a shitty green print on bad stock the film wasn’t even graded for, it’s out of focus, covered in dirt and scratches, shaking all over the screen, with the bulb turned down so hard to save money that the screen is just a murky smear, the sound is analog 4.0 and super-low because the cinema chain got in a fight with Dolby, good digital projection starts to smell pretty nice. If cinemas maintained their film projectors and technical presentations, then people would see how beautiful 35mm looks and sounds.

These days, they’re more likely to see a blurry mess and barely hear it if it’s an indie without DTS tracks. And in North America, DCP projection is following suit, darkening their bulbs to save on the even more expensive costs of digital bulb replacement. They are literally driving people from the cinemas by giving us horrible presentations. VOD is looking pretty sweet when you pay 13 bucks for a ticket, then can barely see what’s going on and people around you flood the cinema with light from their texting!

The best remaining lab technicians in the world (there are not so many left) will bend over backwards to ensure Christopher Nolan’s multi-multi-multi million dollar photochemical answer prints will look good and be well projected when he’s in the room. But he is the 1% of filmmakers.

The reality is, after the romance of film that I happily subscribe to, independent movies shot on film don’t get the same treatment as the big boys, and after all the headaches, the Arri Alexa starts to look pretty damn sweet. Plus it’s an amazing camera that frees you up in so many brilliant ways that were never before possible…

Filmmakers have been driven to digital for more reasons than just economy and after using the Alexa on a couple films, I’ll happily drink the Kool-Aid. I’m a much happier person because of it!

Interesting, eh?

Me personally, I love digital (of course I do, I wouldn’t have just had you read that if I didn’t). I worked at a movie theatre for three years, where I saw countless films given a terrible presentation simply because the minimum-wage employed projectionist really didn’t give enough of a shit to adjust the film properly.

There’s plenty of other reasons for why I welcome the digital age with wide open arms, a lot of which Karim mentioned above, but what do you think? Any diehard film lovers out there, not willing to let go?

TV PARTY PODCAST INTERVIEW

Hello folks! I am an incredible fan of the podcast format, so it is with much joy that I share with you today an interview I did for 88.1FM CKDU’s TV PARTY PODCAST!

The interview, hosted by Stephan MacLeod and Ryan Delehanty, is 94 minutes long, so turn off that Christmas special, download this sucker onto your iPhone, and go for a long walk (no, I don’t care how cold it is outside).

TV Party interviews actor extraordinaire Glen Matthews about his failed quest to become a professional wrestler, learning to act, his roles in Hobo with a Shotgun, the Corridor, Streets of Domination, Game, Roller Town and much more.

To download my episode, as well as interviews with Josh MacDonald (writer of THE CORRIDOR), Jason Eisener (director of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN), Mark Palermo (writer of DETENTION) as well as many others, please visit http://www.mediafire.com/?7r92bt7eiy51c

MacLeod and Delehanty told me that they plan to have the episodes of TV PARTY PODCAST available via iTunes later on in 2012, so be ready to do some subscribin’.

Happy holidays, everyone! I’ll be posting my top 11 films of 2011 list in a few days (movies I watched, not movies I was in — that would be exceptionally narcissistic) so stay tuned for that and be ready to argue with me!

“UNDER THE BRIDGE”

UNDER THE BRIDGE is a short film script that I wrote about a mistake made by a man who is torn between working the 9 to 5 and becoming a drug dealer. I wrote the script over a year ago and have been tinkering with it until recently…

Since returning home to Nova Scotia (for Josh MacDonald’s GAME, my film ROOM SERVICE, and Halifax Theatre for Young People’s IN THE FALL) I’ve been thinking that I’d like to organize another quick shoot, and so I took a scene from UNDER THE BRIDGE and we shot in specifically for my demo reel.

This incredibly awesome team consisted of the wonderful talents of Scott Bailey (who you would have seen before if you’ve watched MUGSHOTS), Zan Rosborough (IMDb link) who put on the ol’ Director’s cap, and the Director of Photography, Paul McCurdy (IMDb link).

Enjoy!

“HOBO” ONE OF CANADA’S BEST

Jason Eisener‘s HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN has been named one of Cananda’s Top Ten Feature Films of 2011 by the Toronto Internation Film Festival!

I was fairly certain that a very successful DVD & BluRay release would have been the cherry on top of this whole HOBO-experience, but yesterday’s announcement really took the cake (on which the cherry rests). I think the “HOBO-experience” can officially be upgraded to “HOBO-phenomena”.

I would like to congratulate my friends Jason Eisener, John Davies, Rob Cotterill, as well as everyone else who worked on the film for the outstanding success that this film has seen. Also, major kudos to TIFF for having the cojones to stand behind a film like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, that could so easily ignored, and pushed aside as “just another grindhouse flick”.

Oh my, who is that amazing young actor in the yellow mask going toe to toe with Rutger Hauer?

It was me. That was me.

Congrats to all the other filmmakers, as well as the folks at Grassfire Films, Ashley McKenzie and Nelson MacDonald, as their amazing short film, RHONDA’S PARTY (also shot here in Nova Scotia) was named one of Canada’s Top Ten Short Films! For the full list of films, head on over to the TIFF website: http://tiff.net/topten

FYI: Two of Canada’s Top Ten Feature Films can be rented now on YouTube for only $5! HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (YouTube link) as well as Ken Scott‘s STARBUCK (YouTube link). Support Canadian film!

PS. Blog note: I’ve finally sat down and updated the Photos section of the website, so head on over and take a gander: https://glenjm.wordpress.com/photos/!

JOSH MACDONALD’S “GAME”

I don’t know when I’m not happy to announce my involvement in a project, but today I am ecstatic to tell you that I’m on board for Josh MacDonald‘s (screenwriter of THE CORRIDOR) directorial debut short film, GAME.

Set to shoot this weekend, I’ll be joining the supremely talented cast which includes Andrea Lee Norwood, Pasha Ebrahimi (HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN), and Michael McPhee (my co-star and the creator of LOGAN AND I).

At the time being, details that I can share are slim. For now, please check out the gorgeous new poster from James White AKA Signalnoise (creator of such film-related graphic gems as the HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN logo, as well as the TREEVENGE logo)…

Head on over to Signalnoise.com to see the poster in all it’s glory.

Josh has an absolutely brilliant mind when it comes to storytelling, and I’m more than honoured to be joining him on his first adventure into directing (first of many to come, guaranteed). More to come.

‪ROOM SERVICE: CAST UPDATE & INCENTIVES!

UPDATE – AUGUST 10/11: We’ve reached our goal of $750! Thank you to all who donated!

Hello ladies & gents! A new video for your eyeballs today announcing the rest of my cast (does the lady above look familiar?) and a new incentive!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

The Indie-GoGo fund-raising has been progressing exquisitely: just last night, $150 was donated to the cause, pushing us within $85 of our $750 goal!

Time is running out for our new incentive: donate ANYTHING and you’ll be sent a private link on October 1, containing a behind-the-scenes video of ROOM SERVICE!

Head on over to Indie-GoGo right now to donate, or share!

THE CORRIDOR AT FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL!

Great news to announce today: THE CORRIDOR will be included as part of one of the greatest film festivals in North America, Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal! The festival, which specializes in genre filmmaking, has been relentlessly showcasing the best in “off-kilter” cinema for the past fifteen years. Mr. Quentin Tarantino had this to say about INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS‘ inclusion in the 2009 lineup…

I was thrilled that my film, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, made its North American premiere at Montreal’s Fantasia, as they are the most important and prestigious genre film festival on this continent.

THE CORRIDOR, a horror-thriller about male-bonding and miscommunication (THE BIG CHILL slammed into THE THING), is set to hit the Fantasia screens twice:

-Thursday July 21 – 7:25pm at JA De Seve Cinema &
-Monday July 25 – 1:00pm, once again at JA De Seve Cinema!
Tickets will be made available soon at the Fantastic Fest website.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Myself, along with co-stars Stephen Chambers, Jim Gilbert & David Patrick Flemming, as well as director Evan Kelly and writer Josh MacDonald will all be in attendance for the screening on the 21st, followed by a Q&A. I sadly won’t be in Montreal for the screening on the 25th, and since I’m completely self-involved, I have no idea what’s on slate for that screening.

President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Brent Simon gave THE CORRIDOR an A- rating in his review…

This a fabulously effective feature debut for Kelly, and a work that bodes well for all of the talent involved, both on screen and behind the camera.

I’m apparently going quote-crazy this blog entry, but I couldn’t help but share HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN director, Jason Eisener‘s thoughts on THE CORRIDOR, stolen from his Tumblr page…

With director Evan Kelly, and the amazing cast, they created a beautiful suspense film. Each character has attributes we can all connect with, and when the pressure of the Corridor comes down hard on this group of friends, you can’t help but feel like you’re stuck in the middle of the suspense. 

Please come out to our quaint, little cabin in the woods. We would love to have your company…

Also at the fest is Joseph Kahn‘s DETENTION, written by the spiteful-Haligonian (I kid, I kid), Mark Palermo! Check out the loaded Fantasia program over @ http://www.fantasiafestival.com/2011/en/

See you all in the city of love (?)!