God, again, another movie I really wanted to like more than I ended up.  I thought it would be a cute little indie-coming-of-age film, which is pretty much my fucking bread and apple butter.  I love me some quirky indie. 

It a film about a young boy with a stutter who is recruited by an overachieving girl to be partners on their New Jersey debate team so she can win States, and best debater.  The stuttering boy falls in love with the girl, and so he tries to be the best he can be at the debates.  He’s amazing at developing arguments, but he has such a debilitating stutter he can’t overcome.

What I loved about this movie is that it does not follow an easy or obvious path.  He doesn’t learn to overcome his stutter.  He doesn’t become the master debator and win the championship.  He doesn’t get the girl.  He doesn’t win in an obvious way.   The characters are so strange and bizarre and exist in this insane microcosm outside of Trenton, New Jersey.  It’s not a happy film, but it makes you happy. 

The problem I have is that it seems so intent of careening off the tracks into this hinterland to fly in the face of how a mainstream comedy would have handled this, that it doesn’t really go anywhere.  It sort of starts in the middle of nowhere, goes nowhere, and ends nowhere.  Sure, there’s plenty of character development and it’s wonderfully nice to see a movie that isn’t afraid to take risks.  But the problem is that there isn’t much to the movie, and so by the time it sort of drifts to a stop, you’re sort of shrugging and walking away from the movie none the richer.

I had a lot more hope for this.  It seemed like a great idea.  A fake documentary about a fake documentary about a documentary.  It really was convinced that it was a more clever movie than it was. 

It was imagineered by Zak Penn, screenwriter of many, many big budget comic book mistakes.  Zak Penn looks like Casey Siemazkso trying out for the Lex Luthor role in Superman Returns.  He’s essentially starring as himself as he convinces Werner Herzog to make a documentary about lies and what people will believe about the Loch Ness Monster. 

Every second the film starts to veer in what might be clever or thought provoking territory, it immediately takes a turn towards to absurd and cheesy.  And all of these moments involve Zak Penn.  I simultaneous admire the shit out him for making this movie, and hate the fuck out of him for ruining it with his own arrogance. 

The premise is pretty amusing.  Zak Penn convinces Werner Herzog to make a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster.  Herzog is pretty keen on doing it in his usually insane way, proving that people are lunatics.  Penn wants to secretly fake the documentary, using a rubber motorized monster, and “expert testimony”.  But then, the crew may or may not get savaged by the “real” Loch Ness Monster.  It’s played up like the Blair Witch, what might be true, what might not.  The problem is, it’s too uneven.  It tries to be a mockumentary, and it tries to be a horror movie, and it misses on both ends. 

The most amusing part of the movie is, of course, Werner Herzog.  He’s hilarious to watch, as he lampoons himself.  But the thing is, Herzog never struck me as someone who takes themselves all that seriously, so it feels really naturalistic.  It’s enjoyable to watch him.  Just not Zak Penn hamming his way all over the moors.

I do like me some beer.  I enjoy playing beer related games.  Card games, beirut/beer pong, other sorts of alcohol involved activites.  So I should like Beerfest, right? 

Wrong.  Incredible chugged amounts of wrong.  I can’t tell what’s more uncomfortable — grown men well into their 30s attempting to make something designed for frat guys to slam PBR tallboys to or the fact that you can tell that Broken Lizard could potentially be funnier than this.  

Jurgen Prochnow and Cloris Leachman are both in this, shilling so hard I just want to start a telethon or something to get a cinderblock wall with barbed wire on top built around them to keep the communism in and the comedians out. 

I’d explain the plot, but seriously, what plot?  It’s essentially 90 minutes of five idiots drinking lots of beer for no good reason.  For no reason.  It’s like the movie was designed to become a drinking game that would put stupider froshs in alcohol based comas.  It’s an embarassment in every regard, and I’ve got better things to do with my life than talk about it.

You need me, I’m going to be over here with a case of Miller Lite, swigging every time Bruce Campbell gets hit in the face during Army of Darkness.

Tomorrow, I shall cast the shackles of my twenties off forever, and plunge mercilessly into the wilderness of my thirties.  (Yes, I’m a Fourth of July baby.  Yes, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a firecracker, and Tom Cruise in a wheelchair.)  Among my tight circle of high-school chums, I am the wee baby, so I am the last to make it across the line.  I had been giving much thought to what it means to turn 30. 

I thought I’d have everything figured out by now.  I thought I’d be married with a couple of kids.  I thought I’d already have my acting and writing career finished up by now.  I thought I’d be living in a palatial estate, revelling with the greats of society.  I thought things would be better than this. 

Many of my friends claim that nowadays, people get everything done in their 30s.  That people should spend their twenties fucking around, and fucking up.  They feel sorry for twentysomethings who have gotten the one job they’ll be working for the rest of their lives.  The ones who already have their families started, who have found the loves of their lives.   They have nothing to look forward to, nothing to dream for.   Of course, they tend to say this when they are already well into their thirties. 

It’d be easy for me to look at all the things I don’t have.  I love doing that.  I made a declaration (one that I bring up every goddamn birthday and chance I get) two years ago.  I swore that in five years, I would a) be married with a child on the way, b) support myself solely through acting and writing, c) be a produced screenwriter/playwright, d) at least be starting work on my first major writing/directing project, and e) have a home back in PA.  I have been out here in LA for two years now (just about, in August) and I have accomplished exactly zero of these tasks.  

I’m still working a miserable job, living in my shitty apartment, and don’t even have my own car.  I am part of a theatre troupe where most of the kids are signing with agents and getting SAG status.  I was the only member of the writer’s group who had a piece outright rejected by the troupe for submission to the showcase.  I am still massively overweight, have no savings account, and I own a Wii.  I haven’t been back to PA in over a year, I haven’t seen my parents face to face since last September, and even then it was for like one day.  I haven’t written anything screenplay wise since 2005.  I don’t leave my house to go places, because I can barely afford it.  I haven’t even been able to plan a birthday party for myself, because I can’t think of a place that people will be able to afford to go to, and my apartment is too small and cramped and cluttered to invite people over to.  I can’t even think of a bar to meet people in, because I don’t really drink too much anymore.  I can’t even have a 30th birthday party for myself. 

It’d be easy to look at my failures, and to give up.  To surrender to the constant mockery of my subconscious.  I’ve been beaten down by an overwhelming sense of failure.  That this town will eat me alive any chance it gets.  That most of the people I care about are 3000 miles away, living their own sad lives.  That I’m chasing a dream that might just be that.  To finally quit.  To take some middle management job in some faceless corporation and to work every day until I die of a coronary.  I can keep staring in the mirror and hating myself for all the things I haven’t done.

Or.  I can stop being a little bitch, pick myself up off the mat, and knock this motherfucker out.

I live in an apartment in North Hollywood that sucks.  But it’s a place that belongs to Higginbottom and me, so we don’t have to share it with roommates, and we’re going to move to a new place over in Sherman Oaks or Valley Village next month.   

Without even trying, I ended up on television.  I’m part of a theatre troupe, where I’ll be able to write plays and get things produced.  I will get them produced.  And people will be able to see it. 

I started writing my angry thoughts about stuff on a blog.  And some crazy sonofabitches on another website read it, and liked it, and gave me a job.  They say it doesn’t pay much.  But it pays enough that I am solely using it to support my creative endeavors.  I’ve got my own digital camcorder to make movies with.  I pay for my date nights with proceeds from Pajiba.  I pay the dues to my theatre company with that money.  I am going to put up my own website.  When you Google my name, there are like 100,000 hits, and most of them are people saying how much they like my writing.

I don’t have kids.  But I’ve got the girl who’ll be my wife.  And she likes me even though I’m tubby.  And she likes me even when I shave my beard off.  But she wants me to grow it back too.  And she goes and sees movies with me.

I’m part of a trivia team.  We meet every Sunday, and we win money which we use to go to dinners.  I’ve got people constantly inviting me for drinks and dinners and parties.  And tacos.  I can’t make them most of the time, but the social network is there, and I’m starting to embrace it.

I am flying back to PA in September for my friend’s wedding.  I’m going to Comic-Con at the end of the month.  I will see my friends and family.

I hate my job, but I battled with my boss until my pay rate is ridiculous.  And it’ll get higher.  And I’m typing this blog from my desk at work.  So I’m using it against itself.  And wait until you see the screenplay.  Oh, my god, just wait. 

I’ve done a lot more with my life than most people have.  The only reason I’m not satisfied is because I know I’m capable of doing even more.  I still got three years on my five year plan.  That’s more than enough time.  And now, I’ve got friends, and family, and a pretty-much-my-wife, to support me.   Nothing’s gonna stop me now.  If this world runs out of lovers, we’ll still have each other.  And I’m quoting fucking Mannequin and Anne Murray.   

Jesus Christ.  Thirty.      

Kung Fu Panda

I wanted to be first to get my dad story up at Blog Me A Tale this month.  As I sat pondering which story about my mom to tell, I knew this was the one I was going to tell about my dad. 

My father is my hero.  There are epic tales I could weave about him.  He keeps thinking about writing his autobiography.  I told him I’ll do it if he ever wants to sit down and tell me everything he wants in the book.  I probably know about 1/4 of the details of his life.  But let’s just say, you’d eat this motherfucker with a knife, fork and spoon and lick the goddamn plate. 

My father is your hero.  You just don’t know it yet.

I am coming to a television near you.

I have been out in Los Angeles for almost two years now, but it wasn’t until three months ago that I actually got myself over to Central Casting where they do most of the background casting in the city.  Normally, you can call in to their service to see if they are looking for someone of your type for various roles, like people in a restaurant scene at the other tables, or angry protest mob.  Things like that.  Sometimes, they call you specifically for work on a show, if the show is looking for a certain type.  This happens maybe 5% of the time. 

Thursday I got called in for the show “The Wizards of Waverly Place” on the Disney Channel.  Essentially, it’s about a sister and her two brothers who live in New York and work at a sandwich shop.  They can do magic, which leads to all sorts of comedic hijinks that typically end with every learning a very important lesson while they all hug around a couch.  It’s one of their biggest shows.

The episode I am in is part of Season Two, and it’s called “Taxi Dance”.  The episode involves a taxi dispatch center, where they were trying to cast actors in a sort-of Taxi homage.  So naturally they called on yours truly to play the Danny Devito guy. 

I have never done extra work of any kind, so I didn’t know what to do.  I went to the studio, where I walked over to the set.  A television studio set has all the different scene backgrounds scattered around in a tight area.  On television, it looks like a giant street scene, but it’s actually facing one of the other sets. 

I got there early and waited up in a set of bleachers where all the other background actors were supposed to meet.  No one showed up, so I got nervous that I was totally in the wrong spot.  Some of the show actors were there, but I didn’t want to ask them questions, lest I look like a dumbass.  So I waited patiently in the bleachers for a couple hours, until they came and got me.  They needed me for the run through, where a bunch of the crew acted as stand-ins.  I got freaked out, because it was an AFTRA show, and I’m not part of any union.  But by the power of Greyskull and potentially Xena, everything was fine.

The actors on the show were very nice.  The young girl who’s kind of the star of the show is the Disney Channel’s Break In Case of Glass in case Miley Cyrus pops out a baby or gets addicted to black tar heroin.  Her name is Selena Gomez, and she played Hannah Montana’s arch rival.  It’s a kid’s show, but she’s got pretty damn good timing and delivery.  David DeLuise plays the father, and the dude has a huge laugh. 

The run through was a pretty mellow event.  In my scene, most of the scene takes place with Uncle Al, who was played by an actor named John, who usually plays fat Italian cops.  The dude’s been in everything.  He was incredibly nice, and most of the scene is played to me in the crowd scene. 

The kicker was that I got to play in another scene where I’m asleep on a couch.  They slam a car door, and I roll over.  Allegedly, I fart.  I say allegedly, because they performed the scene a few times with a fart sound, and without a fart sound.  They did the scene for the network executives.  With a fart and without.  I’ve never realized how much work went into deciding whether or not to do a fart take.  I’m personally pro-fart, mostly because I want to end my actor’s reel with the fart.  It was actually fascinating, because they made all kinds of adjustments I never noticed before.  One of the actors said, ‘God!” during a rehearsal as they stormed off stage, and they said, “Hey, dude. It’s Disney!  No, no.”  They are riding in a talking cab (voiced by Sam Simon — Frances McDormand’s litigious neck-brace wearing husband in Raising Arizona, among many other things) and they made sure that they were wearing seatbelts.  It was insane.

Friday was the run through and it went really smooth.  I kept my mouth shut, paid attention, and always hit my mark.  I learned the glory of craft services.  They had a huge table full of donuts and bagels, and a mini-breakfast buffet with eggs benedict and pancakes.  It’s all free!  Lunch was even more wonderful, because I got to go and eat with the actors and crew.  Which was neat.  I got to talk about the theatre troupe I was in and Philadelphia.  No matter where I am in LA, it takes about four sentences for people to ask me questions about Philly. 

Most extra work pays minimum wage to non-union actors.  But I got the AFTRA rates.  Which means I get a flat rate for a full 8 hours, whether we work all 8 or not.  Which isn’t bad for most of the day spent sitting in the stands and reading a book.  The only downside was they wanted me to shave my beard.  I don’t look good without a beard.  I look like a fat fourteen year old.  My age drops twenty years and my weight ups like 50 pounds.  It’s truly disasterous.  Plus, until I grew my beard back, my headshots would be totally useless, because I wouldn’t look ANYTHING like my photo.  The director said, we can give you a little extra money if you shave, we’ll make sure.  So my beard offically got a monetary value, and after a glorious weekend, I bid adieu to my beard an shaved to a pair of badass mutton chops this morning, ala Louie DePalma.

This morning, I went to the set, with a bag full of clothes.  They wanted me to look like a New York Cabbie.  Layers and jeans, that was the idea.  I thought I’d be in the white shirt and tie like Devito.  But no, after a quick session with the wardrobe folks, it turns out that my normal attire is pretty much that of a cabbie.  I actually wore the clothes I came to set in.  No glasses and no beard, the cast was laughing.  Selena Gomez was sweet.  John was a big old bubbly ball of glee.  Laughing and smiling.  Neither of us had glasses on, so were were blind bastards.

There were tons of other extras today.  I was really proud, because most these dudes were bitching about wardrobe and agents, and how they had to get contact to get these parts.  Right out of the gate, and I was the leader of the cabbies.  They just decided to go off my cues, because I was giving off an air of professionalism.  Also, I knew the cues.  They kept talking that I should have gone for an Under 5 deal, or pushed for more money because of how much I had to do.  I was handling most of the props in the scene, and I was really integral to the scene.  It was why I was getting most of the camera time. 

But that’s not who I am.  I’m just fucking stoked to be getting money to be acting.  It’s more important to me to just show up, work fucking hard, and do what I’m supposed to.  I don’t need to scrape as much cash from them as possible.  I was already giggling because they gave us each $10 for bringing our own clothing for the costumes. 

What was really awesome was, during the shoot, John kept asking the director what my character’s name was, so he could call me by it.  They told him not to worry.  He shrug, and turned to me and said, “Sorry, Bri, I was trying to get you a name.  I think they give you more money if you have a named character.”  I laughed. 

Later, the writer’s rewrote a line and added a line, where he pointed over his shoulder, and said the backseat of the cab was going to “Tiny’s” apartment.  The camera zoomed on me and I had to give him a “What?” shrug. (I’m not allowed to talk.  If it was a talking part, if I actually got to say “What?” on camera, I would get five times the salary, maybe more.  Hooray for Hollywood.)  The writers’ thought I was so funny, they added a line to acknowledge me.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t working in the scene, so they cut it.  No name, no scene.  But, the fact that I was so damn professional that the other actors were willing to follow me, that the seasoned professional was trying to get me a bigger part, and that the writer’s were digging writing for me, that speaks more to me than anything else.

The Extra herder thanked me at the end of the day, and he said he will try damn hard to use me again, because he really liked how hard I worked.  I was pretty fucking psyched.  It was fun, and I am definitely going to be on screen. If you watch the show, which is like episode 7 of Season Two, I’m there.  Beard-free, squirmy and all, but baby, I’m on TV.

Small steps to take over the world, people.  It’s just the start.  

The Casualties of Retail

Saw this one at the DGA.  There was a steady flow of chuckles burbling up from the folks in the crowd.  It was the best terrible movie I’ve ever seen, even when things were stupid they were good.  Go figure.   Definitely a renter.  

I figured this’d be a limited comment column.  And to the first question posted:  I guess the fact that the action takes place in a grocery store probably escaped you, but yeah, totally, I’m a great big fat body.  Just tremendously huge.  

When You’re Building Your Own Creation, There’s Nothing Better than a Real Imitation

It’s Classics Week at Pajiba, and we’ve been handling the 1970’s.  It’s been an impressive listing, but I had to put forward my favorite Mel Brooks film of all time.

When she was a kid, Higginbottom watched this movie pretty much every week for a couple years.  We got a chance to meet Gene Wilder (he was made of candy) when he came to the Barnes and Noble to sign his book, My French Whore.  He’s been through a bout with the Big C, and he looks worse for the wear, but he’s still such a warm guy.  It was so incredible to meet him.

Hop on over to the Jiba to give it a gander.

You done so well against cancer, so let’s see if your magical powers will work against failure. 

I am performing tonight for an audience full of casting directors, agents, and managers to see if I can get representation.  It’s a three minute scene called “Work It Out”.  I play a fat lonely loser who has a heart attack while signing up for the gym.  It’ll be a stretch. 

I’m stretching for the finish line as I will be turning 30 in just 10 more days. 

I didn’t like this movie.

I was totally into it: the soundtrack, the message, the characters, the dark comedy, all of it.  I thought it was amazing.  I thought Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon gave the kind of performances that you rarely see.  I felt like it was a perfect study on how two people can connect on a higher plane, and how they can influence each other’s lives.  I thought it took all the schmalz of a Mitch Albom novel and essentially packaged it in a delicious, devilishly clever, heart-breakingly beautiful picture.  I thought they had this movie locked and loaded and ready to deliver.  I thought it was the most perfect love story ever made.

Right up until they sleep together. 

That pissed me off.  It felt like it was tacked on to be shocking.  They had this perfect love, this absolute adoration for one another.  Did they really need to have sex to cement their love?  Isn’t their love the kind of love that transcends physicality?  Did it some how become more real, more spiritually satisfying because they stuck Tab A into Slot B? 

It totally ruined the movie for me.  It popped the balloon of delight that had me soaring, and it made his banjo playing “If You Want To Sing Out” at the end of the movie as lame as Jim fucking a pastry in American Pie.  It’s like, this kid didn’t get a life-affirming lesson.  He got his rod polished by a Golden Girl, and danced and sung about .  Honest to God, if you pulled out the post-coital scene, for me, it would be a perfect film. 

I accept that my thinking may be flawed, as I tend to loathe romantic films in the first place.  My favorite romantic movie is Once, where they don’t end up together.  Well, maybe The Princess Bride.