John Q. Phats Entertainment

For those of you that went to the movie thing last night in Huntington, you may have not seen me.  I had a bit of an emergency that I had to deal with so I couldn’t make it.  Sorry if you showed up to say hello and I wasn’t there. 
Last night in being a programmer I got to the good stuff.  These are the films that make me look at my work and think to myself “What the hell am I doing?”  Two especially absolutely amazed me.  There is some great stuff out there.  I already knew that, but I always welcome a good reminder.
I’ve been working on my resume to look for work on a film crew.  Of course, me being a graphic designer I have to make it incredibly complicated and fancy.  What actually started as a work project has evolved in to part of my resume.  I’ll post it when I’m done with it for you guys to check out.  It should be quite glorious.  I’ve also been hard at work on the press kit for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  It’s kind of fun.  Right now I’m just trying to get the information down, when I’m done with that, I’ll make it fancy.  I’m very tempted to design it like it’s a bunch of scrap paper Chris (main character) scribbled his ideas on.  Why not, right?  I think it would work.
The deadline for Sundance is coming up.  I’m probably going to enter Censored.  Will it get in?  Probably not, but what the hell, right?  If I can get Do Nice Guys Finished Last done on time, I’ll enter that as well.  My hopes are, that Do Nice Guys Finish Last is much better then I think it is.  Not that I think it’s bad.  In fact, I love that short film, I just don’t think it’s all that festival appropriate.  Hopefully, I’m wrong, festivals love it, and audiences laugh so hard, their stomachs hurt.  As I’ve figured out though, it’s very easy to become delusional about how funny something you and your friends think something is vs what the public thinks is funny.  Often times, something you and your friends think is funny, isn’t really all that funny to other people.  Many groups of people I’ve met have told me that I could just put a camera on their friends and have comedic gold.  Have you ever told a really funny story, only to have the person you’re telling it to stare at you with a blank stare?  It usually ends with you saying “Well, I guess you had to be there.”  It’s kind of like that.   
I still haven’t seen Inglorious Bastards.  I want to see that movie so badly.  Maybe I’ll check it out tonight.  Right now, I’m going through all of the movies that I should have seen already, but haven’t for some stupid reason.  For example, I just watched The Shining last week.  Jack Nicholson was a creepy looking bastard.  Even in the beginning, when he’s acting all normal, he’s freaky looking.  With age, I think he became less creepy.  In As Good As it Gets he wasn’t all that menacing.  His character was kind of a prick and he sort of looked the part.  Maybe he’s just that amazing of an actor.  His actual demeanor alters his appearance.  Or does he just pick roles that fit his look at the time?  It’s tough to say.  Either way, the guy is an amazing actor and often times, I’ll watch a movie just because he’s in it.  I always thought Keanu Reeves was good at picking his parts.  He’s not an amazing actor, but the roles he picks fit him so well, he can almost pull it off.  For example, The Matrix.  Could you think of anyone, who could have played Neo better then him?  I think he was absolutely perfect for that role and it’s hard to believe that he wasn’t the first choice to play that character.  Think about it?  Lonely computer hacker, limited social skills, finds comfort with computers, not sure of anything really.  He pulled it off.  Same with The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Devils Advocate.  Again, not really an amazing actor, but all of those roles fit him very well.  It works for me. 
I went off on a bit of a tangent there.  I tend to do that.  I could probably spend days talking about movies and once I get going it’s tough to shut me up.  Anyway, sorry again for not showing up at the SoCal Film Fest Movies by the pier thing, I’ll be sure to make it out to the next one.

So, today is the day that Gabe gets my notes for the first Nice Guys Finish Last cut.  He’s been camping for a week straight.  I hope his arms didn’t get ripped off by a bear or something.  That would suck.  How would he edit?  Now that he’s back though we can really get to work on this thing.
I just realized this weekend that I’ve been referring to Nice Guys Finish Last incorrectly.  The title isn’t Nice Guys Finish Last, it’s Do Nice Guys Finish Last?.  That totally screws up my acronym for it too.  It’s not NGFL, it’s DNGFL.  I like the first acronym better.  Meh, it doesn’t matter.
Right now in LA, the Crazy 4 Cult art show is going on.  It’s all art that people have done based off of cult classic films.  Check out the web site here.  There’s all kinds of stuff there.  If you check the web site, you can see what’s for sale.  Prices range quite a bit.  There’s stuff for the casual enthusiast for like $25 and stuff for the hard core art collector for like $4000.  I haven’t checked it out yet, but I hope to make it out there sometime this week.  I’m a big fan of cult classic movies.  Fight Club is my absolute favorite movie of all time.  What actually defines a movie as “Cult Classic” though?  I suppose it’s a movie with a small, but loyal following.  I guess it’s like comparing Transformers to The Big Lebowski.  Transformers made a shit load of money, but nobody really talked about it after it was released.  The Big Lebowski has Lebowski Fest, which happened in Long Beach this year, which I attended.  The Big Lebowski was released in 1998.  Ten years later, they are still holding a festival to celebrate it’s release.  In ten years will anybody really even be talking about Transformers?  No, probably not.  Some cult classics actually bomb in theaters.  Fight Club, Super Troopers, and Donnie Darko are all good examples.  All bombed in theaters, but look at them now.  I think I’ve had 4 hour long conversations about Donnie Darko before.  That movie is amazing, for that very reason.  It only made $517,375 in theaters.  It probably killed in DVD sales.  I bet it did so shitty in theaters because, really, how do you explain that movie to someone? 
“OK, there’s this kid and this guy dressed as a rabbit and he can possibly see in to the future.  He’s taking medication and because he sleep walks the plane engine that falls through the roof of his house doesn’t kill him and then he meets the guy in the rabbit suit….  No, wait, the rabbit tells him to sleep walk, so he knew the rabbit before that…..Or something.”
After trying to explain that movie like 3 times I finally gave up and now if someone asks me what it’s about, I just say
“Just see it, it’s an awesome movie.”
Maybe what saved it is it’s movie channel debut.  That’s where I first saw it.  It has some really interesting shots.  The first time I flipped to it, it was at the point where Donnie is looking in the bathroom mirror and stabbing it with a knife.  After watching that scene for like 20 seconds, I immediately went to my On Demand thing and started from the beginning.  That one scene just brought up way too many questions.  I couldn’t resist.
I ordered Dexter Season 3 from Amazon on Sunday.  It’s on sale right now for $21.49.  It’s not out yet, but I preordered it.  I love that show so much.  I will see Gamer just because Michael C. Hall is in.  When he’s playing Dexter he plays it with a touch of sarcasm when he’s hiding who he really is.  It’s also a touch of “I’m acting.”  Not acting, like acting on a show, like putting on an act just to please everyone else.  It’s very subtle, but I think it makes the show.  If you came in mid show and started watching it at a point where Dexter is in front of normal people you would probably think “something is up with that guy.”  It makes it, because something is up with him.  He’s a serial killer.
Directing actors is always my favorite part of film making.  It’s never the same experience.  You’re always trying to convey something differently.  I bet Martin Brest(director) had a giant grin on his face when he was directing Al Pacino in the scene from Scent of a Woman where he’s in the auditorium.  That is without a doubt on my list of top 3 monologues ever performed.  One of the other ones on my top 3 is the scene in The Devils Advocate where Al Pacino is giving that speech about mankind and God.  At one point during that scene I actually thought to myself “Wow….  I never knew that Al Pacino was the Devil.  That’s awesome.”