Monthly Archives: October 2009

Tremendous gratitude to the insanely talented artist Missy Washington for realizing this awesome poster in time for tonight’s screening!

Hollywood Film Festival • Arclight • Friday at 9 pm, Oct. 23, 2009

Join us tonight, tix are going fast.

Bernie Kerik: the man, the mustache, the mug shot.

Here’s me shooting me shooting Donny Osmond for a forthcoming internet comedy bit vaguely related to Dancing With The Stars.

While filming in his hotel bathroom, I noticed a prescription of his that shocked and disillusioned me. He is not what he appears — Donny Osmond in reality is prescribed enhancements for vision, known on the street as “contacts,” the medical term is “lenses.” No word yet if this prescription is illegal.  Even more shocking — Donny Osmond does an outstanding straight man.  (In comedy, people!)

Because video is slow getting out today on this latest stunt by The Yes Men, here is their salvo at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for embracing the big business agenda over progress on climate control.

The Yes Men, the activist impersonators of corporate excess, continue to outdo themselves. As they have put out two movies about what they do, and they get more mainstream coverage, you’d think the press would not be so easily duped by something so clearly fishy-sounding: An announcement by the US Chamber of Commerce that it is reversing its position aganst climate change legislation, and instead embrace environmental issues wholeheartedly. This one gets even better, as a visibly flustered official from the Chamber of Commerce interrupts the fake press conference to try to set the record straight, leading to a game of the old “No, I’M the real guy--don’t listen to HIM!”

As part of the Hollywood Comedy Film Festival, the film I directed with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Wild Girls Gone, will be screening at my favorite movie theater, Arclight Cinemas, the kind of movie place with reserved seating, ushers wearing badges naming their favorite movie, not to mention great picture and sound.

Best of all, someone else wrote the summary of the film, which I have had to do hundreds of times before, and I like theirs better.

“Mr. President, we’ve prepared this in depth reconnaissance report for you on the variety of options we have for declaring success in Afghanistan.”

Since there has been an uproar over something as non-controversial as winning the Nobel Peace Prize, this transcription is being provided for the “Diplomatically Impaired,” who otherwise may have difficulty comprehending the context of President Obama being named the winner:

Speaking of Nobel Peace Prize Winners, here is a trailer for a new doc that explores social business and microfinancing, innovations of enterprise that empowers the impoverished, led by 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Muhammad Yunnus.  Bonsai: Celebrating the Vision of Muhammad Yunnus is directed by Holly Mosher.

For all of the umbrage and outrage from the haters on the Right about anything that is perceived as positive for Obama, along with the grumblings of us on the Left like, “COUGH--Afghanistan!” the Nobel Committee’s remarks in presenting the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama are actually pretty well-reasoned and legitimate.

I appreciate this video uploader’s commentary at the end that Henry Kissinger also received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the same year he was bombing Cambodians to bits.  I will add that Yassir Arafat was also a winner, as was Mikhail Gorbachev, right before he invaded his own Lithuania in vain efforts to prevent the breakup of the USSR.

Ultimately, for all the nonsensical flack Obama has been graciously enduring here at home, this is an historical endorsement to make all those so quick to talk over him take a moment to listen.

I just pulled a devastating weekend doing Instant Films. A great film resulted despite getting kicked out of two locations, but somewhere in post production, the wrong file type was exported, and the film could not be included in the festival screening.  We ran an awesome 48 hour marathon, but I tripped at the finish line.  This Halloween short was cursed in every way, and I knew it the second I drew the script, which the author later said he added as a hasty afterthought turning it in: “The Fatal Overthink.”

I said aloud when I drew it: “You could call every Instant Film this.”

And in spite of, or because of, all the preparation we had, our over-thinking was dangerous, but not quite lethal (yet, to my knowledge).  Even the awesome graphic designer Bob Kopp who volunteered out of nowhere to make the title cards separately, that I didn’t even know until he and his wife Amy turned in their work, said the title bedeviled them mercilessly all weekend, their inspiration thwarted, cruelly and gradually as time slipped away.   (My attempt at Henry James-ian prose, tedious creepy.  Kind of what this weekend was like: Henry James meets 24.)

Because the Instant Films Fest isn’t done until people see the final product, here is the world premiere of “The Fatal Overthink.”