A Festivus for the Rest of US...

For those of you whom the Christmas Spirit has eluded as well, here's a little video that will warm the cockles of your Grinch sized heart. And before you complain, it's only 12 seconds long!




I wish you an expansion of heart, mind and soul in the coming year.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na...I'm gonna start a fight!

Ugh... Now I've had all the fight beaten out of me by my blogger dashboard.

I came on all fired up to write a post about annoying people who get invited to screen a soon to be nominated film BEFORE it opens and then critique it before the lights even come back up.

So I sign on - which takes five minutes because somehow I'm mysteriously signed out and can't remember which password I used for this account. Then I start furiously typing the new post, only to look up and see that it's all written in Hindi...

I have had one too many nogs and bowls to try and figure out any kind of technical shenanigans but that doesn't stop me. But of course by the time I DO figure it out much of my ire has cooled. But not completely...

First of all, bitches, I wouldn't have invited you! Someone else did. But instead of getting that it's a Festivus miracle to be in my company AND get to watch a movie that most people won't get to see until December 25th, you have to force your "professional opinion" on us.

Just because you:

a. directed a Lifetime movie in Saskatchewan in 1989.

b. cut trailers for Disney.

or

c. do audio post for "Dora the Explorer ".

does not mean that anyone cares what you thought of the movie/tv series/infomercial or ice show etc. There's a reason they keep you locked in a windowless labyrinth. You are boring.

But I fucking digress. And now I've completely lost interest and am about to eat some Snickerdoodle dough.

FYI, below is what comes up when you google Snickerdoodle:

Snickerdoodle Cake!

Chrisitan Snickerdoodle Soy Candles!

Snickerdoodle French Toast!

Ugly-Cute Snickerdoodle Puppy!

Snickerdoodle Cupcake!

Snickdoodle Pussy!

Ho fucking Ho Ho!

Is It Live Or Is It Memorex?

Well, I'm back. In Los Angeles. Home. But it feels weird. Like I just woke out of a coma and have amnesia. Some things are very familiar. My apartment. I was very happy to see my apartment. Especially my kitchen. It was visceral. It's not that I cook a lot. I don't know, it just looked really nice and fancy to me...But my car seemed very alien to me. I wasn't convinced that it really was my car. But....it is. I digress. I really believe I'm suffering from some bizarre version of Stockholm Syndrome. Either that or I have a schoolgirl crush on the city of New York. Making a movie is an intense experience. Making a movie on location is more intense. Making a movie on location in New York is uber intense. At least this one was. There were no easy days. There were dragons to be slayed daily and some of them mortally wounded us. But we were a rag tag band of warriors who hunkered down, shoulders together, honor bound to finish. And finish we did. We lost people along the way. Some too weak in character to continue. Awed by the daunting challenge early on, they fell away with excuses. Other's left to join more profitable ventures. Others were fired...There were only a handful of us who were emotionally connected to the project. But again, I digress. After all of this intense, isolated experience, you are suddenly released. Spit out. Pushed back through the looking glass. You go back to what you knew, and it's so far removed from all that you've gone through. You know that you'll most likely never see any of the people you stood shoulder to shoulder with on the front lines - every day, again. Stockholm Syndrome. Now here's the remainder of my Blackberry Pearl cellphone snapshots. Their flaws make them all the more adorable to me. Ugh. I'll be back to normal soon but for now New York still has my heart in it's hands...














This Double Decker tour bus became home to us several times. There's no more exciting way to see the city. Not the regular tour mind you but with a camera crew on top and barely clearing low hanging traffic signals at 40 miles an hour...














This is a kitchy part of Times Square that took on a special magical quality when seen from atop the bus at 6AM when the streets were still relatively empty and quiet. A nice giant cup of hot cocoa on a chilly morning. Ack! I know...














The front of the Ed Sullivan Theater, home of the David Letterman Show. When I took this picture I had no idea that this location would later become the scene of one very vigorous verbal ass raping handed out by the Mayor's Office due to a major fuck up...All I can say is I wasn't up to giving the brave John McCain "thumbs up" on the way back to my cell...














The front yard of a home in Queens we used for one small scene. The statuary is awesome! It was very soothing somehow...and somehow the perfect segue to the next picture...














On the way to scouting a potential location in Brooklyn, I passed this intriguing establishment. I wonder if it's a hot tub club like the once swinging, now defunct Splash in LA? Since they were closed, I didn't get to ask. But the whole thing kind of rolls off the tongue, don't you think? "Liquid Love, A sophisticated meeting place" The imagination runs wild, while covering it's eyes and screaming "EWWWWWWWWWWWW!"














Which leads me to this. This nifty, recently remodeled bathroom was in the corridor outside a tiny Russian Bookstore we shot in. There was only one sink. While using it I pondered sitting across from someone...a coworker? A friend? In a private home maybe it would be some av ant guard way of keeping a couple connected. Can't you imagine a couple spending quality time here in the morning or in the evening? Downloading each other's days? There's just enough room between the two toilets to put a room service cart...I don't know why I think of these things...














This is a Dust Monkey. It's actually a puppet and it's covering a can of Pledge. Which led me to believe the homeowners were using the puppet to dust with. Anyway, some people are afraid of puppets and were freaked out by this...














This is Olenka, our script supervisor. Don' let her sweet innocent smile fool you...She was in on the Dust Monkey shenanigans...














Our line producer prays to be put out of his misery...














This is the rooftop of the Ravel Hotel in Long Island City, Brooklyn. We came thisclose to shooting this as our nightclub but then rain was forecast. This is an amazing hotel, albeit in the middle of nowhere. But if you are in town to work at either Silver Cup Studios, Steiner Studios or Kaufman Astoria Studios and you need to put people up nearby - this would be the place. It's upscale and affordable. The rooms are twice the size of any hotel in Manhattan and it's at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge which makes it minutes away from the city. I would totally stay there. Anyway, the roof top lounge is really cool looking and at night the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline is breathtaking. If you're looking for a place to host an event or a location to shoot, Eddie - the GM, is great to work with and very accommodating. I needed new towels for my apartment and had no time to shop and Eddie gave me two fluffy white hotel towels that I will treasure...














Neptune Ave., Brooklyn

This and the next few pictures depict what became an ongoing obsession with McDonald's. This was punctuated with shouts of "There's one! Oooh, that's a good one!" and me whipping out my Blackberry Pearl to try and get a picture before we had passed it. I'm obviously slow on the draw because they are everywhere and I only have four pictures...














Greenpoint Ave., Brooklyn...














Union Square, NYC...














11th Ave., NYC...














This is taken from the ladies room at 230 5th, the hip nightclub we shot in (instead of the Ravel Hotel) until the sun came up. At dawn, the city could have been from any era. Looking out, in that light you could imagine being back at the turn of the 19th century...














This is our director with two of our leading men. On our very last day. In Brooklyn, at the Old Fulton Road dead end. Right by the River Cafe. A very memorable and dramatic location for us. Grimaldi's, the best pizza place in NYC is right up the street. I had the pleasure of eating one slice of their pizza before the wolverines otherwise known as non union extras descended on it...


















This is what the city looked like, out my living room window the day before I left. Why do our crushes always have to look so damn appealing when we are about to leave? So that is it. My cell phone retrospective is over. I've been back exactly one week and had several crappy restaurant meals. Seriously, you have to look very hard to find bad food in New York. WTF LA? Right now, I need LA to do something brilliant to remind me of why I returned to it. Is that asking too much? Could you at least not be on fire? And now, I'm off to nurse my broken heart and drown my sorrows...


BTW, this hat is stolen.

Just Because I Love You...

...and because I'm too fried to write a coherent post. Following is a preview of my Blackberry Pearl Retrospective of NYC while working on this Russian romantic comedy.



















The fabu lobby of The Paramount Hotel, where we held all of our early meetings to the sound of 90's dance music! I miss it...



















The view from just one of the terraces of the 5 floor West Village apartment of one very lucky mofo...



















Tech Scouting a location that we are later to lose due to zoning issues - the result of "I Am Legend" pissing off the entire city of NY and ruining it for the rest of us!



















A Bridge, a cafe, a cleaned up version of Seaport...



















Our 1st AD after too many cocktails (me not him...well both)



















B and our Director singing loudly and I bet, off key along with Journey...



















The view from my short term apartment. Don't hate until you've been awakened by Ship horns and Chinese protestors...



















My poor Flintstone toes, looking even more Fred than usual due to the relentless walking...



















The reflection of lamps in skylight at Park on a boring night...






























An amazing space in Brooklyn with views to Manhattan and cranky, low rent neighbors...



















Our Line Producer's essentials for NYC - lady socks, two kinds of mouthwash, a toothbrush, XTREME Magazine...and a banana...you decide.



















Bartender at the trendy Elizabeth on a Saturday night. Hipster here didn't appreciate our spontaneous bursts of song. Losers.



















Our Line Producer enjoying himself...seriously.



















Scouting Central Park...












...and finding "Ugly Betty" everywhere!












Exotic Lilies and Blooming Lotus in Bethesda Fountain at Central Park



















Lou the Leadman who claims to be straight......hmmm. UPDATE. Ok, he's metrosexual!



















Don't get sad. This isn't like the Sarah McGlaughlin sad animal PSA. These guys are in a fancy doggie daycare center at Seaport Village, eating bonbons and shit!



















Our Director and 1st AD daring each other to try the pole "You!" "No you first!"


That's all I've got for now. New York City really is THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD.

Hero or Villain?

There's a trend toward dividing us all up into these two categories. But there's a large shadowy middle ground where Heroic Villains hang out. Vin Diesel in Pitch Black was the perfect heroic villain. I believe we all know instinctively what group we fall into. Do you? I am definitely not a straight up hero but also not a died in the wool villain. But who is these days? It's complicated.

Was Hitler a true villain? Most of the world would say yes. But would his mother? Could some steady Jungian therapy have changed his course? If having homosexual tendencies hadn't been so severely frowned upon (while being as rampantly prevalent as it is today) would he have happily come out of the closet and danced around in his mama's dresses like Alexis Arquette and eventually starred in the dinner theater production of "Mein Kampf" which would have been about his struggle with eternal pudginess rather than his bid for world domination? But I digress.

I think we are all born as inherent heroes and our experiences shape some of us into villains. I was apparently an adventurous spirit from the get-go. When I was 3 and the youngest kid on my block in Toronto, I used to take off regularly to "go to school", crossing big streets, stopping at the store to pick up school supplies and inevitably getting picked up by the cops and returned to my parents. So, is it really a surprise that my first husband was a gangster? Or that I've always had a problem with authority figures? Is it any wonder I've always seen situations differently than pretty much everyone I know?

Here's a good quiz to see where you stand on the Hero-meter:


1. Would you help your best friend hide a body?

2. Would you accept an expensive item that you know "fell off a truck?"

3. Would you purger yourself for someone you love?

4. Would you pull the plug on a a loved one to end their suffering? To make things easier?

5. Would you drive drunk?

On first read, you may think it's black & white and that your answers are NO. But if you stop to think about what the circumstances might be and who else is involved...it's complicated right?

John McCain is considered a hero. He fought for his country, he survived POW camp, he never gave up any secrets. On the flip side of that, it turns out his capture and imprisonment is what catapulted him to hero status. He was a terrible pilot - crashed several jets before going down over Veit Nam. It's possible he didn't have any secrets and therefore couldn't give any up. He cheated on his disfigured wife, dumped her and married Cindy a month later. Hmmm. Doesn't sound too heroic to me. He made no secret of his bitterness at being forced to toe the party line and support Bush's reelection bid back in 2004. But he did it, to serve his own end. You don't run for president unless you have a huge ego. And he is obviously willing to do whatever it takes.

Hillary Clinton's design was all over the Vince Foster "suicide." How many dead guys do you know that can roll themselves up in a carpet and drop themselves off at the park? She did what she had to do to protect her legacy.

The Queen of England was more than likely involved in the death of Princess Diana. My mother argues that the Queen would never do such a thing. But that's how the Monarchy has survived for all of these centuries. Diana was a loose canon who was becoming more and more difficult to control. I gotta tell you, if I had been bearing the burden of the Monarchy since I was born and found myself with a problem in- law on my hands....

Well...would you help me hide the body?