GOOD
After missing their gross perversion for several months, I'm very excited that I get to see TOKYO GORE POLICE director Yoshihiro Nishimura and MACHINE GIRL director Noboru Iguchi again at FantasticFest. I've been obsessed with the various ROBOGEISHA trailers that keep popping up online, and the moment I see these dudes, I'm pouring the soju and photographing Nishimura licking (or staring pensively) at my FRANKENSTEIN GIRL tattoo.
Big thanks go out to my great friend Marc, without whom I never would have sat around naked in a sauna with Iguchi or swapped clothes with Nishimura and friends in the middle of a restaurant. Any person who genuinely enjoys my company and can offer me those kind of memories is a keeper.
BAD
Although I'm headed down to FantasticFest, I'm unfortunately missing the US premiere of Iguchi's ROBOGEISHA by a scant few hours. Sure, the real reason I'm going down there is to network and party, but man, I really wanted to see that flick with an audience.
Haven't seen the trailer yet? Prepare to have your face melted.
GOOD
My old pals in Germany, Andreas Schnaas and Timo Rose, decided to team up and make a movie together earlier this year. The resulting film, UNRATED, apparently pleased the both of them and now they've banded together to make another. The trailer for the movie popped up on YouTube a few days ago and I can't stop watching it.
Titled KARL THE BUTCHER VS AXE (and apparently a sequel to his VIOLENT SHIT trilogy), this is the kind of lowbrow micro-budgeted "filmmaking" that Schnaas truly excels at. While I wrote three of his largest films, I'm really eager to see him go back to his roots. This trailer has gallons of gore, fake macho-man muscles, a tank, and more roundhouse kicks than I can count. I honestly don't think I could ask for anything more, and - as a fan and colleague - I genuinely can't wait to see it.
BAD
I know its already old news, but man, Kanye West really IS a jackass. I don't know the guy or his music, but I want to slap that haircut he got at an Ancient Mayan barbershop off his self-righteous head and give Taylor Swift a big kiss.
Its also too bad that Obama will probably have to apologize for agreeing with me. He probably calls Bush a dildo every night, but just because some amazingly unprofessional journalist releases his off-the-record (and very true) statement to the media, he's gonna be forced the back-pedal.
Personally, I hope Bam holds a press conference to publicly reiterate what a self-righteous child Kanye is, and to express his opinion that the last scene in THE FINAL DESTINATION was "some weak-ass bullshit."
GOOD
I had a great nine days with my family, reconnecting with old friends, and otherwise enjoying the holy living Hell out of Montana. The weather was absolutely perfect the entire time, I had the opportunity to show my friends SWEATSHOP on the big screen, and was reminded that there are still some places on Earth where you can get a $6.00 pitcher of beer.
I can't even begin to express how much better I feel, physically and emotionally, when I'm there. It feels like a world away, but knowing that I'll get to permanently settle there within the next few years keeps me going.
The waterfall was very happy something as epic as it finally came along.
BAD
I still can't find the time to get working on a new creative project. It eats me up, as there are so many great ideas that I'm dying to get down on the page, but the two or three hours a night that I have available after the subway, gym, and dinner just aren't enough to get the creative juices flowing properly.
How I would rejoice if I had a free day every week, just to write.
GOOD
But on the flipside of that coin, several of my current and past projects are looking very good. SWEATSHOP is done (and just scored a near-masturbatory review over at Fatally Yours) and we'll be shipping it out to potential distributors within the next three or four weeks.
Also, JIKININKI, the wonderful little script that wouldn't die, is being shopped around Japan (where the story is set), and I'm literally beside myself over the idea of having it made by an amazingly talented cast and crew over there. Fingers tightly crossed.
BAD
Ya know what else has been getting my goat lately? The way people have been fawning all over dead celebrities. Sure, Harlem (where I spend 40 hours a week) went insane when Michael Jackson died, but everyone I know up here said the same thing: Where the Hell were all these people when The King of Pop was drowning the pain of being branded a freakish child molester with sleeping pills?
And now, a totally different crowd is mourning the loss of Patrick Swayze - a very good actor who became so forgettable in the past decade that I challenge you to name any film he's appeared in since 1999 that wasn't DONNIE DARKO.
I like a few songs by MJ, and I love a handful of Jackson Five tracks, but I didn't go buy a "Best Of" album or poorly silkscreened t-shirt when he died. We popped in RED DAWN the other night to enjoy some vintage Swayze (who, I admit, was a fine actor), but I didn't feel the need to follow it up with FATHER HOOD and TO WONG FOO.
Both were great performers, but I can't comprehend the concept of obsessively latching onto a person once they're dead. Enjoy them while they're here. Send 'em a fan letter, fer christssake.
If I find out NIKOS THE IMPALER becomes a huge hit when I'm six feet under, I'm haunting each and every one of you bastards who didn't buy it while I was alive, thereby affording me the money to cure whatever heart ailment eventually killed me.
GOOD
Speaking of NIKOS, my good buddy Joe Zaso is currently in LA, playing the lead in a new horror currently titled H1N1 VIRUS (Man, they'd better change that title). He's acting opposite Priscilla Barnes. He is awesome, and I'm just completely stoked he landed the role.
This is the only photo ever taken of Zaso with a shirt on. Ever.
GOOD
And finally, why not end with another "good?" The other night, as we were going to bed, I told my wife that every single time she speaks, I learn something new. I've been thinking about that statement for a few days, and I still can't quite describe how proud it makes me to be with someone who can always do that for me.
So, thank you for being the greatest part of my pretty awesome life, Bev. You make all the bad seem a little better, and I can't think of anyone I'm more in-tune with. I've got plenty of good things going for me, but you're the best.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
a pair of land shark'd lovers, take their life.
