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Film, Pop Culture

When Movie Productions Go Bad

Working on a low-budget indie film is new to me. When I worked in Hollywood I worked for big people and therefore there was big money put into the films (in other words I worked on pieces of crap). Everything was taken care of on set- food, transportation, accommodations- and you only had to worry about your own duties and not making eye contact with ANYONE.

On a low-budget, guerrilla-style indie feature, none of this applies. Typically cast and crew wear many hats, eat homemade meals, and sleep on air mattresses. As stressful as it sounds, it can be a lot of fun because the ego involved in Hollywood is nonexistent. Everyone is the same and all working towards the same goal. They’re working on the project because they believe in it.

Currently we have 6 people sleeping in a 3 bedroom house with only 1 bed and 4 couches including one couch from the set of Tree of Life. We are all sleep-deprived and pushed to the max. Daily needs like eating, showering, and peeing have gone out the window. (more…)

Music, Pop Culture

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Are My Soap Opera

When I was a young girl I fantasized a lot about Fleetwood Mac. Specifically Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. They were my teenage soap opera. I would lie in bed for hours gobbling up their discography, paying strict attention to the sharp pangs of Lindsey’s anger and the romanticism of Stevie. My heart would flutter as the story of their love and break-up wafted from my turntable. For those of you not familiar with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were a young couple/struggling musicians in California that got their big break the day that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie from the British blues band, Fleetwood Mac, heard them. He welcomed them on board as their lead singers, alongside keyboardist Christine McVie, and the rest is history. This super band when on to record one of the best selling albums of all time, Rumours, with over 40 million copies sold, in addition to many other high-grossing albums that have earned the band their place in rock (more…)

Film, Pop Culture

The Cultural Significance of Rick Moranis

Lately the Moranis has been on my mind and in lieu of no new post today, I wanted to revisit an ‘ode to Rick’ that I wrote awhile back. Enjoy and share your love for Rick Moranis in the comments below!

A childhood fascination of mine that has transcended into adulthood is my love of nerds. Short nerds, tall nerds, young nerds, old nerds, aesthetically questionable nerds, sexually subordinate nerds- it doesn’t matter. The more socially awkward the better.

Where did this love come from? I’m not sure. Believe me, if I knew, I wouldn’t have spent all that money seeing a psychotherapist on Saturdays and then supplementing my emotional purging with a trip to Golden Corral after every visit.

Maybe it was from the hours of watching “Back to the Future”. Somewhere between the ages of four and six I discovered that Doc Brown could get my latent sexuality flux capacitor up to 1.21 gigawatts. It wasn’t long after that that I ached to get a glimpse of Egon Spengler’s proton pack. By the time (more…)

Music, Pop Culture

Kanye Ain’t Got Shit On Otis: The Epic Lives and Deaths of Soul Singers

I wasn’t able to write a new post for today, but I wanted to revisit a post I wrote last year about the deaths of famous soul singers. I’ve been thinking a lot about Otis Redding lately after I discovered that Kayne West and Jay-Z sampled the singer on his new album, Watch the Throne. Buzz is circulating around the to-be-released-this-evening music video of the song “Otis“. Which as I’m reading right now actually as no mention of Otis Redding in the lyrics, but rather talks about cigars, champagne, private jets, and supermodels.

Yesterday, I got all up in Kanye’s junk after declaring that Otis is an untouchable and upstarts like Kanye should not mess with his shit. This statement was mostly met with agreement, but a few people defended Kanye. They suggested that sampling is an art form and should be respected. Though I’m an appreciator of all arts- and I will include sampling as an art form, albeit one that I have mixed feelings on- I still think Otis Redding is the sort of musician (more…)

Film, Pop Culture

Where My Favorite 80’s Characters Are Nowadays

The other day I came across a post on the ever-so-clever Flavorwire imagining what our favorite 80’s teen characters are doing these days. I wish I thought of the post first, but I didn’t, so the best I can do is copy it pay homage to it.

When I was a little girl, I sat alone thinking by myself a lot because a.) I was an only child and b.) I lived on a street filled with blue-haired folk. Because of this, I fantasized a lot about my favorite movie characters. Specifically Dennis Quaid’s character in InnerSpace (not sure why considering he was about 1 millimeter tall) and Indiana Jones. Oh, and Doc Brown. I used to imagine what sort of future we’d all have together as one big happy polyamorous family. But those days are long gone. We know what happened to Indiana Jones. He got old and made a SHITTY MOVIE ABOUT ALIENS AND CRYSTALS.

This doesn’t mean I haven’t been left curious about some of my favorite 80’s characters from time to time (and neither has Hollywood since they’re probably (more…)

Film, Hipstercrite Life, Pop Culture

How to Make a Movie

My boyfriend is a writer/director. He’s been making films for over ten years and his first feature, Mars, debuted at SXSW in 2010. Mars is a love story that takes place in space and stars Mark Duplass, Kinky Friedman, Howe Gelb, James Kolchalka, and Don Hertzfeldt. Geoff shot the entire movie live action, then animated the living shit over the entire movie with a program he created. If that is not badass, then I don’t know what is! The film has traveled all over the world in the festival circuit. Geoff is also currently one of the filmmakers remaking Richard Linklater’s indie classic Slacker and was selected as one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film.

I am not a director. I’d like to think of myself a writer though? Last year, I made a movie in my head that starred David Byrne, Danny Elfman, Bryan Ferry, Robert Palmer, and Peter Gabriel. I one time remade the intro to Twilight Zone by putting on a suit and burning a cork to draw thick Jewish eyebrows on my face in order to (more…)

Music, Pop Culture

A Letter to David Bowie’s Crotch

Dear David Bowie’s Crotch,
What can I say, man? Wow. You’ve haunted me since I was five. I think you’ve kind of terrorized everyone for a long time. You’ve captured the attention of many nations and not let go. There is a remote village in Africa where they worship your likeness in a potato that a small child had dug from the Earth. The potato now sits on a makeshift shrine in the center of the village. The inhabitants look to you to converse with the rain gods when they’re going through a drought, but your potato does nothing but sit there and mock them.

Is that right?

Is it fair that you tease people with the idea that you hold magic powers within you? Is it fair that you drift through people’s dreams, standing dormant then uncoiling towards them like a violent snake? I don’t think so, man.

It’s time to let people go.

It’s time to go back to where you once belonged. I’m not really sure where that is, but, yeah, you go now.

Bye.

I guess what has concerned me all these (more…)

Film, Pop Culture

Interesting Facts About Your Favorite B-List Celebrities

When I was a little girl, I spent a lot of time reading about celebrities. But not the ones plastered in the newsstand glossies. I liked the lesser known guys and gals, the supporting players, the B or C-listers. They were usually more interesting-looking or often stole the show from the main players. I wanted to know their back story. So when we first got the Internet, I spent hours reading IMDB. Then one day Wikipedia came along. I was in heaven! My Mom often said that if I spent as much time reading my school books as I did about Martin Short, I would have been valedictorian of my class. I guess I can pin all of my downfalls in life to Martin Short.

Even as a grown up, I still love reading about the underdogs. Here are some neat facts I’ve learned through the years about my favorite character actors. Some of these facts you may already know from reading past posts about my B-list movie star obsessions or maybe you’re just a smarty pants. Either way, I stay up on your favorite B-movie (more…)

Music, Pop Culture

I Like Billy Joel. There, I Said It. I SAID IT! Are You Happy, Now?

I often find myself apologizing for liking Billy Joel.
Or I won’t even admit that I like him at all.
I’ll turn my back on Billy and jump in with the teasing about his songs being too loungy, too gauge your ears in with the closest sharp object. I’ll make fun of his over-elation of using gratuitous sound effects and his transparent storytelling tactics. Cast in a dark shadow of shame, I’ll sit there making fun of this musician I love more than broccoli but less than corn chowder soup. Lifting up away from my body, I look down at this insecure girl, afraid to confidentially say to the world, “Billy Joel is good. Billy Joel is great.”

Well, I’m tired of that girl. I kicked her off the scooter somewhere on Pretentious Ave. and am reclaiming the child that used to write the lyrics to ‘Captain Jack’ in marker on her vanity mirror and cry.

Out of the light rock FM closet I’m here to confirm a couple of statements:
 -I love Billy Joel.
-I think Billy Joel’s music is as treasureful as (more…)

Pop Culture

Is Infidelity the New Black?

When news broke in 2008 that John Edwards had been having extramartial fun times and subsequent child with Rielle Hunter, I was working for the anti-war organization CodePink in Venice Beach, California. I worked directly under one of the co-founders of the group, a hard-working and passionate activist who acted as Jerry Brown’s right-hand woman during his first term as governor of California. Like many Americans, having had the pants charmed off of me by Edwards’s Kennedy-esque looks, humble beginnings, adorable family, and ambitious political goals, I was crestfallen when word got out about his infidelity. After all that he and his wife Elizabeth had been through- losing a son, her cancer, his political career- how could he boink some Jay McInerney character and cheat on his sweet and supportive spouse of 30 years?

Due to her time in California politics, I assumed that my boss was privy to the inner thoughts of politicians. As we sat there watching the news of Edwards unfold on the (more…)