The Fighter looks cool. But Mark Wahlberg kinda sucks in general. Just watch that one line in The Happening: “Doesn’t anyone care about the bees?”. That line entices you to kick a hole right through your TV screen where his face is located. And my wife wouldn’t mind cheese grating Christian Bale’s mouth and eyes, but I think I can put all of that aside, especially after seeing this trailer endorsed by Spike Jonze.
Let’s not stray from who we are. We’re tempted to conform a bit, to make things work. We question ourselves, then we see how someone else has been successful - so we think: why not just replicate it, even if you don’t enjoy it.
We all tend to do it, but we should fight it when possible or else we’ll run into a terrible time. It’s like having the one-eyed cyclops monster chasing you, and you get so tired that you sit down. At different times, he eats your organs, face, and arms because you’ve given up.
Darren Aronofsky directed Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrester, and Blackswan. They’re all geared toward his style, uncompromised. He may be low key, but he’s bringing you The Wolverine with Hugh Jackman. It’ll be his most commercial product, but he’s sticking to his guns and doesn’t plan to change his process or style. His work will be introduced to the main stream, and we’ll begin seeing the evolution of film making without too much hollywood influence.
Here’s a great 2.5 minute interview with Darren talking about The Wolverine.
Everyone working on Hell Grace wants to thank you for donating to Hell Grace short film. And for those of you who didn’t, I still thank you for reading my posts. It’s tight times out there, so sparing money for non-lucrative short films is equivalent to giving a homeless bum a dollar, because he uses it to fuel crack intake addictions.
As a side note, it’s not too late to donate. Our shoot isn’t until January 15th, 2011 – so contact me if you’re interested.
I share with you a past Christmas ornament I developed, which represents what you’re doing when you donated to Hell Grace.
I wanted to share with you how bad ass this present from my wife is. It’s not the paper, it’s the type writer. It’s cool for a number of reasons: each key stroke is authoritative like M.Bison in street fighter, it feels like a time machine, it helps me write, and most importantly, it produces only one copy of anything I create.
When casting starts, I don’t have a solid idea who will play my characters. I don’t have a particular look, age, build. All I’m looking for is someone to totally impress me and force these words into my brain “Holy shit, that would be so $##@#@in’ magic if that person played my character.” I’ve been told that I shouldn’t have a look or type in mind, and I thank my noggin’s brain that I never started the process that way.
I started casting on 11/3 (thanks to Josh Ford for helping out) and had my last casting yesterday, 11/11. For auditions, I selected only a handful of people to come in…out of the hundreds that submitted. I don’t have the time, resources, and most importantly, the patience to sit through hundreds. Everyone who came through was quite damn impressive, but Blanche came through and committed serial killings. She has a loving touch, that could turn into a: let me take this brick and smash it on your head. In the audition, her beats were perfect – like finding all the pieces to your favorite Castle Lego set. I’m looking forward to working with her. Below, you’ll find her reel. Enjoy.
We’re getting ready for Hell Grace, which has collected $25 so far. Thank you ANONYMOUS! Any dollar counts. Please donate at least $5 before it ends in 7 days. Http://www.indiegogo.com/hellgrace
We plan on using the Red One camera for Hell Grace, and to properly prepare we rented one this past weekend. I didn’t want to show up on set in January and look like a dying circus clown trying to use a Nintendo controller to wipe my ass with.
[Video at the end]
I’ve been sick all week, and this coughing fit has been causing me to stay up all night. So by the time I picked up the camera Friday night, I had around 6 hours of sleep for the previous two nights. It was a drive all the way up to Harlem, where if you have your car running for too long, you must be dealing drugs like the Dominicans. I came home and whipped it open. Man, there were so many parts and doo-hickies. I got the brain, attached LCD, battery, and turned it on. My kitchen looked GORGEOUS. What I saw in real life was no where near as cool as what I saw in the camera.
I slept probably only a few hours and at 7AM, I prepared for the actors. Assibey slept over, so we were ready to rock and roll. I wrote a small 3 page script titled “Death of my Sister”, which involves pregnancy, a dark skinned brotha, and a knife. We only shot 2 pages of it, but we can still make a scene out of it. I have to thank Rebecca, Ben, Franco, Assibey, and Dante for helping out on Saturday. We had a good time in the cold.
The two actors had to go home, so it was Dante, Franco, Assibey, and myself. We ate next.
Then Franco departed, and we played some more. We shot two slo mo shorts, another St. Rage test where we submerged Assibey in a full tub of water at 2AM. We also shot footage on my roof of Assibey talking on the phone using an old script that Abner and I wrote many years ago that had words like tampon blood in it. Gross.
I leave you with this video, of how we felt when we first started using the Red Saturday morning. Oh yeah, please visit http://www.indiegogo.com/hellgrace and donate at least $5.
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I hate begging, or asking for things. I rather just go do it myself and be in lonely misery on my adventure. BUT in this case, I need some help. I’m shooting that new nightmare movie, which now has a working title of Hell Grace. I don’t need people to come to set. You can hang out at home and help me. I’m looking to give out some benefits, in return for help (minimal to major) with the project.
I used most of my weekend setting up this page about how you can give me a helping hand for Hell Grace.
http://www.indiegogo.com/hellgrace
Check it out and let me know if you can help or not.
Did you hear about the guy who got his arm stuck under a rock, then cut it off? James Franco is re-living this via a movie. It’s made by Danny Boyle, who made that Slum Dog Millionaire.
Next is Black Swan, the movie with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as ballerinas, lesbians, and possibly a crazy black swan. It’s by Darren Aronofsky who made The Wrestler, The Fountain, and Pi, Requiem for a Dream. He’s slated to make Wolverine 2 next. How bad ass is that?
I’ve been toying around with an idea lately. I’ve shopped it around to some friends, and they all were intrigued with it. So I said what the heck, let’s do it. I wrote a short script about a man who must kill his mom every single day. At the start of the day, she’s normal, loving. She’s your mom at an age you understand. After an hour though, she grabs the pliers and goes for the teeth, then for the kill.
Could you kill your mom?
I couldn’t.
But what if everyday, a new Mom comes home to repeat the day. This is worse than Groundhog’s day. This is worse than hell.
The shoot date has been decided and we’re shooting it in December with a $30,000 camera. Let’s go!
Can’t decide on which phone? I laughed out loud a few times watching this (enough to post it), but maybe this video will help you decide…