My Three Plates of FOod!

Yes. Haven't blogged in a while. But I have found some free time while I am digesting all of my food and my mom is watching silly Grey's Anatomy spin offs to write my audience of at most five, a long diatribe about my life for the past two weeks.

So when I last left you guys I had a weekend where I finally got caught up on some movies. I saw American Gangster, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and No Country for Old Men. It was a crime trilogy weekend.

I got off work on Friday (Nov. 9th) and just didn't know what to do with myself. Everyone was out of town or busy and couldn't get any calls back from anyone. I got off work early, and had almost two hours to kill until a movie I wanted to see started. It had been raining off and on all day. But luckily it wasn't raining when I walked to the Angelika. I bought my ticket to Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and was just chilling for the movie to start. But I got a call from my uncle and we planned to go to a later showing of American Gangster. So I started to walk to their apartment and of corse it started to rain again. By the time I got to their building I was soaked with cold rain. Not so fun. But I dried off, played with Ellery, and put her to bed. Stacy and I booked it to the theater and made it just in the nick of time. It was a pretty ok film.

On Saturday ( Nov. 10th) Alexa came into the city for an open house at SVA and afterwards we went to the Angelika to see Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. A really interesting movie, really depressing, but really well acted. It was shot beautifully considering it was on HD cameras. And apparently the director Sydney Lumet who is 87 years old, only does one or two takes per shot. I tip my hat to him!

Got done with the movie and put Alexa and her family on their way. I expected a few people to go with me to see No Country for Old Men, but they all more or less bailed. Which kinda perturbed me. We changed plans to see the film the next day. I was back at the dorm at about 8. Elias was there with some friends from Connecticut. They were about to head out to a party or something. I didn't feel like being that desperate and begging to come along so I decided to pack it in for the night. I cleaned my room and did my laundry, then watched The Fountain with director's commentary.

Sunday (Nov. 11th) was a great lazy Sunday. Elias, Samantha, Taylor, myself, and Elias's friends all went and got delicious bagels and coffee. Then played guitar hero in the afternoon before going to see No Country for Old Men in the evening. But getting there was no easy feat.

There is a curse upon the city of New York. It has no name but it can be described like this. Imagine you want/need to get somewhere by a specific time and you are going to use the subway. Your curse is that you will always have 3 trains come to the station going in the opposite direction that you want to go in. Then when you want to get somewhere in a hurry, the train will run all the local stops instead of the express. The trains somehow instinctively know that you need to get somewhere and they will fuck you over as much as possible.

Thats what happened with us when we were trying to get to the theater. All the trains we wanted weren't running. And the trains that were running were all local stops. So through a good solid 30 minutes of misadventures with the trains I decided to screw it and get a cab from the West 4th station. Again we made it to the theater just as the credits were rolling. The film was great. One of the best I've seen this year. I can't wait to go see it again and read the book.

But arriving almost late was NOT fun at all. I wanted to leave alot earlier than we did.I have a lot of -isms. But getting to places early (especially movies) is a big thing to me. I just like getting to places and not having to worry about rushing there late and what not. I like being able to go to the movies buy my ticket. have plenty of time to go to the bathroom, buy pop corn, and get a good seat.

Monday and Tuesday were kinda blah days. Just passing the time till I go to Cali. But before I went to L.A. I had a very appropriate experience with a little film called Southland Tales.

The story of Southland Tales, for me begins two years ago, when I read about it on IMDB. Then in the summer of 2006, the showed an unfinished version of the movie at the Cannes film festival. It was booed and received the worst reviews of that year. So for the next year the director Richard Kelly (who is from Richmond !), re-edited the film and added over a million dollars in special effects.

The plot of Southland Tales is this, in an alternate reality where the US has been attacked twice by nuclear bombs in Texas, World War 3 has started, we are running out of fuel. The insanity all culminates in a 4th of July weekend in Los Angeles in the year 2008, where the world may very well end, and it ends in the Southland.



I haven't been more excited to see a movie for a long time. And it did deliver. I was literally left speechless at the end of this movie for a good 2 minutes. I could only recommend this movie to very few people. It is a mind fuck on the grandness of scales. Its like David Lynch meets John Waters on acid.

Thursday (Nov. 16th) was kind of a bland day. I was basically counting down the hours till I went to the airport. In my screen writing class we talked about my script, and the teacher had a very different take on what he thought the story was about. He thought it was about two people who aren't sure if they want to be in a relationship. But through seeing others in a happy relation ship they decide to be together.....Now if you have read my script (its posted below) I put absolutely nothing like that in my script. I thought that it was kind of funny that someone could have that interpretation of my script. I felt that it was pretty straight forward. But I guess not straight enough.

After classes I went back to the dorms and packed my bag for L.A. and watched the last new office until the writers strike is over. I packed very light and only took my back pack. I tried to get some sleep and went to bed around 12ish.

I woke up at 4:30am. Took a quick shower and made my way downstairs. I was waiting for my car to come pick me up. But I got a call them saying they would be late. I got lucky and found a cab that was the same price as the car service. I got to the airport on time, grabbed a bagel and a chai and waited for my flight. We took off at about 7am. I luckily had the window seat and caught a few Z's. I woke up and looked out the window to see the country pass by. I got to see the grand canyon for the first time and it was really cool.

The plane landed in L.A. at about 10am their time. Jeff was a little late picking me up but as soon as he did, we booked it to a movie theater to catch an early screening of Beowulf in 3D. I throughly enjoyed it. I loved the animation, to me it added alot to the visuals of the story.

After that Jeff, Annie, and I bopped around L.A. for the next few hours. The city was just how I imagined it would be. It is a very spread out city. And the layer of smog above the city DOES exist. It is kind of cool to see all the souvenir shops all centered around Hollywood memorabilia. I went to a store that centered in selling old and current screenplays. They had over 10,000 scripts for purchase!!! I bought the script for Southland Tales. It should be sent to me soon!

Scientology has run a muck there. On a joke we walked into the Elrond Hubbard Museum, but it was closed for renovation. They gave us free tickets and told us to come back. We saw about tow other Scientology stations within two miles of that place.

But after walking around for a few hours it got dark, and we started to look around for Mulholland Drive, which is this twisting and winding road that goes up a hill and gives a great view of the city. We found it after a few tries and the view was quite impressive.

Being exhausted, we went back to Jeff's place in Ventura county and went to bed around midnight.

On Saturday (Nov. 17th) we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Which is quite possibly the best amusement park I have ever been to. They have so many roller coasters that they had to start building one in the parking lot. I kid you not. One of the rides there is called simply X, and its considered by most to be the best roller coasters ever, I would happily agree with them. The video below is not something I shot. But its really funny to watch. For some reason they keep saying "sexy" for no real reason



On Sunday (Nov. 18th) we all just lounged around for the day showing each other random videos on youtube. I will share some with you right now.









So for the rest of the day we relaxed and enjoyed each others company. Annie and I packed our bags and began our journey to L.A.X. We stopped and got food at In and Out Burger. Which was fucking delicious. If someone put one in N.Y. they would make bank. Saying goodbye was kind of hard. Because I wont get to see Jeff until July.

My plane left at midnight on Sunday. I had the really stupid idea to take a Tylonol PM before I got on the plane. I thought it might help me get some sleep on the plane. It didn't. Around 3am in sometime zone, I was really awake, but really asleep at the same time. And of course they had to play the most culturally devoid movie of all time (High School Musical 2). I think I fell asleep a little while later. The plane landed around 9am and I took the subway back to the dorm and caught a few hours sleep.

After getting up around noonish I repacked my bag and made my way to the bus stop around 4pm. The bus ride was really uneventful. I just read a bunch of books and listened to some great music. I arrived in VB around midnight. After 4 days of travel. Two cabs. Two airports. A bus. 5,500 miles. I finally got a chance to sleep. And sleep well.

The last few days in VB have been pretty relaxing. I've just been watching movies and visiting with my friends. In the last few days I've seen Dan in Real Life, No Country for Old Men, Hitman, Top Gun, and I'm seeing Enchanted tonight with my mom. I was able to see Denise for the first time in over a year. And I ran into Christina Cox in Borders. I also got to meet Erin in person for the first time. So alot of first this weekend.

Thanksgiving was good. I ended up not going to Richmond like I had planned. My mom, my sis, and my grandma all ate some delicious food. My mom is an excellent cook.

So AMC Lynhaven is doing a modern classic series every Friday and Saturday for the next few weeks. Some of my favorites like The Goonies, E.T., Army of Darkness, Mallrats, and many others. And what is great they are film prints, not projected DVD's which is what normally happens.

I'm going back to my city where I hang my hat. I have some big projects and term papers
coming up pretty soon. I have a new screenplay in the works so I will post it when its finished. Its very different than my previous script.


The last nine days have been a well deserved vacation if i do say so myself. It was great seeing everyone. And I'll be back faster than you can say OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE! Ok maybe not that fast.