WE DID IT!!!

My petition to fight for 35mm has finally reached its goal of 10,000 signatures, a little over three months after its creation. I am so proud and so thankful to everyone who supported me. If you are interested in more information, you can check out my previous blog that links to all the articles written about the petition, or email me at fightfor35mm@yahoo.com. 

 

 

Lovely Rita

 

In my opinion, Rita Hayworth is the most beautiful woman who ever lived. Her grace, warmth and sexiness lights up the screen. I am super excited for the New Beverly’s Rita Hayworth double feature on February 10th and 11th - You Were Never Lovelier & Cover Girl. In the first Rita co-stars with Fred Astaire, in the second Gene Kelly.

 

 

As many of you know, I am a hard core Xanadu fan. I love it without shame, and I love that Gene Kelly lends the same amount of charm to it that he does to every other one of his movies.

 

A little known fact about Xanadu is that it is based on two Rita Hayworth films – Down to Earth and Cover Girl. In the first Rita plays the muse Terpsichore come down to help a young man put on a show (sound familiar?) and in the second she is a dancer working at a nightclub owned by Gene Kelly named after his character, Danny Maguire. That’s right, the SAME Danny Maguire he plays in Xanadu!

 

 This little character cross over makes me love Xanadu even more. So Saturday, February 11th, you have the opportunity to come watch Cover Girl  at 9:30, and then stay for the midnight show of Xanadu – seeing  Gene Kelly play this character in 1944 and again in 1980. Genius!!

As charming as Olivia Newton John is, she ain’t no Rita Hayworth. Come check out the incandescent Rita tonight and tomorrow and see what I mean! 

 

Frustration.

I can’t say that 2012 has been starting off particularly well for me. 

 

Aside from some automotive trouble, and the usual dire financial straits I am always in, I am finding myself frustrated frequently. 

 

I always dreamed of being a revolutionary, a la Abbie Hoffman, or some such sixties cool cat. But I am not confident or violent enough to challenge “the man” in such a way. Now I feel like I have become a revolutionary – albeit in a very very small way – in the fight to keep 35mm available. I should be over the moon, but instead I feel confused and conflicted. 

 

Lots of people have accused me of thinking digital is stupid, which I certainly don’t. I think it is an incredible medium for the independent filmmaker. The plain fact that anyone now has the ability to pick up a camera and shoot a film for pennies, and not have to worry about buying or developing film stock is astounding. I know that I can’t stop the future from happening, and that the future of cinema is digital. I am powerless against that fight, and that is something I have accepted. 

 

However, I DO believe that 35mm is a superior format to watch movies in a theater. That is my personal opinion, and according to my petition, one that over 8,000 people share. All I am asking is to let 35mm prints remain available to screen indefinitely. Little theaters are struggling all over the country, and I know I can’t save all of them, as much as I would like to. The destruction of independent businesses and the mono-globalization of large businesses makes me sad. When I drive past countless shopping centers with the same stores in them in hundreds of cities, it depresses me. I know this is something that I will only be seeing more and more of in the future, so I am trying very hard to get past it. 

 

I will always enjoy going to a single screen movie house over a multiplex. I will always prefer seeing a movie for the first time, on the big screen, in 35mm. While large corporations charge exorbitant amounts for movie tickets and audiences members become more and more inconsiderate of their fellow movie goers, independent theaters just become more and more precious. Thank god for the Alamo Draft House and their stringent no texting policy. Thank god for the Nuart, continuing to show Rocky Horror Picture Show weekly. Thank god for the Cinefamily, willing to take chances on films that no other theater will. 

 

The point is, if I have one, that I am more than happy to be the face of this revolution, or whatever it is, if people will actually listen to what I am saying and understand what it is I am really fighting for. Just embrace and preserve our past.  That is all. I thought it was a battle I could get everyone I know behind, but I was wrong. And though it is silly, it hurts. I love film and the New Beverly Cinema so so much, and when either of these things are threatened, I will do everything I can to fight back.  I’m afraid this position I have taken is going to have larger consequences than I first bargained for. But if movies have taught me anything, it is that I have to speak up for what I believe in and what is important to me – lets just hope this particular film has a happy ending. 

Never Let Me Go

 

Rarely does a film come along where we are afforded the luxury of knowing absolutely nothing about the plot. I find this to usually be my preferred method of watching a movie, so I can be completely open-minded and surprised. When Never Let Me Go came out in September 2010, the only thing I knew was that it starred Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield, two of my favorite actors. I went in completely blind, and was incredibly and absolutely blown away.

 

 

When the film ended, I didn’t want to leave the theater because I didn’t want to break the spell the film had created, nor disturb the emotional effect it had on me – and I was crying buckets. I truly think this film was the best of 2010, and was shocked and outraged when it was overlooked, not only by viewers, but by the awards. Both Golden Globes and Oscars completely snubbed the incredible performances given by all three leads. 

 

I have been championing the film since its release, begging friends and neighbors to see it. I wanted to play it at the New Beverly as soon as possible, but Fox Searchlight told me that out of all of the hundreds of prints made, only two remained. One was irreparably damaged, and the other on long-term loan to a cruise ship. Whether they were telling the truth or not, I can’t say, but I will say that I am completely overjoyed that we will finally be showing it at the New Bev on January 11th and 12th with (schedule permitting) director Mark Romanek in attendance both nights.

 

 

If I have ever implored you to attend a film I have booked at the theater, and you haven’t come, you owe me one. Please come see this film. Please tell everyone you know to come. It is beautiful, masterfully shot and performed, disturbing, the most interesting use of science fiction I have seen and completely heartbreaking.

 

This is the kind of film I hope to be seeing more of, and the kind that I hope one day to star in myself.

 

Romanek himself picked the doubles’ second feature, Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. I have read the book, but never seen the film and am very excited to see it, especially to compare the similarities to Never Let Me Go.

 

You’ll notice I haven’t discussed the plot of the film at all, and I have done so on purpose. I hope you will come to the show knowing only what I have told you, and trust me. You might walk away from it with your heart broken, but there is no way to walk away from this film without admitting its brilliance and beauty. 

The fight continues!! – updated!

Thank you to everyone who has supported my petition to save 35mm!!

Here are the links to all of the articles written about it so far – and thank you to all of the authors, of course!!

Let’s keep fighting the good fight!! Long Live 35mm!

Movieline

Fearnet

AV Club

Aint It Cool News

Indiewire

Schofizzy

Fatblog

Borned to be Hanged

Cinematica

50 Westerns 

Kine Artefacts

All About Jazz

Carole & Co

Campus Circle 

Reel Speak

Tumblr 

Smithsonian

Badass Digest

2 Pop

Docspace

Sergio Leone and The Infield Fly Rule

Row Three

Sunscreen Film Festival

Film at the Paramount

Classic Film School

Flannel Owl

Cinemacord

Little White Lies

Leopard 13

The L Magazine

The Guardian

The Short Goodbye

Flagpole Magazine

Theatre Historical Society

Motion Within Motion

The Atlantic 

Cinema Treasures

Screen Comment 

Reddit

Fight for 35mm!

I work at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, California. We are a repertory double feature house that opened in 1978. We screen films from every decade of cinema – from silents to foreign, independents, art house to contemporary. Films that make-up the glorious history of the art, that should be viewed as they were meant to be – in a theater with fellow film lovers, projected from film. 

 

We only show films on 35mm. 

The major film studios have decided that they eventually want to stop renting all archival 35mm film prints entirely because there are so few revival houses left, and because digital is cheap and the cost of storing and shipping prints is high. 

I firmly believe that when you go out to the cinema, the film should be shown in 35mm. The digital capabilities currently available for theatrical presentation are no more advanced than the blu-rays you watch at home. The average theater ticket in Los Angeles is $14 – so you are basically paying just to watch the same thing you could watch on your own TV on a bigger screen. 

At the New Beverly, we have never been about making money – a double feature ticket costs only $8. We are passionate about cinema and film lovers. We still use a reel to reel projection system, and our projectionists care dearly about film, checking each print carefully before it screens and monitoring the film as it runs to ensure the best projection possible. With digital screenings, the projectionists will become obsolete and the film will be run by ushers pushing a button – they don’t ever have to even enter the theater. 

The human touch will be entirely taken away. The New Beverly Cinema tries our hardest to be a timeless establishment that represents the best that the art of cinema has to offer. We want to remain a haven where true film lovers can watch a film as it was meant to be seen – in 35mm. Revival houses perform an undeniable service to movie watchers – a chance to watch films with an audience that would otherwise only be available for home viewing. Film is meant to be a communal experience, and nothing can surpass watching a film with a receptive audience, in a cinema, projected from a film print. 

 

I feel very strongly about this issue and cannot stand idly by and let digital projection destroy the art that I live for. As one voice I cannot change the future, but hopefully if enough film lovers speak up, we can prove to the studios that repertory cinema is important and that we want 35mm to remain available to screen. 

Please sign this petition and forward it to any cinephiles you know. Let’s fight for 35mm!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fight-for-35mm/

The Imaginarium of Mr. Gilliam

 

I love Los Angeles. Living here has afforded me the incredible opportunity of meeting several of my heroes – Cameron Crowe, Baz Luhrmann, Wes Craven, John Waters  - and just last night – Terry Gilliam.   I was a big fan of Time Bandits as a kid, as well as Baron Munchausen  - and of course Monty Python –   but it wasn’t until I saw Brazil that I fully understood just what a genius Gilliam is.     I think Brazil might be the best film ever made. It represents everything I love about filmmaking, all in one movie. Plus, it has the greatest ending ever put on film, and blows my mind every single time I watch it. My boyfriend watched it for his first time with me this January when Edgar Wright showed it at the New Beverly. Before David watched it,  I told him it was amazing. Edgar said it was amazing. Richard Kelly, who was also introducing, said it was amazing.   So the bar was set high. After the incredible end shot, David just looked at me. I returned his gaze with a smile and slight shrug and said, “Yup. That’s the end.” David’s mouth was agape and he shook his head slowly in bewilderment. “I…can’t…even…begin to…digest that…” he murmured. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go run around the block.” With that he leaped up and ran up the aisle. I followed him out front and, sure enough, he took off. He made a lap and shouted “One more!” as he went by again. He stopped after his second lap, looked at me with a giant smile on his face, and said, “That was the best movie I have ever seen.”     He was so astounded by the film that his brain couldn’t handle it and he had to run around the block. I have never, in all my years of  movie going, reacted or heard of anyone reacting in such a manner to any film. But it makes sense that Brazil would evoke such a reaction, and it was David’s reaction to Brazil that made me fall in love with him.   When I told David Terry Gilliam was going to be at the Aero in person, introducing Brazil, he immediately agreed to go. I have shown him several more of Gilliam’s films since January, so he was really looking forward to it.    I was super excited to hear Gilliam talk, as he is not a director you hear out and about too often. He was smiley and cheerful, self-deprecating and hilarious. When asked about the unfortunate circumstances that seem to befall him and his films quite often, he replied, “When I get an idea for a project in my head, it kind of possesses me, and I can’t rest until I have completed it. I can’t let God upset my plans, now, can I?” Superb. He talked about how he has stopped storyboarding, and instead lets the actors develop how the scene should go. How he likes getting input from every department, so the entire crew feels involved. That often his ideas are just found on set, but somehow just seem to work. How he feels like life in America is more like Brazil now than ever before.    We were also lucky enough to be able to view a short that Gilliam had just finished, The Wholly Family, about a family travelling in Naples and the fantasy fever dream that the son falls into. It was trippy and silly, slightly frightening and overwhelming – everything you would expect from a Gilliam film. Unbelievably, this is his first short.       I was able to meet Terry briefly, get a picture with him, and ask him to program at the New Beverly. He said he heard about the theater from Edgar (thank you, thank you, Mr. Wright) and took my card. Everyone please keep your fingers crossed that I hear from him. I think I could pretty much die happy if he programmed at the theater.  I hope that Terry Gilliam continues making films for a long, long time. I hope he never sells out and makes “commercially viable” films, but continues to follow his heart and make the films that he wants to. It’s somehow fitting to me that some sort of disaster almost always nearly destroy the making of each of his films – because like the anti-establishment characters he loves so much, he is able to beat the odds,  stand up and continue on, somehow. While it may seem to him now that God is standing in his way, I think that the man upstairs must know what he’s doing when all of his roadblocks produce such fantastic cinema.

The Good Doctor

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

 

Hunter S. Thompson.  Just his name will immediately garner a response.  Genius?  Madman?  Freedom Fighter?  Selfish Bastard?  I think all of these terms are correct.  The New Beverly Cinema recently played a double feature of Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” starring Johnny Depp and  the documentary “Gonzo:  the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson”. Two of the several films made  about the same man – a writer, no less – in the last 20 years —not usual  Hollywood fodder.  What was it about the infamous Dr. Gonzo that made him so appealing in just about every medium?

 

Before he became the drug-addled, cigarette holder-chomping, Hawaiian shirt-wearing weirdo he was known to be, Hunter was a member of the United States Air Force.  Not surprisingly, he was discharged, and they noted that “he will not be guided by policy.”  The military and the complete lack of respect for authority do not go hand in hand.  He found his niche after shadowing the Hell’s Angels for a year and writing an expose about them (promptly getting “stomped” by the Angels after its release).

 

From there, Hunter’s “gonzo” writing style blew up his stories, and they appeared in Esquire and The New York Times, among others.  I really admire Hunter, along with his contemporaries Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, for completely marching to his own drum and being completely true to himself.  While working, Thompson was more often than not on a variety of drugs and alcohol.  He was known to carry a loaded gun with him at all times, and of course he was famously associated with a 300-pound, Samoan attorney.  He refused to live by any of society’s rules, and became not only a fantastic writer, but also a pop culture icon and a character within his own stories.

 

As with any talented artist, the line between genius and insanity is thin.  Hunter rode that line better than any artist before or since.  He ran for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado, in 1970, under the Freak Power ticket, and shaved his head so he could call the Republican candidate “my long-haired opponent.”

 

He almost won, garnering 44% of the votes.  I sure as hell would have voted for him.

 

As he predicted to all throughout his life, Thompson shot and killed himself in 2005, and his ashes were shot out of a cannon to Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky”.  His death, like his life, was strange and ridiculous.

I long for journalism to regain the courage and individuality that Hunter S. Thompson brought to the field. I want to read stories by reporters stoned out of their mind, getting paid to destroy hotel rooms and cover events they may not even make it to.  The thought of there never being another writer like him makes me sad, and makes me yearn for an era where being a little bit out of control was mysterious and supported.

 

I offer myself to fill that gap. I am not usually an advocate of drugs or alcohol, but If anyone would care to pay me to take a highly irresponsible trip and completely go out of my mind, I’m up for it.   For Hunter.

Fun with Colored Wax!

 

 

A few weekends ago, inspired by a random photo we came across, my boyfriend David and I decided to try a little artistic experiment. I bought some canvases from Blick, some crayons, super glue and some lighters. We unwrapped and arranged the crayons atop the canvas to our liking, then glued them on.

 

 

 

We tried two methods of melting the crayons: lighter and hair dryer. The hair dryer was not terribly effective, having too large of a surface area and too difficult to control the air flow. This was my hair dryer painting:

 

 

 

This was David’s:

 

 

 

The lighter turned out way way better, but hurt the hell out  my hand after holding it down for so long.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the success of the small lighter painting, I was confident and curious to try again, so i bought a bigger canvas and came up with this masterpiece.

 

 

 

 

I’m really excited to continue with these “paintings”. They are pretty bitchin.  But i switched from glue to tape, because of the residue, and i bought a butane torch, so I don’t have to hold down the lighter anymore.  Who knows where this mad experiment will lead?

 

All of it reminds me of this Sesame Street gem from our youth: 

 

I love you, Mr. John Waters

  

 

 

As I have mentioned here several times before, I have been obsessed with the 60′s for pretty much my entire life – case in point, one of my favorite movies growing up was John Waters’ Hairspray. I longed to have the amazing hair, the delicious dresses and the ability to dance my ass off on The Corny Collins Show. I loved John Waters because he made this movie, and had no idea of his sleazy past. 

 

 

 

At 15, one of my best friends in high school decided that we should watch Pink Flamingos for New Years Eve. Hearing John Waters was the director, I readily agreed, not realizing that my innocent eyes and soul were about to become irreparably corrupted. I blanched almost immediately when I understood what the next 90 minutes or so would entail, and have still not had the courage to re-watch it. I was shocked and appalled – John Waters would have been thrilled. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Older, and a lot more used to crazy films, I now can fully understand and appreciate the sum of all of John Waters’ work. I have all of his books and read them repeatedly. The thing that I love so much about him is that he revels in what most people try their entire life to avoid. Dirt. Sleaze. Filth. These things make him happy, and for that reason he is one of my heroes. I love that he has always been his true self, that he loved his misfit friends with an open heart, and that he isn’t afraid to embrace what he honestly loves about life. In one of his books, John recounts what he calls “the greatest moment of my life” in which, sitting on a bus stop in Baltimore, he was hit full in the face by a carton of chinese food that a passing car had thrown out of the window. Amazing. 

 

 

 

 

I finally met John Waters this past weekend at the Aero at a screening of Female Trouble. The place was packed and the audience was eating up the movie with a plastic spoon. He participated in a Q&A afterwards and snarkily answered every question the audience posed. He said that he feels like his films are made for the people who are outsiders within their own minority and talked about how he feels that people are trying too hard to be weird now, that it should be something that naturally comes from inside yourself. I asked if he had a favorite sleazy place to go in Los Angeles, and he said that now that the Spotlight had closed, he did not.

 

I, of course, asked him to program at the New Beverly, and he told me to send him the information through Atomic Books in Baltimore – but did mention that he loved the theater. Wouldn’t you LOVE to see what he would choose to program? We played Pink Flamingos at midnight at the Bev for countless years, so it would be a fitting place for a Waters festival. And if we show Pink Flamingos again, I think this time I will be able to laugh and cheer along. 

My VHS Shangri-la.

A few weeks ago my boyfriend, David, and I fatefully stumbled upon a video store in La Canada, of all places, that ended up being everything a video hound like myself dreams of. The place, run by  a grim faced man named Hamlet, has been open since 1981, and they have never sold any of their VHS. That’s right – an untapped supply. When I asked him if he had any videos for sale, he pointed me in the direction of the next room, where shelves upon shelves of VHS waited for me. And I’m talking video hound gold here – A vast foreign section, including Jodorowsky and Wenders! Pretty much every Disney film, live action and animated. Scores of classics, and cult hits, too!! Scoring Wonderwall and Jabberwocky both in one trip caused me to do my happy dance all over the store.

Hamlet seemed bemused, but baffled as to why anyone would be excited about old videos. Marco, the 20 year old hottie who also works there, asked first if I was serious, then quickly become excited himself. “Finally! Someone understands how cool VHS is!” This kid is going to grow up to be rad. He checked up on every video I bought to see when it was last rented, and the winner was one that had sat on their shelf since 1997. The year I graduated high school. I am content in the knowledge that it will now sit on my shelf, where it will be looked at and coddled daily.

After I filled a box with around  75 videos inside (only $2 a piece!) Hamlet casually mentioned that if I wanted to come back and look at the shelves of VHS he had in the back, I could. I immediately yelled “Hell Yes!” and made an appointment that very moment to come back. David just smiled placidly and shook his head slightly – he loves me dearly, but this whole video cassette thing is beyond his comprehension.

The next week I was there at 11am on the dot, with my fellow video junkie  Mike  in tow. Hamlet stepped back and allowed us to ransack his back shelves – full to the brim with pristine videos, untouched and unloved for years. Again, I was a squealing, happy dancing bunny. Hamlet and his lovely wife, Myra, just looked on with amused, but puzzled looks on their faces. “Oh my god, Julia, Oh my god!” Mike kept intoning – I had told him what a gold mine the store was, but this was light years from what Mike expected. He and I both picked up about 75 videos that day.

While he was ringing us up, again Hamlet dropped a bomb on us. Gap Band style. He mentioned casually that there was a back room to the back room, and that if we wanted to come back next week, he would clean it out so we could access the treasure trove of videos that lurked there. Good god, man! Hamlet was my new messiah. 

So last week Mike and I again ventured to the glorious land they call La Canada, and we ravaged the last bit of the store still left untouched. While sifting through, I stopped to reflect a moment on how happy I was. I guess my idea of heaven is a room full of dusty clamshell videos of obscure 70′s puppet shows just waiting to be unearthed. Who needs pearly gates?!

With the sad recent closing of Rocket Video, we all know that video stores are on their last legs. This is why I am sharing this coveted information with all of you. Maybe by heading down to La Canada Video and buying their unloved VHS, we can postpone the inevitable. Hamlet and his staff are nice, honest folk and if I can buoy up their money intake at least a small amount, I feel like I have done a good deed. So, to all my fellow videos hounds, I say GO FORTH! Buy many VHS and make Hamlet and I happy bunnies. 

La Canada Video 

520 Foothill Blvd

La Canada, CA 91011

Heavenly Creatures

 

 

I’ve wanted to be an actress for as long as I can remember – but I can pinpoint the specific moment that I decided I wanted to be a film actress. It was 1994, and I was watching a movie called Heavenly Creatures. I knew nothing about the film before I walked in to the theater, and had no idea that the film would change my life. 

 

I was 14 when I saw it, probably far too young to watch such a disturbing film. But Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) were 14 in the film as well, and I think that’s what really scared me about it. No spoilers here (even though it did come out over ten years ago, is based on a true story, and is incredible – so shame on you if you haven’t seen it) but the ending affected me more than any film I had ever seen. And watching it recently, at 32 years old and now a horror junkie,  I was astonished that it still completely freaked me out. 

 

I had never seen a film that was so incredibly real, but fantastical at the same time. And I’d never seen characters portrayed so honestly as the girls played by Lynskey & Winslet. I have followed both actresses religiously since their film debut, and neither one has ever let me down. If you can pull out the kind of performances that these girls did in your first film, you have no where to go but up. And when I first heard of Peter Jackson helming Lord of the Rings, I was pleased as punch and 100% confident in him. I knew what he was capable of. 

 

 

 

We played Heavenly Creatures at the New Beverly Cinema earlier this month, and I was overjoyed when Melanie Lynskey agreed to come. She watched the film, since she hadn’t in a theater in ten years or so, then graciously agreed to do a Q&A with me. I was beside myself with excitement – here I was interviewing the actress that had inspired me to pursue film! 

 

 

She was humble and incredibly sweet. She told of her casting, plucked from obscurity over thousands of other girls, while still in high school. How she and Kate felt as if Peter Jackson were their dad – giving great advice, helping them along every step of the way, and never letting the grimness of the subject matter overwhelm or frighten them. She often referred to her nervousness about her performance, but it is clear to all who have seen the film that being nervous wasn’t necessary – she is simply amazing in the film. 

 

Out of all of the Q&A’s I have done at the New Beverly, the one with Melanie Lynskey is one of my very favorites. I went from a 14-year-old girl, open-mouthed and starstruck in the theater, to a grown woman now talking to the girl who was up on that screen, and asking her all about the film making process – well, I guess you get the idea. 

 

A few years ago, my best friend Marion Kerr wrote and directed a movie that we both starred in called Golden Earrings. She wanted to make a film that highlighted the friendship that some young women have with each other – obsessive, but not necessarily romantic. Heavenly Creatures was the only movie either of us had ever seen that had showcased this kind of friendship, and we often referred to the film during the making of our own. Like the girls in Heavenly Creatures, my character in Golden Earrings, Ronnie ,spirals into madness. While it was definitely the toughest role I had ever played, it was also the most satisfying because not only was I working with my best friend, but I also got to be in my own version of the film I admire so much. Golden Earrings is available for streaming HERE, if you’re so inclined. 

 

 

I want to thank Peter Jackson, Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey for helping set my life in motion. But most of all, thank you to Melanie  - I sincerely wish you all of the luck in the world, and thank you for helping to make one of my life’s ambitions come full circle. 

 

Viva La VHS.

The picture above is of one of my VHS shelves – yes, just one of them. I own several hundred VHS and I still collect. Does it seem incongruous to you that a girl who is known for being a true film fan collects an “inferior” form of media? It shouldn’t. Film snobbery comes in many forms. I would far far rather watch a film on 35mm than on digital, but at home I prefer VHS to DVD. Why? I’m glad you asked. 

 

First we have the nostalgia factor. VHS was the first medium I started watching film on, so it just feels natural to me to pop in a tape to my VCR. I like the heft of them, the box art, the fact that unlike DVD’s which can become scratched very easily, VHS is pretty sturdy stuff. Almost every tape I own runs perfectly, even after 20 years of use. 

 

I love that I have bootlegs. My copies of Heavy Metal Parking Lot and The Star Wars Holiday Special are both worth their weight in gold to me. Both are bootlegs of bootlegs of bootlegs and I think that there is no better way to watch these “films”. Who would want to see either of these in crisp, clear HD? Not me. The fuzziness and bad quality actually help these films a bit. And in terms of The Star Wars Holiday Special, it needs all the help it can get. 

 

I also love that I’m preserving a medium that is dying. All video stores are clearing their stock, and that means I can get great films for a dollar a piece or less. And while I am sad that VHS is no longer going to be able to be rented, I’m happy that they will be going home with me where they will be loved. Not to mention that I own several movies that I doubt will ever make it to DVD. Every media change several films fall through the cracks. Think of all the films on 35mm or 16mm that never made it to VHS! And the same thing is true for the switch to DVD. I can pop Rad into my VCR and watch Cru Jones ride Hell Track any time that takes my fancy – sorry Blu Ray snobs. 

 

Recently my friend Julie generously donated her VHS collection to me. She dropped it off at the New Bev and after I rifled through and picked out what I wanted, I left the box there for fellow VHS hounds to explore. It’s been great watching people light up when they see the box and pull out some free tapes to take home with them. 

 

So here is my call to all of you! If you have VHS you don’t want anymore, bring them to the New Beverly! Let’s make us the hub of a huge VHS exchange in LA. Instead of just dumping them in the trash or dropping them off at Goodwill, drop them off with us. Not only will we be super excited to receive them, you will get the guarantee that they will be given a loving home. 

 

May VHS never die. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by Silent Bob

Kevin Smith may be the greatest public speaker I have ever seen. The thing that makes him so entertaining, besides being funny as fuck, is his honesty. When someone really lets down their guard and lays things out on the table straight, it’s so refreshing. I knew Kevin was a good writer and fun to listen to, but I never thought he would inspire me the way he has. 

 

Kevin’s new film, Red State, is playing at the New Beverly Cinema this week for an Academy qualifying run. I’d heard lots of buzz about the movie, mixed reviews, but mostly about how Kevin was self distributing the film and screening it only when he could be there to talk about it afterwards. A novel and hands on approach to filmmaking to be sure. I’d only met Kevin once, incredibly briefly, at a Spaced screening a few years ago, but he was incredibly stoned and I knew there would be no way he would remember me. 

 

But remember me he did. He came into the theater the first night, and when I introduced myself he said “Hi Julia, I know you, we’ve met before.” Color me surprised. He confessed he had never been to the New Beverly before (how is that possible?) but upon the second screening of the night was already praising its atmosphere and awesome audience. The screenings have brought in hundreds of folks who have never been to the theater before, which is always exciting. I hope they will come back and visit us again. 

 

One of my jobs during this run has been to keep Kevin’s Q&A’s short – a sad role to fulfill. When he starts talking, you don’t ever want him to stop, but we’ve got two shows a night and someone’s got to be the timer. I’ve listened to every talk he’s given thus far at the theater and every night I laugh my ass off. He’s conversational, controversial and so incredibly comfortable in front of an audience. Just hearing 200 people laughing all at once is an incredible experience, whether or not you’re the one making them do it. 

 

Kevin admits that he got complacent in the middle of his career but now, on his second to last film, he’s back to the passionate filmmaker he was when he made Clerks. He’s making films that he’s always wanted to make, critics and audience be damned. His “what the fuck” attitude is engaging and contagious. He encourages others to go out and make whatever art they are passionate about, not worrying about what others think. Every story he tells, even if I have heard it before, has me smiling and nodding. I constantly want to shout out “Fuck yeah!”

 

But last night caught me off guard. Kevin recalled his father’s death, which was sudden, and of how he had screamed up until the very moment of his demise. He told us that in a world where even good guys end up screaming while they’re dying, there’s no time to wait on chasing your dreams. He told us to say what we want to say, to do things we love, to be your true self. My mind was blown. I admire Kevin Smith so much for laying his soul out in front of his audience in the hopes that maybe something he  says will touch someone else. 

 

Well, Kevin, here I am saying what I want to say. Your words have  inspired me to write this, and tell everyone how much your talks have touched me. I’ve been feeling very static in my acting career, waiting for others to cast me. Fuck it. I need to make my own art, even if it’s just me talking into my own flip cam. Acting makes me feel alive, its something I should be doing everyday, not just when someone else gives me an opportunity. I know this post can’t help but come off as hokey, but so what? I’m writing from my heart – the only way I know how to write. I’m sad you won’t be making films anymore, working with you has always been a dream of mine. But I think you’re doing what you feel is right for you, and I wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from doing that. 

Thanks for coming to the New Beverly and for talking with such enthusiasm and honesty –  please don’t ever stop doing that. 

happiness = hate

What makes people so disgusted by others’ happiness? People are constantly rooting for the failure of others and when we see someone who has attained something that we desire, why aren’t we pleased for them instead of silently wishing them ill?

My boyfriend David and I are incredibly happy together and madly in love. We’re both very affectionate people and can’t help but be so in public. Let me be clear – we are loving, but not inappropriate. We never full on make out, never grope anywhere that shouldn’t be groped in front of others, never do anything when we are in close proximity to others. And yet we constantly get dirty looks, and comments of the “get a room” variety. People hate  that we are so happy. What’s that about? Why is my happiness in my relationship offensive to you? Why does it bother you that I’m in love?

The only reason I can come up with is that by seeing others happy, it brings up feelings of loneliness within the bystanders. A reminder that they are single, or unhappy in their own relationship. So it’s all projection then? Because you are unhappy with your life, you want me to be unhappy in mine? I think that’s incredibly childish. 

 

This sort of projection doesn’t just apply to couples, of course. Whenever we hear a story of incredible luck or success – winning the lottery for example – people are outraged. They think the winners are undeserving and that they should have won. Why? Where does this hatred of happiness stem from? What is it about human nature that makes it pleasurable to watch others fail? 

 

I understand the world isn’t perfect, and I’m not happy with everything in my own life, but I think my friends, family and even perfect strangers deserve happy lives. I wouldn’t ever intentionally wish misery on anyone, and while  understand jealousy to be a base emotion, I think it’s also one that humans are able to overcome, with some work. I strongly feel that I shouldn’t have to tone down or disguise my joy in public, for fear of making others sad. It just doesn’t make sense. 

100 things I don’t like

I try to stay away from negative stuff, but solely for the sake of balance I present 100 things I ain’t too keen on. You’ll be pleased to know this list took me way longer to come up with than my favorite things. 

 

1. spiders and all bugs

2. peas, beans, eggs

3. sound of metal scraping on metal

4. hot beverages

5. warm squishy fruit

6. sticky hands

7. people who don’t clean their teeth properly

8. sandals on men

9. people who don’t smile back when i smile at them

10. inconsiderate people

11. crew cuts

12. relish

13. unmelted cheese

14. yappy dogs

15. tardiness

16. people who talk too loud

17. black licorice

18. overly gelled hair

19. unnecessary sequels and remakes

20. cargo shorts

21. cigarettes

22. people who ruin my movie going experience

23. misers

24. people who are constantly on their phones

25. people who complain all the time

26. half assed hugs

27. those who don’t see the importance in reading books

28. flaky folks

29. actors who believe their own hype

30. eating fish with bones

31. hunting for sport

32. thieves

33. people who don’t tell me when I have something in my teeth

34. liars

35. crocs

36. splinters and paper cuts

37. mindless conformity

38. dirty fingernails

39. people who are money obsessed

40. road rage

41. misspellings

42. washing dishes

43. doing laundry

44. camping

45. meter maids

46. sticking to vinyl seating when its hot

47. boys who try to walk “tuff”

48. people who have to look in a mirror if they pass by one

49. people who get a boyfriend/girlfriend and disappear

50. people who scrape their fork on their teeth

51. supercilious people

52. 90% of television programming

53. people who stick flyers on my car

54. long plane flights

55. waiting in airports

56. the fact that the “oldies” station in LA plays no 1950′s music but lots of 1980′s music

57. people who groan when they see a movie is subtitled or in black and white

58. fake meat

59. film festivals that only accept movies with celebrities attached

60. the dirty hands feeling i get after thrift shopping

61. the way otter pops make me choke

62. ultra competitive people who take board games way too seriously

63. feeling unbearably full

64. richies

65. feeling dread for no reason

66. waking up from a nap and feeling sweaty and disoriented

67. people who go to a mongolian BBQ restaurant and greedily heap food onto their bowl in an obscene mound

68. those who don’t see the importance of showers and clean clothes

69. skin on soup and pudding

70. over priced movie theaters

71. DVD/blu ray snobs

72. people who want you to fit into the box they have created for you

73. being cold

74. doctors who don’t listen

75. getting up in the middle of the night to pee

76. over produced modern pop music

77. movies where the lead actor is clearly doing it for a paycheck

78. stubbing my toe/hitting my knee on the side of my bed

79. crusty dreadlocks

80. tyrants

81. people who constantly fidget or jiggle their knee

82. people who don’t attend to their nose hair properly

83. women who shave off their eyebrows and then draw them back on

84. spineless people

85. goatees with no mustache

86. the bar big wangs

87. shorts so big and baggy they look like pants

88. the fact that living in LA has given me asthma

89. hiking – especially going downhill

90. mean spirited humor

91. employers who ask for a photo along with your resume

92. feeling incompetant

93. people who mindlessly drive/walk without paying any attention that I am behind them

94. having to wear a uniform

95. sneakers that make boys feet look fat

96. disorganized nitpickers

97. sports

98. peeling skin

99. not being able to fall asleep at night

100. people who don’t like me 

A Few of My Favorite Things

Hey Kids. For fun, I listed 100 of my favorite things (by no means a comprehensive list) in random order. Enjoy. 

1. oreo cookies, soggy from milk

2. the sound of a projector

3. the sound of things going in reverse (music, cars, etc.)

4. being winked at

5. laughing so hard my knees give out

6. northern british accents (especially when they call me “luv”)

7. welsh corgis

8. the sound the needle makes when it first hits the record, the crackle and pops before the song starts

9. converse

10. the original uk version of life on mars

11. tab

12. movies

13. the new beverly cinema

14. warm, soft, gooey cookies and milk

15. when my parents do silly dances

16. pleasant surprises

17. reading a book so great that i wish it would never end

18. thunderstorms

19. thin, crispy pancakes with butter and maple syrup

20. dystopian speculative fiction

21. fancy parties

22. carnivals

23. the beatles

24. literary tattoos

25. waiters who bring refills before you ask

26. sharing a secret look with someone

27. kissing

28. smiles that light up the persons’ entire face

29. puffy 80′s stickers

30. bernaise sauce

31. being nostalgic for food that no longer exists

32. traveling the world

33. hugs

34. giggling fits at inappropriate times

35. meeting heroes and finding them cooler than i imagined

36. fancy lingerie

37. VHS

38. getting a letter from a friend i haven’t heard from in a long time

39. curry – indian, chinese, thai or japanese

40. inside jokes

41. thinking about the world before i existed

42. twin peaks

43. new england clam chowder with oyster crackers

44. free food

45. beautiful boys

46. under ripe cold crisp fruit

47. shag carpets

48. all things groovy

49. listening to cassette mixes i made in high school and college

50. england

51. being in love

52. people who are nicer than neccesary

53. flapjacks (the english kind)

54. banksy

55. being with my mother and father

56. moments of crazy coincidence

57. movies that are so bad they’re good – especially musicals

58. showing people movies i love

59. rare steak and mashed potatoes

60. halloween

61. trying new things

62. marsupials

63. snuggling

64. having insane dreams

65. horror

66. wacky socks

67. being cozy in my own bed

68. acting

69. dreaming of the day i am a famous movie star

70. cat naps

71. mint chocolate chip ice cream and butterscotch sauce from baskin robbins

72. watching babies taste cake for the first time

73. seeing pictures of friends as children

74. romance

75. love letters

76. fake eyelashes

77. baking

78. winning contests

79. the familiar smell of those i love

80. food so good it makes me close my eyes

81. hairstyles and fashions i can’t believe ever existed

82. days when the weather is so perfect i don’t notice it

83. the sea

84. overhearing ridiculous snatches of conversation

85. the word persnickety

86. rooting for the underdog

87. clever, non violent, creative revolutionaries

88. when someone i love achieves something that makes them happy

89. thrift store shopping

90. r. crumb

91. slow dancing

92. the feeling that i am close to accomplishing a goal and that my years of hard work and persistence might pay off

93. ocean water from sonic

94. playing galaga in an arcade

95. being alone in a theater

96. the anticipation before leaving on a trip

97. the relief of coming home

98. feeling loved

99. loving others

100. moments when i feel completely alive

The Nineteen Sixties

I am one of those folks who was born in the wrong time period, for sure. I am constantly being asked about why I am so entranced by a time period I didn’t live in. Here’s my explanation, phrased as best i can.

 

 

 I have been fascinated with the 60′s for the majority of my life – the era that speaks the most to me. Anyone who has been to my apartment can testify that it pretty much looks like you walked into a time warp. My furniture is the grooviest I could find, and you’re pretty much guaranteed to hear some 60′s psychedelic rock coming from my turntable – did I mention I collect vinyl?

 

Even as a wee lass, I liked 60′s music best. My first cassette was of The Monkees. In high school I became obsessed with The Beatles. Obsessed. I listened to nothing but Beatles for four years. I watched Help! and A Hard Day’s Night endlessly. My room was a Beatles shrine, I wore Beatles shirts every day. My girl friends and I became “The Beat Girls” and I was known from then on out as George. I thought constantly about living in England in the 60′s. I actually did  live in England for my junior year of college, and absolutely adored it. I think I moved there so I could pretend that I had also travelled back in time when I arrived. 

 

Except for an ill-advised hip hop period in junior high, and the occasional extraordinary band, I have never listened to modern music. My ideal of beauty is the mid 60′s teased bouffant with dark lined eyes and gobs of fake eyelashes. I wear this style as often as I can, and usually pair it with a mini skirt, or something equally retro. I long to be mod – to drive a vespa around and stand against walls looking angsty and smoking cigarettes. 

 

 

 

The thing I love most about the time period – besides the amazing fashion and music – is the philosophy of it. It was the first time that the youth of America looked around at what their ancestors had done and said “Hey! You know what? We don’t have to do it this way!” They “dropped out” of society and focused on things other than money, success and traditional marriage. People opened themselves up to each other in a way that society had never seen before – everyone wanted to see what happened when people actually tried to get along. They experimented with communal living, with open marriages, with growing their own food, with living without material goods. They protested the war. They tried mind altering drugs. They stood for peace. For love. For togetherness. 

 

Snicker if you will, but I admire this generation so much for their courage and willingness to leap into the unknown. People may look back and giggle at the hippies for being saps, but I think working hard for peace and harmony is nothing to laugh at. It’s certainly better than being too cool and ironic to say what you really think or feel. 

 

I’ve been reading a a lot of 60′s literature as well lately. I just finished The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, all about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and I absolutely loved it. A group of people really pushing the boundaries of society! I also read Woodstock Nation & Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman, one of my favorites. In my heart I desperately long to be a revolutionary, but don’t know where to start. I’m certainly anti-establishment and have no love for corporate America, but can’t bring myself to steal. I’m not political, so trying to bring down the government is out. But I love that Abbie Hoffman felt so incredibly strongly that his generation was being screwed over that he published an entire book on how to screw the government back. 

 

 

 

I know a lot of people who read this will say I’m just sugar-coating the 60′s. I know there were lots of bad things about living then, of course. Segregation, war, racism, sexism, etc. And of course I will never know what it was really like. I just am so in love with the idea of a generation that really stood up for itself and tried its damnedest to change the things they thought was wrong with America. To put their lives on the line so that others may taste the freedom they believed was so important. The 60′s generation speaks to me in a way that my own simply doesn’t. 

 

So  i wear my hair teased, carry my Beatles messenger bag and read any psychedelic book I can get my grubby little hands on. But I think Abbie said it best when he said “The 60s are gone. Dope will never be as cheap, sex will never be as free, and rock and roll never as great.” 

 

Le Sigh

I generally champion Los Angeles. I love living here. I have the most amazing job, incredible friends, and a sweet apartment in a great location. The weather is gorgeous. I love that I can find bizarro things to do here every weekend if I so choose. Every movie plays here, every concert comes here. There are a million restaurants to choose from in every single cuisine available on earth. After my extensive travels, I can say with confidence that maybe apart from London, there is no where in the world I would rather live.

 

That being said….

 

There are some things about Los Angeles that drive me up the wall. I was really thrown when I moved here because everyone is so into looking “cool”. I felt too intimidated to talk to anyone because everyone was doing their “cool pose” in their “cool outfits”. I soon realized that generally anyone I went up and talked to was really friendly and open, once you got past the frosty facade. This is something that bothered me, something I realized was based on my insecurities, and an issue that I have moved on from.

 

But the stereotypes of Los Angeles folk being flaky? SO FUCKING TRUE. It bugs me to no end. I am a very honest person, and have no ulterior motives when talking to friends. My cards are always out on the table where everyone can see them (sometimes to my detriment). When I tell someone I will be at an event they are having, or that I can help them with something, I mean it. If I say I will be there, I will be there. (Of course, there are legitimate excuses for any absence – sickness, etc.) But the frequency in which I am told that I will be seeing someone on a certain date or time and then getting a last-minute excuse or simply not hearing from them at all is staggering. And fucking annoying.

 

It makes me feel like I can’t count on anyone. Now whenever someone invites me somewhere, or offers to do me a favor, somewhere in the back of my head I’m thinking – yeah, sure, believe it when I see it – and I hate it. The funny thing about it is that the majority of the time the person offers up their help to me – I don’t ask for it. So I feel even doubly disappointed when they stiff me.  I don’t want to become a distrustful person, or a cynic. And I don’t want to be friends with people who I can’t believe in, either. But this behavior is so par for the course here that I feel like I would have no friends left if I really stopped hanging out with everyone who did this.

 

Which is not to say all of my friends are assholes, of course.

 

I’m not writing this post about any one person or one specific event. I’m just fed up with this behavior and wish that people here in Los Angeles would be more sincere. Just tell me what you really think. If you don’t want to come to something I’ve invited  you to, just tell me nicely you’ll see me next time. And why in heaven’s name would you offer me a favor that you have no intention of following up with? I just ask that if you want to be my friend that you treat me kindly, with honesty and respect. And that you’re punctual when meeting me. I don’t think these requests are outlandish – friends should always treat each other with kindness and respect.

But that’s a laugh, right? This is one of the things that I have to put up with in order to live in one of the best cities in the world, yeah? WHY? Where does this behavior stem from and is there a way to stop it?

 

If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open. My brain can no longer come up with any solutions.

Thingamajig!!

Whatchamacalits have been my favorite candy bar for as long as I can remember. I insist that we stock them at the New Beverly (probably the only movie theater in the US to carry them!), and delight in customers finding them -”Whatchamacalit! Wow! I have had one of those since I was a kid!” Or, even better, Whatchamacalit virgins. I always make them come back to the counter after the movie and tell me what they thought of it – and they always love it.

So imagine my absolute joy when I discovered about a year ago that Hershey’s had developed a sister candy bar to the Whatchamacalit – the Thingamajig!! I immediately went out to try to find it, with no luck. Every time I went into a 7-11, a target, a supermarket, a drugstore, I searched. I was beginning to think I had dreamed it. But proof was there on the official Hershey’s site! The Thingamajig did exist!

For my birthday in March, my boyfriend went to every store in Los Angeles that supposedly carried the elusive chocolate bar as listed on the Hershey’s website. Not a single one had it. It began to become an obsession with me. I dreamt about finding it, and was so happy when I woke up – only to be crushed when I realized I hadn’t found it in reality. When I was in New York in April I went to the Hershey’s store in Times Square. If anywhere in the world should carry an obscure Hershey’s item, it should be the Hershey’s store, right? Wrong. The clerk looked at me like I was crazy and told me he’d never heard of it. I began to lose hope.

And then.

I got a picture message from my friend Phil. His hand, holding a Thingamajig, and the text “Are you still looking for this?”. Oh. My. God! Phil and his girlfriend Jackie drive around the greater LA area on video hunts and had randomly wandered into the Circle K  somewhere near Norwalk, next to the store where they just bought some VHS. And there, sitting innocently on an endcap, was the glorious prize I had been questing for!! They kindly bought me two, and I raced home to try out the candy bar I had been waiting to taste for over a year.
 

Whatchamacalits have caramel and peanut flavored rice krispies inside, whereas the Thingamajig has chocolate flavored rice krispies and peanut butter inside. I closed my eyes and took a slow, lingering bite. Heaven. Absolutely delicious. The peanut butter  is creamy and not too sweet, and the chocolate crunch perfectly balances it. I don’t know if I would say it is better than the Whatchamacalit, but I think they compliment each other perfectly. I savored it as slowly as I could, knowing I would probably never find them again. I am a girl who takes my treats very seriously, as you may have deduced.

So, seriously, Hershey’s, could you release these nation wide? Or, at the very least, send me a case?
 

Nerds of the world – unite!

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately. Nerds (a word I will use interchangeably with the word geek in this blog) – a section of society used to persecution have began to discriminate within their own ranks. Cries of “I may be a star trek nerd – but at least I’m not a dungeons and dragons nerd!” are more and more common. And this is something I dislike and don’t understand.

Hark back to a day in the not too distant past where being a geek/nerd of ANY sort was enough to get you a swirly or your lunch money stolen. Now that geeks are “cool”, they have gained the confidence to specify what KIND of geek they are? And what makes one geek cooler than the other? What makes a horror geek cooler than a gamer geek or an anime geek lamer than a star wars geek?

I consider myself a geek/nerd myself (and I don’t differentiate between the terms) and can’t understand the prejudice. Obviously most of my geekery is film related, but I recently decided to get involved in a dungeons and dragons campaign with my boyfriend David. He’s been playing since junior high, and I’m excited to try my hand at it, but when it came to finding friends that wanted to play with me, I was usually shot down with a disdainful look and a “umm..no.” This coming from friends who collect star wars toys. Friends who having been reading comic books from birth. And I don’t understand what makes one different from the other. Why is okay if I obsess over cult films but not okay if I want to participate in a role playing game?

I think nerds of the world should unite. The thing that made nerds/geeks unpopular in the past was closed mindedness. Because nerds looked different, acted different, had different interests than the main stream. But now that nerds/geeks ARE mainstream, they’re becoming closed-minded themselves. I say this must stop.

If you’re an anime geek, try watching some firefly and see what all the fuss is about. If you play world of warcraft hours a day, try picking up watchmen and giving it a read. What’s the worst that could happen? You don’t like it. But you’ve branched out and tried something new – and there is never a downside to that.

I am so happy that we live in a time period where geeks/nerds have finally gotten the recognition they deserve. It’s cool to be smart!! It’s cool to admit that you read, that you like unusual things, that you don’t look like the media’s idea of “beauty”. I just don’t want this acceptance to lead to the downfall of geekery. Accept your fellow geek as you would want them to accept you. May ewok join hands with xmen, and doctor who join forces with leatherface.

Nerds of the world, can’t we all just get along?

Ain’t no place like…

I just returned from a month long vacation with my family touring New York, India, Nepal, and Turkey. It was, by far, the most exhausting trip I have ever been on. In addition to taking over ten flights in three and a half weeks, we also travelled by car, bus, van, train, rickshaw (both motorized and human powered), an elephant and a camel. I got a horrific case of Dehli Belly a week and a half in, and found myself puking up black stuff. Something I hope never to repeat in my life.

India and Nepal, not surprisingly, were intense. There is incredible beauty side by side with incredible misery. As much as I mentally prepared myself for the trip, I couldn’t have ever imagined some of the things I saw. Like the Taj Mahal. Or two children beating the shit out of each other over a bottle of water. I’m still trying to process it all.

I consider myself a pretty seasoned traveller. My family has been taking out of the country trips since I was a wee lass and I’ve been lucky enough to travel to some pretty outta sight places. But this trip really took it out of me. I was so very glad to return to Los Angeles and my home. I missed LA. I missed my apartment, the New Beverly, my friends, my boyfriend. I was fantasizing about a trip to Japan in my near future, but I think I might stay on the ground for a while.

So, for your perusal, a list – in no particular order – of some things I learned on my travels. 

1. I LOVE garbage men and the sanitation systems in America. Dearly.

2. When you’re in a village that is having a festival and there is Indian techno music playing – dance. Even if everyone stares at you. 

3. Riding a camel is pretty uncomfortable on your bathing suit area. 

4. The Taj Mahal really IS the most beautiful building in the world. But the inside smells like a sweaty mosh pit of zombies. 

5. Indian children will sometime surprise you with their English vocabulary. Like when they ask you if your bra is padded. 

6. Lance Guest (AKA The Last Starfighter) is on broadway playing Johnny Cash. And he’s really good. 

7. Bring your own toilet paper everywhere you go. 

8. Even though the homemade candy on the streets of Istanbul looks delicious it will give you a sugar headache and make your teeth hurt with one bite. 

9. Turkish men are the most flirtatious men on the planet. 

10. Michael Cera’s Turkish doppelganger lives in Istanbul. He is a waiter and he employs a dustbuster to clean tables. 

11. My mother looks adorable in a fez. 

12. Don’t get your hopes up to find a cool t-shirt in Hindi or Turkish. Everything is in English. 

13. Whirling Dervishes are super cool. 

14. When a restaurant advertises they cook your food in pottery and then smash it open at the table – go to that restaurant. 

15. Cows ain’t got no qualms about shoving you out of their way. 

16. “OK” and “No Problem” are universal terms. 

17. If you were wondering where Puck from the Real World went, it was India to teach everyone how to blow gnarly snot rockets. 

18. Nathan’s hot dogs at Coney Island is disgusting. 

19. There is a restaurant in Kathmandu that has KILLER Italian food. 

20. No matter where you call home, when a kid is dressed as a smurf, it’s adorable.

21. Always travel with people you love. 

Mischief. Mayhem. Cake.

 

 

2011 has turned out to be a very violent year for me. I started my honest to goodness fight club back in January, and for my birthday I decided that i wanted nothing more than to get together as many of my friends as possible and have an epic cake battle for the record books.

 

 

 

The idea started when I was watching a silent movie where a character got a pie in the face. i thought “I’ve never had someone smush a pie in my face. i need to do that. Wait! What if it was cake instead of pie? With pie you only get one shot, but with cake you can do handfuls and it will be messier and last a lot longer!” And lo, the idea of the cake battle twas borne.

 

 

We held it at a neighborhood park  on Lucerne, specifically chosen for its slightly hidden location, since we didn’t want to attract any unwanted pigs who may not see the fun in hurling pastry at your nearest and dearest. Everyone was to bring their own  weapon, and we ended up with about 30 cakes in all. Most brought sheet cakes, which mean they had a lot of ammo to deal with. We, of course, tasted all of the weaponry before the battle began – the cakes would be wasted, but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to gorge on them first!

 

 

 

It began, as skirmishes often do, with no announced start. A soldier got too excited and fired without permission, and then there was no stop to the violence. I picked up my cake and ran out onto the battlefield, but my first step landed in frosting and i slipped and fell forward, cake flipping up out of my hands and landing face down in the grass, with me on top of it. Not an auspicious beginning to any battle. As I frantically got to my feet and scooped up what cake I could from the ground, I heard a bezerk war cry of “JULIA!!” from several voices, and the next thing I knew, cake was being shoved harshly into my face. For the next few seconds, my whole world was cake. In my eyes. As far up my nose as possible. My mouth was shoved full of the stuff. I WAS cake. As soon as I recovered, I retaliated as best i could. There seemed to be far less throwing and far more shoving in faces than I had anticipated,  but there are no rules to war.

 

 

I regret injuring several friends with chunks of a red velvet that was particularly dense, but once you taste the heady brew of war, your animal instincts take over. Just as I was running out of ammo, my friend Anne arrived with a lovely cake that she had painstakingly baked herself. I ran over and snatched the cake off of the tray, running back towards the battlefield. “Take a bite first!” was Anne’s cry. Reloaded, I was able to best some of my opponents who had foolishly used up their weaponry.

 

While there were no winners to this epic battle, I think it is fair enough to say that we all ended up as champions. The aftermath was brutal – tired and out of breath, the soldiers limped back to home base, covered head to toe in the spoils of war. I was as pleased as punch. To have friends who will succumb to my insane party ideas – nay, not just succumb but relish! – and really give it their all. It warms the cockles of the heart. Thank you so much to all who came and supported me in my birthday madness. You have all proved to be worthy opponents.

bringing it down…

so i got fired today from my day job. it was basically just a pay-the-bills kinda job at a company that did passports and visas. the folks were nice, but i was hired as a courier and ended up doing office work (which always happens to me). besides business being slow, i apparently didn’t show “initiative”, and so was “let go”.

 

I normally wouldn’t care two shakes about something like this. i’ve been fired before, and will no doubt be fired again. it wasn’t like i was emotionally invested in this job. i think i figured out why this is upsetting me more than it should (other than the fact that i got fired the day before my birthday, which blows).

 

its the fact that i still have to have a pay-the-bills type job. at 32. i moved to los angeles ten years ago and i’m not any closer to being the working film actor than i was in 2001. i didn’t expect to be an overnight sensation or anything, but right now i have no agent, no manager, and no projects in the works. it’s a sad feeling. the film role i was supposed to have early this year in a major movie with a director i love fell through. its not in my nature to give up, but i gotta say, i’m feeling pretty uninspired these days. i know i need to start writing and getting out there more and really hustling, and i will, but….just today, its all feeling pretty crummy.

 

the thing that bothers me most about the film industry is that as children we were taught that if you work hard enough and really do your best, you will be rewarded. but being an actor doesn’t work that way. its not about who has paid their dues, who researches their role the most, who gives the best performance or who wants it more than the rest. its about being friends with the writer, about being chummy with the casting director, about having weight behind your name so that the producers can be sure that people will pay to see you. i am a very hard worker, i have been acting since i was a kid and i love being in film more than anything in the world. but that doesn’t necessarily mean i will succeed. just wanting it bad enough and trying your best doesnt hold water in this industry. and yes, this is something i knew getting into it. if i wanted security, i should have been a banker. but film makes me so incredibly happy – and i just want the chance to make a film that makes others feel that way too.

 

 

tomorrow is my 32nd birthday. i’m definitely not going to let these thoughts and feelings infringe on my celebrations, but i just wanted to get them out.

black and white silliness

One of the delightful ways I waste my precious time on the interwebs is to find ridiculous photographs that make me laugh. I keep these in a folder in my computer and when I’m having a bad day, I scroll through and chortle away. I know. I’m a dork. I’m not in a bad mood today, but I just discovered the site http://blackandwtf.tumblr.com/, and the pictures on there are really quite spectacular. I thought i’d share my favorites with you. Chortle away!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a picture that makes YOU laugh? I’d love to see it!

To Mr. Tarantino, with love.

 

If you had told me in 1994 that someday Quentin Tarantino would be my landlord, I would have majorly freaked out. I saw Pulp Fiction with my parents in the theater (which was pretty embarrassing, in all honesty. Watching a grown black man getting raped is pretty uncomfortable when you’re 15 and sitting next to your dad.) Like everyone else, the movie blew me away. Everyone in it was so cool. I bought the soundtrack and listened to it on repeat, trying to dance just like Mia Wallace. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would someday be on a first name basis with the director.

 

 

Quentin bought the New Bev building in 2007, and lo and behold – he was my landlord. I was nervous to meet him – he seemed larger than life to me and I couldn’t imagine just being normal and talking to him like a regular person. But you know what? He’s nice. Really nice.  His enthusiasm for film is so infectious and charming. When he introduces a movie he is excited about, he lights up like a kid on Christmas and talks at hyper-speed, as if his mouth is trying desperately to keep up with his train of thought.

 

 

 And he gives really fantastic hugs.

 

 

He won’t give autographs or take pictures when he’s at the New Beverly, because he thinks of the theater as an extension of his living room.  He wants to sit back and enjoy the film as an anonymous film geek, just like everyone else.  I respect him for that.  He knows that when it all comes down to it, the New Bev isn’t about celebrity, it’s about love of film.  He just wants to watch films with like-minded folks. How awesome is that?

 

 

I’ve actually sat next to Quentin while watching a film on a few occasions.  During Joe Dante’s first festival,  Joe showed Mondo Cane - I’d never seen the film, but I figured seeing it for the first time sitting between Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright was about the best way to see it. (And let me just say that both gentlemen are very generous sharing their candy). At every gross scene, Edgar and I would both close our eyes and groan with disgust – and Quentin? He would just laugh and laugh – our reactions cracked him up.

 

 

 I also sat next to Quentin the first time I saw Inglorious Basterds. Having him lean over and whisper things about the making of the  film as it ran is probably one of my favorite New Beverly experiences. (Although dancing on stage with Rian Johnson and completely blanking out on my Q&A when Donovan Leitch kissed me on the cheek are way up there, too.)

 

 

Now Quentin is programming all of March for us. I’m excited because one of Quentin’s favorite things is to share obscure movies he  loves – and he knows that just by attaching his name to it, the film will get seen, even if no one has ever heard of it. I think  that’s about the best use of fame I can think of. Watching films that filmmakers you admire love is such a unique experience, and one that we’re lucky to have often at the Bev. AND we get to present the US premiere of the 247 minute cut of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. Believe me, I’m just as excited to see that as everyone else!

 

 

But, between you and me, you know what I’m most excited about? Those fantastic hugs.

a natives guide to las vegas

I was born and raised in Las Vegas. Yes, LAS Vegas, not “Vegas”. And its Nevada, not Nev-ah-da.

Before you ask, growing up there was like growing up anywhere else. My parents didn’t work for a casino. I hung out with friends, watched movies, the normal kid stuff. If you grow up there, you realize early on that gambling is for suckers, and generally stay away from the Strip because its crowded and full of annoying tourists.

And while I do regret never being able to have a “Vegas, baby, Vegas!” weekend, I like knowing about the hidden gems in the city that most visitors will never get to experience. After all, Las Vegas currently has a population of almost 2 million people, and not all of them are dealers and strippers. (Sorry to burst your bubble).

I thought I would share some of my secret spots here, in case you have a trip coming up and are longing for something a little off the beaten path. Enjoy!

-The Pinball Hall of Fame – http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

Everybody loves pinball, and this “hall of fame” has over 200 different types of machines! When I visited last time, the owner confided in me that this number is only a mere fraction of his collection, and that he has a warehouse with 900 more games! Every game at the hall of fame is in working condition, and date from the 1950′s until present day. Last time I was there, they were also selling 45s for 50 cents a piece. They have a machine called the Pinball Circus that is known as the “holy grail”of pinball machines. It was built as a prototype in 1994, an experiment in a vertical, as opposed to a horizontal  game. They only built two, and this is the only working one in the world. I’ve played it several times and it is tough. And, as if the place wasn’t cool enough already, it’s also a non-profit, so all of that money you’re dropping in is going right back into the place to repair non-working machines. GO.

- Jerry’s Nugget Coffee Shop – http://www.jerrysnugget.com/dining/pdfs/coffeeshop-menu.pdf

A recent discovery of mine, I heart Jerry’s Nugget Coffee Shop big time. They have the best sandwich I have ever eaten there. I know that’s a ludicrous claim, but its the truth. Slow roasted prime rib, carved and lovingly laid upon fresh-baked bread. Served with au jus and two kinds of horseradish. YUM. Plus, they have an entire separate menu for dessert, and trust me when I say that the milk cake will blow your mind. After you stuff your face, head on over to the roulette table and play a couple of hands. For a dollar per, even a cheap bastard like you can afford it.

- Savers – http://www.savers.com

If you’re into thrifting, check out Savers. There’s several all over the Las Vegas valley, and they are always stocked with awesome casino cast offs and clothes. Fun to explore.

- Valentino’s Zoot Suit Collection – http://www.yelp.com/biz/valentinos-zootsuit-connection-las-vegas

If you’re seriously into vintage clothes, check this place out. They are hardcore. Pricey, but worth it. I bought a gorgeous 1940′s peach swingers dress here to wear to my winter formal my freshman year of high school. I wore it with pride and was made fun of the entire night by my fellow students, who didn’t understand why I wasn’t dressed “modern”. (The story of my life). About six months later, the swinger craze caught on nationwide. I was punk before it was cool to be punk, you posers!

- Luv-It Frozen Custard – http://www.luvitfrozencustard.com/

You’ve had ice cream and gelato, but have you ever had frozen custard? It’s mad tasty. This place has been around since 1973 and has never expanded from the little walk up shack it still resides in. It’s incredibly cheap and delicious.

-Macayo’s – http://www.macayo.com/

I know, it’s a chain, but this is – hands down – my favorite mexican food. I always make my parents take me here every time I’m home. The tortilla soup and the chimichangas are out of this world. And this is where I learned the important life lesson – never eat your ice cream with a donkey.

- Farm Basket – http://www.farmbasketchicken.com/

Okay, so by this point you’re probably thinking that all I do when I go home is eat. That’s partially true. But sense memory is a powerful thing and Farm Basket just tastes like home to me. This used to be a fast food chain throughout Las Vegas, but sadly they have now all closed except for this location. Everything – from the Great Gobbler to the Super Clucker to the Clucketos are awesome. And come on, how often do you get to drive thru a barn? Every time I come I try to buy a Farm Basket shirt off of the employees and they look at me like I’m nutso.

The Double Down – http://www.doubledownsaloon.com/

I don’t know if I can really recommend the double down, since it’s really just the place I meet up with friends when I’m there, and since I don’t drink I can’t really take advantage. BUT. It’s located in a section of town that has a cluster of gay bars (affectionately known to locals as the fruit loop – hyuck!) But this ain’t no gay bar, its sleazy and loud and dirty and home to hipsters and scum bags alike. Their house drink is called Ass Juice and they won’t tell you what’s in it. The juke box is mainly punk rock. They are proud to be home to the bacon martini. They play exploitation over several TVs – last time I was there it was a grainy, jumpy 60′s educational birth film. (yuk.) BUT. I was crowned Miss Double Down in 2009 after being bullied into entering and deciding my “talent” was to beat the pageant host with a pool stick as hard as I could. So there’s something to be said for an establishment that rewards that kind of behavior, says I.

So there you are. Just a small taste of non-”Vegas” like fun. Happy trails!

Golden Earrings

Having anyone ask you to be the star of their feature film is a great feeling.  To have your best friend in the entire world ask – well, that’s just a unparalleled emotion.

 

 

Marion Kerr, said best friend, did just that. She had written a feature called Golden Earrings- no small feat in itself – with me in mind for the main character. She asked me to play the lead role of Ronnie and I of course said yes without even glancing at the script. When I did read it, I was struck by two things: one, how incredible of a writer that Marion is, and two: Ronnie is on-screen the entire film. Which meant the film would be resting on my shoulders. Which meant if my performance sucked, I would take the entire film down with me. No pressure. But Marion had faith in me, so I swallowed my fear.

 

 

We filmed over nine nights in a cramped apartment full of actors and equipment. Marion had not only written the script, but was also producing, acting and directing the film as well. She never let the pressure get to her and was always there when anyone had character questions or doubts. The film turned out wonderfully.  But we weren’t done. Over the next three years, Marion perfected the movie in post production with color correction, ADR and even a little bit of CGI.

 

We had our first preview screening for family and friends at the New Beverly (of course!) in October a few years ago. My parents drove out from Las Vegas to attend and I showed up just bubbling over with excitement, in a fancy red dress bought especially for the occasion. In addition to my parents and my close friends,  two of my favorite filmmakers in the whole world, Rian Johnson and Joe Dante were also in attendance – so the pressure was really on. I will never forget the feeling of sitting in my favorite place in the universe, surrounded by loved ones, watching my first starring role on the big screen. The film was a hit. People were completely caught off guard by how professional and accomplished the film was.  Knowing that the audience was mainly made up of notoriously hard to please hardcore New Bev film geeks, the overwhelming positive feedback was assuredly genuine. The comment I heard most that evening was “Wow! You were better than I thought you were going to be!”

 

Afterwards both Rian and Joe sent me emails congratulating me on the film, and specifically on my performance. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t quite process it. I am so in awe of these directors’ talent, and for them to not only attend our screening, but to give us quotes to use on our poster and DVD cover…just wow. Stuart Gordon would later add his quote to our box, and compare my performance to Catherine Deneuve’s  in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion. I think my brain completely leaked out of my ears that day.

Marion began submitting Golden Earrings to film festivals, and we had our world premiere at the Indie Spirit Festival in Colorado Springs, CO. I actually flew in straight from London to the festival, so I felt like a complete super star – albeit a very jet lagged one. My parents joined me in Colorado and flew out my brother and sister-in-law as a surprise as well. (I could write a whole separate blog on the unflappable support my parents have given my acting career during my lifetime). Again, I was blown away by the positive response from the screening, and we ended up winning the audience award for best horror feature. Golden Earrings would end up screening at the Dances with Films Festival in LA, the Vermont Film Festival, the Filmshift Festival in Boston, Shockerfest in Norcal, and the Big Bear Lake Film Festival.

 

And the best part about our success? Being able to share it with my friends.

 

John T. Woods, Lauren Mora, Teddy Goldsmith, Anthony Dimaano and Marion Kerr were all my good friends before the shoot, but going through the  process of making an independent film together, from start to finish, has solidified our friendship. I am part of a film that I am extremely proud of, and that pride is only heightened by the fact that everyone I worked with are amazing people – and unbelievably talented.

 

Golden Earrings is available to buy or stream online, but we haven’t had a distribution offer that we have found suitable yet.  I truly believe with all my heart that this film is good. And it needs to be seen. Not only so that it may (fingers crossed!) further my own career, but also the careers of my fellow hardworking filmmakers, who deserve recognition. Please help me spread the word about Golden Earrings – and help me pay off some of the enormous debt I owe to Marion.

goldenearringsmovie.com

 

 

In addition to being available for purchase online, we also have copies of the film available for purchase the box office of the New Beverly.

 

 

The interwebs make my head asplode.

When you write things on a public forum like, say, the internet, it’s accessible for everyone to read. That sentiment is so obvious that it is ridiculous to write. And yet, when you really stop to think about it, it’s pretty mind blowing. I started this blog on January second and in less than one month three thousand people have looked at  it. THREE THOUSAND.

My tiny pea brain can’t even begin to comprehend that. Who are these people? What did they think after reading what I wrote? Where did they find my blog? (yes, I realize I was posted on Ain’t It Cool News and that is a gigantic hub.)  Through google alerts I was also notified that my blog was linked to on Eddie Izzard’s Daily Paper, The Dallas Times, the 2011 Vans Warped Tour and the LA Kings websites. What?! Plus, I had people approach me at the New Beverly and say they enjoyed reading my piece – well, that was just doubly confounding.

Which is not to say i’m not thrilled. I am. Absolutely. I just didn’t think that three thousand people would ever read something that I wrote. So now, of course, i’m trying to come up with a way for this blog to be useful in some way. To me, to the New Bev, to the world, who knows? I feel like because I have the ability to reach so many people at once that I should say something important here, and not just talk about getting punched in the face and what kind of 80′s food I miss. But  that’s when I start writing for other people, and not for myself, and the whole point of this blog is to express my own opinions right? I don’t know. I don’t know what the point of this is, or where it will lead, or who will read it or why. These sort of questions become a never ending downward spiral.

A blog is supposed to be a sort of online diary.  A censored, grammatically correct, thought out, checked, double checked not particularly stream of consciousness diary. I have a real diary, a pen on paper one, and of course I would never write on here what I write in there. So even though this blog is ostensibly for me, it’s really not. On some level I am always taking into consideration who will read this.  Am I looking for recognition? Am I hoping that people will continue reading this, be delighted and amused by the intelligent and witty insights on here and recommend it to their friends? Link to it on their twitters and facebooks and webpages? Maybe a director will read it and say “Julia! Yes! The muse I have been waiting for to complete my next picture!”? Maybe a famous publisher will read it and say “Julia! Yes! A fantastic writer and observer of humanity! Let’s give her lots of money and send her to live in London for a year and write about her experiences, all expenses paid.”

I’d like to think i’m not that shallow. I fear that I am.

So unless I want to over think this inconsequential thing the only thing to do is just keep on chugging away. Write about things that interest me, whether or not they make a great deal of change in the world. Describe how the world looks through my eyes.  That’s all any of us can do, right? And if people read it, great. If I brighten one persons’ day, or makes one person smile, i’d like to think that its worthwhile.

And to all of you three thousand out there, a most heartfelt thank you.

An ode to the New Beverly Cinema

I moved to Los Angeles in September of 2001, fresh from college and brimming with excitement for the new digs I would be sharing with my best friend Marion Kerr, my new city, and the chance to finally fulfill my dreams of becoming a movie star. Somehow, within two weeks of moving here I came across a New Beverly Cinema calendar, and upon seeing it, I announced “I want to work here.” Just looking at that piece of paper solidified it for me. My first double feature was The Goonies and Gremlins, and I remember there were some crazed Corey Feldman fans in the house who would scream every time he appeared on-screen.  A theater where people loved Corey Feldman? I was home.

The New Beverly Cinema is the place I had always dreamed of finding. Family owned and operated, small and cozy, not worried about being the biggest or best, not concerned with uniforms or up selling or socking it to you at the concession stand. A place solely for true lovers of film who were coming to share the experience with a like-minded audience. With the invention of VHS and DVD, most films are available to watch at home, but I fully believe that watching a film as it is originally meant to be seen – in a theater, with an audience – cannot be surpassed. And the fact that the New Bev also  caters almost exclusively to the most hardcore of film geeks? It was love at first sight. I asked the owner Sherman Torgan for a job that very first day, and would continue to do so every time I came for the next five years.

Marion (who is also my current co-worker at the New Bev!)  and I were so overwhelmed by our first visit to the New Beverly that we wrote Sherman a letter telling him how much we loved the place. The next time we visited, we asked if he had received it. Sherman’s eyes glazed over with affection; “Did you girls write this? ” – he pulled it out of his shirt pocket -”Thank you so much.”  He let us in for free that day and we felt like movie stars.

We very quickly adopted a routine. We would stop for a cheap pizza on the way to the theater and bribe Sherman with a couple of slices for letting us bring it in.  My persistence was relentless, and I constantly hounded Sherman for a job. He was always sweet about it, but would firmly let me know that there simply weren’t any shifts available.

Some memories of the New Bev before I worked there: A first date with a gentleman who made me fifteen minutes late to see The Stunt Man - I told him that missing the beginning of a film was completely unacceptable to me and I never went out with him again. A first date with a gentleman who, upon seeing Orson Welles slap Rita Hayworth across the face in The Lady From Shanghai trailer, asked me if I would hit him like that – I never went out with him again. The first time Sherman let me see the projection booth. I was in complete awe. I didn’t think I could love the theater any more, and then that just increased it tenfold.

Sherman finally caved in after five years of begging in May of 2006, and gave up one of his shifts for me. I was completely over the moon, and would jump around every day when I got to work. After about a month, Sherman asked me “Why didn’t I hire you five years ago?”. Sigh. Why indeed? I was unbelieving of my luck. Getting paid to work at my favorite place in the entire world, and watching movies for free! I began recognizing the clientiel, and was thrilled when I began to be addressed by name, instead of just “that chick who works here”. I felt like i had to prove myself, being the only girl working there – was I a true film geek? Did I earn my position? I’d like to think over the years I have proved my enthusiasm not only for the theater, but also for cinema itself.

In July of 2007, I attended a double feature of Errol Flynn pirate movies. Sherman was there, hanging out on the steps with his son, Michael. As I left, I called “Hey, Sherman! See you tomorrow!” he smiled and waved and called out jocularly, “Absolutely!”. I never saw him again. Sherman’s sudden death was a blow to all of us. To have someone you’re used to seeing every day suddenly disappear is jarring and devastating. I was really thrown for a terrible existential loop after his death, not being able to comprehend  how someone so good and so young could be taken away. I didn’t know how to cope, especially since it seemed his death was going to mark the end of the New Beverly as well. Our ex-landlord sold the property on the day that Sherman died to two young upstarts who – no joke – wanted to change the space into a Chipotle and a Supercuts. I was furious. Not only was my favorite place going to be taken away from me, but it was going to fall victim to corporate consumerism – everything it stood against. I couldn’t bear it. But I felt helpless – what could I do to save it? I frantically called the Historical Preservation society to see if we could have it proclaimed a landmark, anything, anything to save it.

And then – a miracle . Michael found the original contract that Sherman had first signed with the ex-landlord. He had the right of first refusal when selling the theater. Quentin Tarantino, a man who I consider one of my personal heroes, stepped in and bought the building. Not only did he buy the building, but he renovated us completely . He promised publicly that as long as he was alive  the New Beverly would be too. He saved us. And why? Because Quentin sees in the New Beverly everything I see and he couldn’t bear to see it disappear either. I feel forever indebted to him, and think he’s probably the coolest landlord I will ever have. With a bit of an employee change, and help from our friends, the New Bev reopened, with Michael as our owner.

It was right after this chaotic time that we played a double feature of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright called us and asked if he could come to the theater and introduce the films. He asked us! We of course said yes, and the show was a sell out smash. I was sitting on the side of the stage, giddy, watching Edgar talk and feeling the excitement from the crowd – it was completely palpable. And that’s when the idea came to me. Why not ask Edgar to program some of the movies that he loves? Have him talk about the films that inspire him, films that make him feel the way that the audience feel about his films? So I brought it up to him and he immediately gave me a hearty yes. The New Beverly guest programming series was born.

I don’t know how well you know Edgar – I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the last three years – but he is a genius. Yes, he’s a great filmmaker, but he’s also smart, eloquent, funny, compassionate,  incredible at organization, at self promotion, at being accessible to his fans and a complete walking encyclopedia of cinema.  The first Wright Stuff festival took place in December of 2007 and it totally and completely blew everyone’s mind. The films! The guests! The Q&A’s! It was like nothing I had ever seen. I was so happy to see the New Beverly really and truly back on its feet, swarming with happy patrons greedily eating up all the cinema they could. And to look at all of it and know that I had put it together – along with infinite help from all of the New Bev staff and Edgar of course – was beyond my comprehension.  I was so very proud  - and I knew Sherman would be too.

Edgar really got the ball rolling as well. After his series, more guest programmers followed fast and furious – Eli Roth, Joe Dante, Diablo Cody, Seth Green, Patton Oswalt, Rian Johnson, Peter Bogdanovich, Stuart Gordon…. For me, an absolute dream list of filmmakers – and to watch them geek out over films just like I do – revelatory. Not to mention of course, the countless guests who have come to introduce  films out of the goodness of their hearts over the years.   To help facilitate an ongoing series that, in my mind, has changed the New Beverly from a great repertory house into the foremost revival theater in the world, well, it leaves me speechless.

And now, in January 2011, we’ve come full circle. Edgar Wright has returned to the New Beverly to program the Wright Stuff II. And the same excitement is there! Every screening that I introduce Edgar to the crowd and stand at the edge of the theater watching him talk about the films, I just smile. I love to watch him share his enthusiasm about cinema with the crowd, and I love watching the audience return it. An audience  just happy to be watching a movie with a group of people who love film as much as they do. And that makes me so ecstatic. Because that’s what the New Beverly Cinema is about, at its core. Film lovers.

I hope, of course, that the New Beverly will be around for a very very long time. I hope we continue to have guest programmers come and share their favorite films. I hope I will always be involved with the theater in some way. I am so incredibly lucky not only to have a job that I absolutely adore, but one that gives happiness to so many people. To be even a small part of that is astounding. And even if I never make it as a movie star, well, being a star at the New Beverly Cinema ain’t a bad back up plan.

I’m very strange.

I think I am probably the only person in the universe who would have a dream about being in a 1980′s grocery store and be so incredibly happy about it. My 80′s nostalgia, apparently, has no boundaries, and in my dream I was gleefully running through the aisles, delighting at the delicious, long gone products of my youth and throwing them in my cart, shopping spree style. When I woke up, I was giddy with the memories of such foodstuffs, and here I present to you some of my very favorite long gone items:

Aaahhh…Peanut Butter Boppers. One of my very favorites. Stick these puppies in the freezer and you were good to go.

Like Golden Grahams, but way way better. Golden Grahams with chocolate and marshmallow pieces. YUM.

If I had some of this I would make it right now. And what amazing food scientist invented Jello that could separate itself?! Genius!

I’d like to give a shout out to the Crystal Palace Skating Centers (the skate of the art!) in Las Vegas, NV. Many evenings were spent blissfully going in circles to Salt n Pepa and the usual 1980′s freestyle jamz. The nights would inevitably end up with me in tears because one of my friends would couple skate with the boy I liked. My dad used to always comment on the fact that the parking lot there would be empty, but you would walk inside and the place would be packed. Definitely the under sixteen crowd.

When you’re eight and only have a dollar to your name, Cherry Clan are rad because they were only 25 cents a piece. I downed many boxes of these puppies before the manufacturer got scared of the racist depiction of the chinky cherries on the box and changed them to the politically correct/nonsensical Cherryhead. Some of my favorite Crystal Palace memories include:

1. Watching the cool, older kids make out in the dark corners of the place, and thinking “someday, that will be me”. (It never was.)

2. Having an acquaintance of mine go into some sort of hypoglycemic episode, begging me to buy him a candy bar to regulate his blood sugar, and me getting angry because I had no idea what he was talking about and thought he was just trying to scam candy off me.

3. Requesting Thriller from the DJ, because they would turn all of the lights off and blow smoke onto the rink (which was rumored to be made out of marshmallow dust), and then subsequently being too afraid to skate to it because they turned all of the lights off and blew smoke onto the rink.

4. The coup de grace of my Crystal Palace days was when Robert Caraciollo, one of the cutest boys in my fifth grade class, asked me to couple skate with him. I was over the moon. We sailed around the rink, holding hands, as if we were the only two in the world. Then the song ended, we let go of each other, he fell  and I rolled over his fingers. We never skated together again.

I just realized about six months ago that Slice has disappeared.  WTF? Do people really prefer the dish soap taste of Sierra Mist? Yuk.

Another delicious product I just noticed was missing. I used to drink these all the time during those lovely 120 degree Las Vegas summer days.

Although I clearly remember this product, it does remain a bit of an enigma to me. No matter how much I begged my father, he would never let me buy this cereal. I was confused because I could have Cookie Crisp, and really whats so different? I was also never allowed to have Kudos, which I coveted, and I always had to drink 100% juice, so no Squeezits  or Ecto Coolers for me. And, even though in the end I see that my parents were correct in keeping me away from these foods, its amazing how uncool you can feel in elementary school when everyone is pulling out those awesomely designed Capri Suns, and you’re stuck with your lowly box of Treetop apple juice.

So does this make me a weirdo, to be nostalgic about the foods of my youth? I say no more so than having a soft spot in your heart for Thundercats or the Glo-worm doll you used to sleep with. Sometimes I think if I really did travel back in time, the grocery store might be my first stop.

The first rule is you don’t talk about…

I’ve always wanted to be in a fight.

But a fair fight. I don’t want to get jumped by several people, nor do I want to fight someone way bigger than me, or a prissy girl who wants to scratch and bite. I want a fair fight – fisticuffs if you will – I punch you, you punch me, fair is fair. But therein lies the rub, because you never know what kind of fight you will get in the real world. Fist fights are rarely planned in advance and never fair.  This is a desire that I’ve had for a very long time, and whenever I mention it to people they either look at me like i’m nutso and am going to punch them in the face (which i would never do without consent), or suggest I take up boxing. But I don’t want to fake punch someone, I want to really do it.

And so, one of my new years resolutions became to start a fight club. Yes, I know. I’m not supposed to talk about fight club. But this isn’t a film, and i’m not Tyler Durden, so screw that.  I put up a few posts on my twitter account to see if any of my friends were interested in getting punched in the face. Surprisingly, a few were.

Why, might you ask, would I want to hit a friend and not stranger? Do I dislike my friends? No, of course not. I felt like this whole scheme was dicey at best anyway, and the sense of trust I have with my friends would be of the utmost importance in it.  If I put up an anonymous ad on craiglist announcing an underground fight club in LA , I can’t even imagine the kinds of responses I would get, even if I specified girls only. There would be safety, a sense of fun and the absurd if I fought with friends.

Which is how I came to spend last Saturday afternoon trading punches with three of my good girlfriends here in LA – Tasha, Amy and Jen. These three girls are some of the most beautiful, girly, dainty girls you will ever see, and yet all of them also harbored these feelings of violence and curiosity . We arrived at Jen’s nervous and giggly. Jen’s boyfriend, Todd, surveyed us, declared us out of our minds and skulked off to his office to write. (I did receive several requests, mostly from boys, who asked to just come and watch. They were promptly denied.) We headed out to the backyard and began jumping around, trying to drum up the courage to hit each other.

We decided starting with the arm at 30% power was a good start, and we’d work up from there. 30% was nothing, so we quickly moved up to 50% and finally 100% power on the arms. Tasha was the most tentative of the four of us, tapping me lightly with her tiny fist, then quickly looking up and searching my face to make sure I was okay. Amy, a lefty, was mostly concerned with her aim – since her first arm punch on me landed on the side of my breast instead. (ow.) Jen, a former rugby player, was a little freight train. The most petite of all of us, she packed a lot of power into her punches and followed through with no regret. In between all of these half-assed punches there was a lot of giggling and remarking on the absolute absurdity of the situation.

I was the first to ask to be hit in the face. Tasha was only too happy to oblige. But, her timidity resulted in a face tap that was more like a kiss than a punch. I had decided early on that I wanted get a black eye, so all punches were directed to my left cheekbone and eye. I discovered within the first few punches that I preferred to keep my eyes closed when being hit. That immediate flinch reaction when a fist comes at your face just made the whole situation worse. So I would keep my eyes closed and know that a punch would be coming in the next ten seconds or so, but not see it coming. Jen, not surprisingly, was the first to sock me one that i really felt. I heard a meaty “thunk” inside my head, felt my brain slosh against the back of my skull, saw stars explode across my vision and immediately felt a warmth surge through my face. I opened my eyes and saw Jen’s startled expression at the ferocity of her punch. “Oh my god, are you okay?” she cried, grasping me into a hug. I was okay. I was more than okay, I felt great. I had taken a pretty serious hit to the mug, and I felt fine.  All my life I had thought getting punched in the face would be very high on my scale of pain tolerance, and it wasn’t that bad! I felt proud that I was made of tougher stuff than I had imagined.

After the initial jitters wore off, everyone started to really get into it. Each girl gayly called “Someone punch me in the face!” with a look of excitement and glee, and one of us would, of course, oblige. Jen, hardcore little minx that she is, started experimenting with stomach shots, something that the other three of us only dipped our toes into. After about an hour or so, we were sore and cold, so we headed inside for some snacks and drinks. Yes, we spent the afternoon hitting each other as hard as we could in the face, then ate weiner winks and drank lemonade. Ain’t girls strange creatures?

 

A discussion followed in which we all agreed that we had a much better time than we thought we would, and were slightly ashamed of the fact that we kind of wanted to do it again. Every girl mentioned a friend she thought would be into it. So will this turn into a monthly meeting? We shall see…

 

To me, the most interesting thing has been people’s reactions to my black eye. The general public won’t make eye contact or mention it. I think it’s pretty sad that we live in a society where everyone’s first reaction to a girl with a black eye is to immediately assumed she’s in a domestically abusive relationship. I have never been hit by a boy, and if I was I would definitely fight back and then promptly kick his ass to the curb. I feel like this black eye is a badge of pride, and want to yell out to everyone who gives me a sad glance that I’m a total bad ass.

 

I’ve also been told by several people  that “you guys should totally film it. put it up on the internet, you’d make SO much money.” Um, no. I’m sorry, but foxy boxing was not what I had in mind when I thought this up. We’re doing it for our pleasure, not yours.

 

If you’re a lady who is interested in joining, let me know. I don’t know what will happen with this, whether it will continue and grow, or peter out, but I do know that you actually can learn about yourself from a fight, and that, somehow, punching my close friends in the face actually brought us closer together. Who’d a thunk it?

 

Its 2011. Time. To. Blog.

Ahem. Testing, testing. (knocks on microphone. slight surge of feedback.)

So. I have decided to begin a bloggy thingy here. I’m not exactly sure what i will be using it for yet, but i thought i would give it the old college try.

Apparently people enjoy reading other people’s thoughts. I would never think anyone would be particularly interested in reading mine, but i suppose my thoughts are just as valid/rambling/obtuse as anyone elses, so there we are.

2011 started off wonderfully, with riding the metro, eating incredible japanese food in little tokyo, doing flips on a discarded mattress on the side of the road, listening to monty python on vinyl, cooking my first dish of beef stroganoff, secret handshakes, mochi, and a little poetry thrown in for good measure. Most of this wonderfulness is due to the presence of a certain boy who is pretty damn wonderful himself.

I have a new year’s tradition of picking a song to be my anthem for the year. I believe I can sort of shape the direction my year will be starting off in. This year i picked Tonight The Streets Are Ours by  Richard Hawley, off of the Exit Through the Gift Shop soundtrack. The film was one of my favorites of last year, and made me want to go out and express myself and become a hardcore underground artist/revolutionary. Whether or not this will actually happen remains to be seen, but it’s a great song anyway.

curious to hear it?

My favorite exchange of 2011, thus far. I was at a liquor store, buying a phone card. The clerk asked how I was.

Me: Spiffy.

Clerk: Sleepy?

Me: Spiffy.

Clerk: Fifty?

Me: Spiffy.

Clerk. Pithy?

Me: SPIFFY.

Clerk. Oh. Okay. Have a nice day.

2011, i like your style.