More Sundancin

Ok, wattup since my last post?

Well... I finally managed my first blag, into a Miramax party. Me and two of my actors - Robert and Jay - were wandering up and down Main Street looking for an elusive venue when we finally gave up and just tried to crash the first party we found. The combination of repeating very loud, "I'm a director, these are some actors and we have a film here" combined with pretending to have been invited by the head of Miramax - the only name any of us could come up with to get in - actually got us in. Only the party had about 5 people and shut down 10 minutes later, leaving us back at square one.

So we hooked up with my friend Rebecca and some folks from a Peruvian film and drank lots of wine in a dive. Here's what I observed: it's great being a young British actor in Utah. First thing is, because they're really good looking girls just talk to them. Second, as soon as they open their mouths, the girls go totally bonkers. And third - once they say they're acting in a film people have half heard of... it's crazytime.

Some films... We went to see a high-end indie called 'Henry Poole Was Here' and it was utter garbage. The worst type of crappy cookie cutter indie film that gives indie films a bad fucking name. A mawkish, cliched combination of a young man with terminal cancer, suburban 'magic', beautiful mute girls, and spiritual checkout clerks and the power of miracles and... Jesus even typing this garbage makes me feel like a hack. Directed by Mark Pellington - who has done great work, namely the awesome Arlington Rd - this was abysmal and frequently lapsed into edited montages reminiscent of the mid 90s music videos he once directed.

After that - had a power meeting in an Irish pub with the films producers and sales agent and publicists. What did we decide? Alot of interested people will be coming to the film. Not all of them will like it. Hopefully the ones who do really will but... what about the nudity? The accents? Omigod. Really no one knows anything. But very soon... we will.

Another actor, Julian Morris, arrived with a bottle of rum (one cannot buy hard liquor in Utah, a dry state), his 2000 kilowatt smile and an LA publicist who's job is to get Julian a bunch of interviews and as much free shit as possible, known as 'swag' (according to J this stands for 'stuff we always get'). If you know Julian, you can picture this very clearly.

Another film - 'Mancora'. A Peruvian movie about a dysfunctional young guy who's dad has just committed suicide who goes on a road trip with his super hot sister (or is it half sister?) and her sleazy asshole boyfriend. He ends up shagging his sister, then he gets into a super hot threesome at a house party full of Peruvian hipsters, then he takes mind altering hallucinogens and does some stoned beach wrestling with the sleazy boyfriend. Sounds alright, eh? Well the photography looked stunning and the sex/party scenes were really well done - and I do feel like I can speak with a bit of authority here - but the characters were pretty flat and all in all it felt like Y Tu Mama Tambien without the soul.

And also... Dave Bloom and Francois the composer arrived this evening. Everyone has had some sort of nightmare getting to Park City, but best of all was Francois' American Airlines flight from Paris where halfway over the Atlantic the captain announced that they didn't have enough fuel and would half to make an unscheduled landing in New York. The rest of the flight involved alot of praying to many different gods. Anyway, we alll met up and went for a very good steak on Main Street. Meg Ryan was sitting at the table next to us, which is cute because she is here with a film they were shooting in Capetown exactly the same time as us - in fact, we shared the same bondsman.

The last 2 actors, Jaime and Nichola landed late last night so now... We are a full house.