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Details, details, details…

A million little annoying things to do, and a list of prep work the length of my arm, I did what any smart director does in this situation.  I wrote a list and got the fuck out of town…

I debated actually going on the trip, but at the end of the day, I haven’t really had a weekend off since last August, and I really needed time to decompress, so off into the wild green yonder we went.

Three days in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service, a new sketchpad, and some quiet.  A quick run through of the packing list…clothes… check….toothbrush… check… food… check…beer…check.  And bad movies.  Lots and lots of bad movies.  Houston… we are clear for lift off!

This is a tradition that dates back years, where me and three friends go to remote areas of Missouri and take a projector and a movie screen and spend the weekend sampling films.  Films that are so bad, we have to hide our shame in the remote areas of Missouri…  When I say bad movies… I mean BAD movies.  This years sampling: Piranha 2: The Spawning, Troll 2 (you know, the one with no trolls in it?!??!) ,  a Nicholas Cage film made in the last 5 years (’nuff said!), Machete, Transformers 2:Revenge of the Fallen, and the creme de la creme Nude Nuns With Big Guns (not making that up!) which I thought was actually better than Machete.

Why you ask?

Because Machete was a big film trying to look like a grindhouse movie.  Nuns was a grindhouse movie, and pretty heavily influenced by Robert Rodriguez directing style.  Thought you might want to know that in case you have to choose between the two… But really you don’t have to, and if you don’t I understand.

Now you may ask, “OMG did the Nicholas Cage film hurt?”

Yes.  Yes it did.

Then you may also ask: “Why whould you do this?  I mean, actually watch a Nicholas Cage Film, or any of the movies you watched?”  Well, it’s an awful lot of fun, and we’re all MST3K fans.  The other reason is, you can’t really appreciate a great movie unless you can figure out what makes a movie bad, and not everything can be an intellectual pursuit.  Sometimes you just have to suffer through an unfiltered complete and utter crap bombardment, so that when you do sit down and watch Akira Kurasowa’s Ran, or Gattica, or Fight Club you really can appreciate just how great they really are.  So, consider it research.  Which also leads me to the conclusion that I can’t ever watch this movie objectively.  So at the end of the day, as much as I love what I’m doing, I’m going to have to rely on the judgement of others when this is all said and done.

I could take a few lines, and try to make a larger point of all of this, but it would just come off as self-serving, and disingenuous.  So, I think I’ll pass, and just let the movie we’re about to wrap up stand on it’s own, because I know it can.

That being said, I returned from the trip Sunday afternoon, and everything that needed to be taken care of was.  So we’re all set.  Just a few days until our last shooting days with Clark, and finally getting to shoot with Kerri and Christian, which I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time. (Christian was originally cast to play John, but suffered an injury in a car accident just as we were about to begin shooting.)

While on the trip I came up with the last of the movie poster concepts, and I’m probably going to let the cast pick there favorite.  I’ve also been kicking around the idea of throwing them up here on the site, and letting our avid readers vote.  So if you want to try and convince me, leave a comment, preferably one that doesn’t have a link to a site selling herbal Viagra or some other nonsense.

Much more to come.  Stay tuned.