Everyday Goddess

Learning about Heart Disease Has Never Been So Sweet.

Oh, I had such a wonderful time! And I really learned a lot about heart disease.

You can read about it over at Everyday Goddess Does... "You've Gotta Have Heart" to Fight Heart Disease.

"You've Gotta Have Heart"

I went to this really awesome event last night called "You've Gotta Have Heart." I can't write it up until I get home from work today, but I pulled myself out of bed early to get the pics up on Flickr.

Check it out, and tonight I'll tell you all about it!

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing items in a set called "You've Gotta Have Heart". Make your own badge here.

Cyberman! Cyberman!

You just never know who you're going to run into in Hollywood.  Or Studio City for that matter.

I have to tell you, my friend was giving me a tour of her office, and I just about jumped out of my skin when I saw this guy.  Cybermen are scary, scary chaps.

He let me take a pic with him, though, and then we escaped.

New Zombie PSA up at Falcon Rock Command

The final installment of the three zombie PSAs I worked on is up over at Falcon Rock Command (dated 19 FEB 2010). This one features John Billingsley.

Funny story. So John Billingsley shows up on set, and I have an immediate reaction of, I've Met Him Before. Followed immediately by, OMG, I just did that thing where you think you know or have met someone because they're on TV. Total Dork.

But it's nagging me because I've only ever done that once, walking towards Breckin Meyer in Beverly Hills. Totally weird; I had this moment of friend recognition before I realized that No, That's Beckin Meyer and You Don't Actually Know Him.

But, the feeling that I have actually met and spoken to John Billingsley will not go away. Until finally I remember that I met him at the cast and crew screening of Out of Time right when I first moved here and was green as green can be. I went up to him and told him that I loved him on Enterprise. Oh yes; yes I did.

Anyway, he's super nice in person and very creepy in the new update from Falcon Rock Command (although he's not exactly at Falcon Rock Command...), so go check it out.

There's a great article up over at Wired about the viral campaign, too.  You know I love the web content concepts.

Next week, the "Alive" creators are going to "pull back the curtain" and post a documentary-style piece about the concept and the shoot. Should be pretty cool. But to tide you over, check out my Flickr of pics from the "Alive" shoot at the Chiodo Bros. in Burbank.

Return from Octo-Butt-Numb-A-Thon!

Friday night, December 8th, 2006, The Boyfriend and I went to see "Pan's Labyrinth" at The Alamo Draft House in Austin, TX.  It was the eve of the Ain't It Cool News Octo-Butt-Numb-A-Thon, the first time I ever drove myself around Austin, and the first time I brought a guy "home" in almost a decade.

Later we went to an after/before party at Barton Springs Saloon.  We made conversation with two girls who I'm pretty sure didn't end up getting in the next day on the standby line, but who had attended before and gave us some useful intel.  We also introduced ourselves to Harry Knowles, to thank him for picking us and for being such an awesome 24-hour film screening planning guy, not to mention website guru.  We chickened out on asking for a picture.

You want to say, "Why us?  What made you pick us?"  But it seems a little egotistical to think he remembers your application, or has every attendee's identity memorized.  It would be a funny thing to include in the yearbook, though.  "Liz Rizzo - fake penis picture."

Yeah, a few people have that pic, so if I'm ever famous, that picture's so popping up on some late night talk show.  On cable. 

But not this blog.

Harry was quietly friendly, surrounded by friends and fans.  He has a really nice voice, too.

"Pan's Labyrinth" was great, and beginning at noon the next day, December 9th, 2006, we would see:

• Black Snake Moan, Introduced by Craig Brewer, who stayed to watch movies until 6am.
• Dreamgirls, With Bill Condon Q&A afterwards.
• Once Upon A Girl, Animated Fairytale Porn.  Scary.
• Inherit the Wind, Based on an evolution/creationism education case in 1925.
• Rocky Balboa, With taped Sly Stallone intro.
• Extended trailer for Fanboys, filmmakers in the house.
• Knocked Up, Actor Seth Rogen was there.
• Black Book, Paul Verhoeven's Nazi film.
• The Informer, Otherwise known as the film that many peeps slept through.
• Raw Force, Samurai Zombies and Freaky Monks.
• Smokin' Aces, With taped Joe Carnahan that played after.
• 300, Zac Snyder in the house.

OK, so it's 10:30am on December 9th and in we go to the Alamo Drafthouse.  We'd been in a different Drafthouse location for "Pan's Labyrinth," so we had some idea what to expect.  Being first-timers and way down on the who-got-in list, we worried that our seats would be less than optimal, but we turned out to be sitting right where we would have chosen to sit if left to our own devices.  Nice and central, both horizontally and vertically speaking.  And lots of friendly neighbors.  Rock!

The gift bags were heavy, and right away I was bummed that I didn't get a transformer.  The Boyfriend got a transformer!  I did, however, get a cool comic book he didn't get and a Star Wars toy that was basically a little bust of Obi-Wan, so that was cool.  I also totally scored on the books; I got a couple more books than The Boyfriend.  Which I was happy about, because I love to read.  You know, in my spare time.  Ha!  Oh, and I am crazymad in love with my Octo-Butt-Numb-A-Thon t-shirt.

I'm not going to give a detailed run-down on the gift bag.  I think Harry publishes that eventually.  Cool stuff, and on the way out, lots of cool posters.  OK, moving on...

We get settled, get our bottomless soda, and with much woohooing the first movie starts, and it's "Black Snake Moan."  When it's over, I turn to The Boyfriend and say, "Nothing's going to top that for me."  This could be where I tell you that that turned out not to be true, but I do know myself, and WOW did I LOVE "Black Snake Moan."  As totally awesome as Octo-Butt-Numb-A-Thon continued to be, nothing topped "Black Snake Moan" for me.  That was my number one screening, and Craig Brewer in the house was pretty cool.

I should mention that I didn't make an effort to meet any of the directors that were there.  I suppose I *should* have, but I just wanted to sit back and enjoy and not stress out about trying to meet people.  I just wanted to go have fun and watch a lot of movies, and that's just what I did.

I'm not going to run down each film specifically.  I'll just say a few thoughts that come to mind...  "Rocky Balboa" is really, really great, and you should totally go see it.  Sly Stallone taped a nice intro for us, but I wish he was there to hear us all going "Rocky!  Rocky!"  It's so great that it's a good film.

Eddie Murphy is really great in "Dreamgirls," and I hope he gets an Oscar nom for it.  I enjoyed "Dreamgirls" very much, but I think it could have used an ax to about 20/30 minutes in the middle.  They needed to kill some babies (this is an editing term that refers to cutting out stuff you love because it's what the film needs overall), because the film is fat.  Really, really great, but butt-shifting fat in the middle.

Let's see... I loved "Knocked Up."  Like really a lot.  I thought it was well-written and well-executed and fun and enjoyable.  I liked the characters and the story and the performances.  I'm also SO SO sad we didn't get to see "Fanboys" in its entirety - the extended trailer was tear-inducing funny.  I was really glued to "Black Book," too.  Very intense.  And "300" was stunning and really interesting.  Definitely recommend, it was great to see ancient Greece and the Spartans depicted so compellingly.  Very, very kick-ass film.

The Drafthouse is a supercool place.  I was definitely in love with the concept of writing what you want on a piece of paper and having food and drink brought to you while you enjoy the film.  The only negative was that our first waiter was a miserable ass.  Clearly didn't want to be there.  Under ordinary circumstances, I definitely wouldn't have tipped him at all - it was that bad - but they had mentioned in emails about being sure to tip, so I did.  Then, the next day while I was running to the bathroom, I overheard some of the wait staff saying peeps hadn't even put tips on their food receipts, so I left an extra $5 on the way out.  Thing was though, you get this receipt in the dark while a film is playing and there's just no light to see it.  It was actually difficult to tip one time because of that, although I managed it.  It would be SO much better if you could just get one bill at the end, but I can imagine why they don't do that.  Still, finding a way to get you your receipt when the lights are on would help.  Oh, and not being a dick, too.

Our waitress after that guy left was cool, though.  Thankfully.

As for sleeping... After getting up at 8am Saturday, I made it to 4:30am Sunday without a wink of sleep.  Then, at 4:30am, "The Informer" hit.  It was slow, and it was full of soft-focus close-ups and sentimental music.  And here's the thing - what if I made a HUGE effort to stay wide awake through it, and then slept through a cool new film at the end of Butt-Numb-A-Thon???  I decided to let myself snatch a few winks, although I still remember quite a bit of the film, so I was definitely just cat napping in and out.  What blows though, is that I couldn't shake it off at the beginning of "Raw Force," a cheesy cool film with samurai zombies, hello!

What I should have done, was walk it off more and refill my diet coke at the bar before "Raw Force."  Next time, I will definitely keep that soda fresh even while the come-to-you service is suspended.  Luckily, I managed to pick myself up just as our heroes were landing on the island with the samurais, so I did see a large chunk of that film.  Still, I was mad at myself that I missed any of it.

After that there was a bigger break with a breakfast buffet, and I saw every second of "Smokin' Aces" and "300."  The Boyfriend and I got into a discussion where I said that I would have enjoyed "Smokin' Aces" more if there were more female roles, like maybe one of the cops.  Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with the film, because that's the filmmaker's story and it was well-executed.  I was just saying that I *personally* would have enjoyed it more with more female roles.  The Boyfriend pointed out that there's a bunch of prostitutes in the film, but that wasn't quite what I was looking for.

A friend of mine who's a cop works with a woman who took 7 bullets - none of which hit her vest - while switching her gun from her right hand to her left - her right arm took the first bullet - and taking the guy down as he shot her up.  So don't tell me at least some of those cops in "Smokin' Aces" couldn't have been women.  I'm just sayin'.

Another cool thing was that Julie Gonzalo was there.  She's on Veronica Mars.  She starred in a film short that I was video assist on at FSU Film School.  I ran into her in the bathroom, so unfortunately didn't get to chat with her too much, and didn't run into her again, but it was cool to connect for a few seconds.  I didn't expect her to remember me - the girl behind the cart who kept dumping her extension cords into the pool and having to get new ones from best boy electric.  But it never hurts to have that, Hey, my thesis producer was production designer on Penny Game moment.

Finishing up here, yet another cool thing about Butt-Numb-A-Thon is that before all the movies they show vintage trailers and such.  Right off the bat they were playing a music video called "Grease" that had a young Morgan Freeman as one of the backup singers.  Plus, I have an insight into theater porn now.  There's an education you'll get nowhere else!

OMG, I totally forgot to mention an animated short called "Chirpy" that played before "Octo-Butt-Numb-A-Thon."  Let's just say it continued on the animated theme of the event.  Oh, yeah.

The Boyfriend and I had the most awesome and truly unique time, so here's hoping it's not just a one-shot attendance opportunity.  It was definitely worth the flight!

And next time, we're asking Harry for a picture.  Maybe.

Oh, and because The Boyfriend and I are Just That Geeky, we created a graph of our BNAT enjoyment levels.  Oh, yeah!

David Lynch is sitting on the corner of Hollywood and La Brea with a cow.

And I left my camera at home today.  Literally walked back in my house and put it on my bed because I'm going to a screening tonight and I didn't want to screw up and bring it into the theater and also because I took the subway, so I was leaving anything I didn't really need at home rather than walk to the subway with a bunch of weight on my shoulder.

Kill me now.

He's promoting Inland Empire and Laura Dern.

Well-known filmmaker sitting outside with a cow.  David Lynch, you rock my world.

UPDATE:  Cow's gone.

Get me some ice, 'cause my butt's going numb!

DUDE.

The Boyfriend and I totally got into Octobutt-Numb-A-Thon!!! 

From Wikipedia:

Butt-numb-a-thon is an an annual film marathon held every December since 1999. It is hosted by Harry Knowles of the Ain't it Cool News website to celebrate his birthday. This mini-festival shows 24 hours of vintage films as well as premieres. Films that have been shown include the first public screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, as well as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Chicago, Snatch, Magnolia, V For Vendetta, and both the original King Kong and the 2005 remake. Guests have included Mel Gibson, Peter Jackson, Vin Diesel, and Guillermo Del Toro. It is held annually in Austin, Texas, at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown location.

I AM SO EXCITED!!!

You have to understand that being an aspiring in L.A. gives you a tendency not to get too excited or get your hopes up about things.  You can get the opportunity of a lifetime in this town and have it simply evaporate within an hour.  Excitement before something's a signed done deal could probably kill you given the right circumstances.

I don't like it, it's not me, and yet I feel myself doing it, acting "cool" about something.  One of the questions on the application was why do you want to go, and my first answer was a little held back.  The Boyfriend called me on it, and he was right.  So I sat down and wrote more - about how hard it is to hold on to the magic, even as you're living in the town that creates it.  And how very, very much I truly love film.  And how totally cool it would be to be in a room for 24 hours watching films with other people who don't think that's insane, but rather, that it completely rocks.

HUZZAH!!!  HUZZAH!!!  HUZZAH!!!

Plus, now I'm visiting my parents in December and taking some MUCH needed time off.  So it's all happy, happy.  You can read about Octobutt-Numb-A-Thon and see the application questions here.

They got 6,749 applications and picked 186 peeps.  I'm just a little psyched, can you tell?

~

In other film/television/boyfriend news, The Boyfriend is part of the mob on 1 vs. 100 tomorrow night (Friday).  Rumor has it that money was won, but I've no idea how much or how it goes down.  He's been marvelously tight-lipped, and I can't wait to watch it.  Remember, he looks like this, but I don't think he wore the kilt.  He's in a light blue shirt, and he's totally cute and smart.  So I'm sure you'll pick him right out of the crowd.

~

OMG WE'RE GOING TO OCTOBUTT-NUMB-A-THON!!!

Wait, did I mention that already?

Note to Self and Others:  I hereby promise to make my best effort to fully watch any and all blood, gore, and violence during Octobutt-Numb-A-Thon.  It's about time I desensitized, and damned if I'm going to miss one minute of anything.  'Cause...

WE'RE GOING TO OCTOBUTT-NUMB-A-THON!!!  HUZZAH!  HUZZAH!  HUZZAH!

It really didn't go as bad as it could have.

February was rapidly becoming a month of near misses in the running-into-cool-peeps department.  Jason Bateman on the floor.  Missed him.  Twice.  On the way in and on the way out.

And I think I walked by Nathan Fillion today.  Got a sideways glance at a face through the side of big sunglasses.  If it was him, he's much bigger than I would have thought.  Guy had on a cowboy hat in Hollywood.  Hot.

I was actually sitting in my office thinking that maybe a series of near-misses could somehow make a mildly amusing post (riiight...) when Jay Mohr's voice came rocketing down the hallway.  I held out, but eventually I wandered up to see about the racket.  Peep's were having way too much fun up front for after quitting time.

So I walk up front, and Jay's just chillin' out and talking shit with John, our receptionist.  He's actually sitting behind John looking at stuff on his computer.  Turns out he writes on his website.  He's got a funny post up about shilling for Pepsi.  He's also on myspace.  (I just may be Jay's 2015th friend.  We Are So Close Already.)  And he knows Italian women have great butts.  Good man.

Funny thing, I remembered as I was headed back to my office that he does (did?) stand-up.  Just popped into my head; he's got the comedian energy.  Can't believe I'd completely forgotten that.  He's got CDs and stuff up at his online store.

Even More Interesting, when digging through some quotes from movies he's done that aren't Jerry Maguire to find a title for this post, I discovered that he said, "Tell me something that I don't know" in Playing By Heart in 1998.  Dude, is that where we got that?  Or were we saying it before?  (Vance?)

Title comes from Go, in case you were curious.  Jay's been in some of my life-moment films.  Cool.

He had an interesting energy.  Laid-back and high-strung at the same time.

Livin' the La La...

UPDATE:  Poor Melinda didn't get to meet Jay.

Thank you for coming; I'm sorry that the chairs are all worn.

I met director Kevin Smith at my ten-year high school reunion.  His wife, Jennifer, was in my class.  I think the closest our orbits came was that year I decided to try out for cheerleading.  I didn't make it, my potential cool kid ticket didn't materialize, and I went back to chorus and thespians and math club.  Oh yeah, baby, Math Club.

There's also a very little brain gerbil in the back who thinks she was in my fourth grade class with the psycho desk-throwing teacher.  Let's hope that's not true.  The less peeps with that memory, the better!

So anyway, I go to the ten-year reunion and somebody says, Kevin Smith is here.  I am a huge Chasing Amy fan, and I'd just started taking film classes at PBCC.  I can't remember if I'd just applied to FSU, or if I knew I was going at that point.  Anyway, I go over, basically interrupt his conversation with a friend with some attempt at please-excuse-me-but and kinda gush.  Kevin Smith was the first established filmmaker I ever met in person, and I was a mad indie film fan at that point.

And I was OK until I decided to go back and ask for a picture with him.  Oh, you're cringing now, aren't you?  Yeah.  Such A Dork.

So, at that point, I lost my cool a bit.  And then I said, "So, do you have anything coming up now?"

To which he replied, "Yeah, DOGMA."  Which was coming out in like two weeks and you'd have to be under a rock not to know if you were indeed the fan you just finished saying you were.  The nervous mindblank is SUCH a bitch.

So, life goes on.  Film School, the major heartbreak, the move to the La La, the PSA, the shadowing, yada, yada, yada.

I'm pulling into a parking lot last Tuesday morning to hit the Starbucks, and I see someone across the parking lot who looks like Kevin Smith walk into a drycleaners.  Now.  I have been waiting to run into Kevin Smith in L.A. for years now.  So that I can say, "Hey, I met you at my ten-year high school reunion."

We all have our dreams, OK?

That said, following someone who might be Kevin Smith into a drycleaners is just a little much.  So I go into the Starbucks.  And I think, if he comes into the Starbucks, then I'll know if it's him when I see him, and I'll say something.  And in he walked.  Except I still wasn't sure.  He was thinner than the last time I saw him, now like six years ago.

So I putter.  And I'm not uber nervous, I just want to be sure.  Eventually, I just go up and say, "Excuse me, are you Kevin Smith?"

And it was.  And he was just as nice as the last time, and we chatted a bit, which was cool.  You know, I've realized that when you're not doing what you dream about, e.g. directing, just to talk personally, about anything, with someone who is, is just so wonderful.  It reinforces that it's real, it's possible.  It may be insanely difficult to get there, but real people direct films and television.  It's like the days I was shadowing on the TV show, just to be around my directing mentor was so wonderful and meaningful to me.

So it was cool.

And then I said, "Can I give you my reel?" 

And I don't care if you're cringing, because I'm trying to get the damn thing out there, for whatever it's worth.  And maybe I should have some specific goal about it, but honestly, I'm just trying to get it out into the universe right now, and how often do you meet a real feature director?  Let me tell you, in my world, Next To Fucking Never.  Much less, the one feature director I met at my ten-year high school reunion.

Just that he might watch it, find something in one of my shorts funny, and laugh - that would be cool.

Now, I always have three reels in my purse.  Except this was the first day after the holidays, and I was lucky I managed to have my wallet in my purse.  So I had to fetch one from the car.  While Kevin, so kindly, waited.

And while I, now losing slightly to nervousness, can't find my keys.  IN MY POCKET.  I'm pulling things out of my purse, checking the wrong pocket, back to the purse, back to the pocket.  OY.

Still.  A.  Dork.

Thankfully, I eventually find them (in my pocket), grab the reel and run over.  He takes it, we say goodbye, I drive to the day job, and I imagine him driving to something so much cooler and rewarding and directoral.

Turns out, Kevin had a proctologist appointment that day.

How nice was this guy to me with that to look forward to?  So nice.

There is just one moon and one golden sun.

Ooo, Dave over at Blogography said I'm smart and funny.

What's interesting is that I'm generally pretty open-minded when I meet new people - even if I've read pages and pages of blog - so I didn't really have any preconceptions.  It's true that you never really know what to expect when you meet someone in person.  But I did wonder if he would bring me a shirt.  I mean, he does blog about the shirts, you know?  Like maybe he has three blogography shirts on him at all times, just in case.  I had decided that if he gave me a shirt, I would take a picture of myself wearing only said shirt on my new bedding and post it to my blog.

But alas, no shirt.

He was quite dashing and exuded "world traveler."  We dined on Thai food.  He had a somewhat serious air.

And he linked to me and I thought, holy crap, I just wrote a ginormous blog entry about television directing, how utterly boring to like 99% of everyone.

So I wrote this.