Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola

I finally watched Tetro last night and there were a lot of things to like about it.

Going into the film I felt sympathy for Frances Ford Coppola (FFC) for finally being able to return to his art house beginnings since The Conversation.

And sure I could be all cynical and wonder what FFC's been doing all these years since The Godfather besides his vineyard but who am I to judge when I'm going on month 9 of studying for a project management certification exam? Even though FFC's got buckets and buckets of money doesn't mean he doesn't have responsibilities. But I digress.

Tetro is indeed art house fare.

LOVED
- the cinematography
- the casting
- the acting

DIDN'T LOVE
- the soundtrack
- the editing (sorry Walter Murch)
- a story that was interesting but kinda lost me at the end
- the story line with the critic
- some of the visualization scenes

I found this film visually stunning and thought the casting was excellent and I was transported but there some of the scenes that were confusing and didn't even need to exist. At the end of the film, I was plain confused and no longer transported.

Despite my criticisms I still think this film is pretty wonderful and worth a watch.



Here's the trailer

oh and can you create a 30 second commercial in 7 days?

so vaff received some sponsorship in the form of a 30 second commercial shot to be shown during a CityTV show called AZN Lifestyles which airs wednesdays and sundays.

i was asked if i could come up with a commercial in like, oh, 7 days.

my first reaction was: wtf! 7 days!! do i look like a full-on ad agency?

then i realized what a great opportunity and said yes right away. of course, when i say yes, i'm also really saying yes for rob, too. poor rob.

then came the hard part: coming up with an idea.

i begged rob for help on this since he's the ideas guy and he didn't disappoint.

for those of you who have seen the commercial, i've already changed it about 5 times this evening.

.
.
.
.
also, please note my DISCLAIMER: although i'm super thankful to rob for coming up with the idea, this isn't the type of stuff i do. i like the mood and tone stuff.

but oh well, here we go......

link to 30 second commercial

casey and rob's scene


diana, terry and me... for the all asian girl scene

fire at whitehouse night gallery

the house where ladyhawk recorded their 2nd album (shots) and where rob and i filmed our first feature documentary (let me be fictional) is now no more.

link to the kelowna sun article

and now i'm all nostalgic for the 2 weeks we spent (a year and a half ago) with some really cool dudes. here are some stills (taken on our old shitty camera) from when we filmed the doc.

more rob and than me

so i've been bi-zy with MAMM and don't have much to report except...

-- midnight showing of shaun of the dead at the rio theatre just off commercial drive tomorrow night. we be going. i hear it's a good flick.



BUT IT'S ALL ABOUT ROB....
rob will be flying to the toronto international film festival to attend the world premier of When Life Was Good (WLWG), which is terry miles' film in which rob has a significant but non-speaking role.

i would totally be flying to toronto as well except that WLWG is playing sep 6 (sat) which is the same night as the MAMM Gala Screening where i will also be the projectionist because: how difficult can it be to hit the PLAY button on the dvd player?

anyways, rob is psyched to be part of the cast & crew Q&A in toronto and (more likely) psyched to be part of a rather debaucherous celebration as well.

The ultimate vacation video

Mona's trip to NXNE from Obsolete Films on Vimeo.

and.... i'm back

i made a last minute decision to visit 'the centre of the universe' aka toronto this weekend to join in on some Hive happenings and hookups at the NXNE music festival.

thankfully, my dad was able to score me a standby seat on the 1:15pm flight to toronto on friday. as well, my bosses (aka the bestest bosses in the world) were cool enough to allow me to take a last minute "take the rest of the day off" request.

i landed at 9pm, took a taxi to The Drake where the Ten Kens were performing. i setup our hd camera and got ready to film some fine indie rockin'.

after the show, we (terry and i) hung out with the band a bit then headed for some barely passable poutine at a denny's wannabe place called fran's. i also made the poor decision of ordering a fran-sized caesar drink and float.

at 2am we headed back to terry's friend's place to access the interwebs for the purpose of trying to find a hotel. but the fact that i was entirely exhausted and hotels i called were booked up led to terry's friend allowing us to crash in his place.

i was so tired that the fact that my bed consisted of lawn chair cushions didn't bother me.




saturday morning consisted of brunch with Ten Kens then a significant walk through half of toronto to catch the 3pm performance of Monotonix at the record store, Sonic Boom.



we managed to catch the naked bike ride during our sojourn.


we also saw this awesome art/craft piece which would be a wicked name for a band.



HEAR THIS, HEAR THIS: Monotonix is insane.
insanely genius, that is.




after their 30 minute set, we (terry, myself and 3 of the Ten Kens) just stood outside Sonic Boom SIMPLY UNABLE TO UTTER COHERENT THOUGHTS. i'm not kidding. just watch one of their shows on youtube and you might understand a fraction of it. i filmed 2 of their songs and may put it up.



after this, we hung out with a Ten Ken briefly then, because we managed to find a 4 start hotel room at a deeply discounted price from hotwire.com, we spent the rest of the evening showering, lying in our beds and watching Pretty in Pink. we needed to restup because that night (technically sunday morning) we had to catch the 2am Ladyhawk show.

yes, 2am! yes, Ladyhawk!

it was one of the more crazy shows i've ever been apart of. the main problem here was that i was directly infront of the stage cuz i had this stupid idea of filming their show. i don't even know why i did it. like, don't we have enough footage of them?

anyways, it was crazy because of the mosh pit that kept slamming into me, because of the beer that people kept splashing into the crowd, because of the boiling temperature at the venue.

so we got back to our room just after 3am and crashed.

this morning, i got up, showered, took a taxi to the airport and came home at which time i strolled along commercial drive's car-free day.

i feel pretty lucky to have experienced such an awesome weekend.

status is: need more pillow time

for the past 3 days/nights, we've been coming home much beyond our bedtimes. here's a recount.

. . .TONIGHT. . .
rob and i just came home from catching no kids at the magnetic north festival.
THEY WERE FREAKING AWESOME.
we're talking high energy, tight playing and nick at his best. i've heard that nick rarely plays vancouver so it was a treat to see him live and really enjoying himself.

the encore was nick performing a sade cover. nick, julia and justin were simply brilliant tonight.



. . .LAST NIGHT. . .
rob and i were extras in a scene for terry's feature film he is shooting this month. the film is called red rooster and it's looking very cool.

rob, kelly and i ended up as a 'party group' standing right next to the main actor. i knew i should have elected to be an extra that stands in the corner, next to other extras. so, because of where we were standing we had to stay longer so that when the camera films the other angle for that same scene, we're still standing there fake talking and pretending we're friends.

the 3 of us got up to no good during the in between take lulls. see rob and kelly affecting poses that are successful for picking up chicks/guys at a bar.

fun times even though we didn't get home until 1:30am.







. . .THE NIGHT BEFORE LAST. . .
tuesday night we caught the Black Angels at Richards on Richards and didn't make it home until 12:30am. i really enjoyed the first part of the show and there were many good moments but during the second half, i felt the songs sounding not very distinct.

but i'm glad i went.

yummy

i decided to go on the wild rose detox cleanse again. last time it was so successful, i was offered a new job! not kidding.

i started the 12-day cleanse yesterday morning and the cupcakes (yes, both of them) were devoured by last night.

and here's the thing: THIS TIME, i'm not going deny myself food that is forbidden during the cleanse.

because, you see, LAST TIME i was little miss perfect and stayed the course with eating only what's allowed which is just basically vegetables and fish and poultry. but LAST TIME, i experienced a lot of self-hate due to the inner battle of staying the course vs. eating what i want to eat because i found i was constantly hungry.

and hunger is the reason why the cabbage soup diet recommended by my brother utterly failed earlier this year. basically, 5 minutes after consuming a large bowl of soup, i would feel hungry again.

anyways, so i'm on the cleanse and taking all the cleanse pills and trying to stick to the approved list of foods but if i'm particularly hungry, then TOO DAMN BAD for the cleanse cuz i'm gonna eat whatever i want AND not feel guilty about it.

i say NO to cleanse guilt.

i got nothing

seriously.
i have nothing interesting to report.

well, ok.
i have STUFF but it's depressing and un-uplifting.
so stop reading if you're looking for FUNNY AND WITTY CHINA LILY observations and shit.

let's start with the most depressing.

1/ the ladyhawk documentary has been not accepted (read: REJECTED) by seven (7) film festivals. the silver lining is that at least we're being rejected by some big film festivals. there are about 13 more film festivals yet to MAKE MY DAY.

2/ i have another birthday looming. god, when will the aging stop? i don't even care anymore now that i'm past the big four oh. but i care enough to purchase (for the first time in my life) anti-aging products. the angst of it all.

3/ lately i've been feeling like i slightly suck at my job (attention boss who reads this blog: don't take this too seriously. i'm a girl, i get this way sometimes. i know i rule project coordination).

4/ i'm really looking forward to making a narrative feature but it's SO MUCH WORK just to convince myself that the fact that the ladyhawk doc hasn't been accepted isn't a reflection on my ability.

5/ i haven't gone down to a size 6 yet.

see, don't you wish you had stopped reading when i warned you?

same but not the same

you know.
same shit, different pile kinda stuff.

1/ this week i've been training video game employees on how to use their intranet
2/ rob got some well-deserved kudos on video editing (under extreme time pressure) a 5 min. pitch by a eco-sustainable company
3/ ladyhawk received a rather poor review by pitchfork. boo.
4/ we're going to catch vincats (a band from victoria) tonight
5/ we NEED to finish and ship off this wedding project this weekend.
6/ next week, i'll be a BOOTH BABE at an human resources conference.
7/ the outline to our next feature is starting to come together
8/ i was reminded this week how glad i am to be working for darren and gord
9/ life is pretty rad.

vice

of course, vice magazine has, possibly, the best non-review of Ladyhawk's album

more stuff

there's been a flurry of publicity for Ladyhawk and, in passing, our film.

the CALGARY HERALD story, entitled "Stranger than Fictional, says this:

Filmmakers Mona Mok and Rob Leickner joined Ladyhawk in their musical immersion, documenting every moment of the recording sessions, including the great fun of spending two weeks with a bucket for a bathroom. Once Let Me Be Fictional is unleashed later this year, Driediger may be prodded to recall everything that happened. "We haven't seen the final version of the movie," he admits. "It was weird doing it. They're cool people, and it was cool of them to do it, but it's not something I'd rush to do again. When a camera's in your face, it's hard to act the same--you feel false. I guess what's strange is to be thought of as interesting enough to document."

then WINNIPEG's Uptown magazine had this lovely quote:

Being comfortable enough to take risks on this particular album is a feat for Ladyhawk, which had cameras pointed at it during the entire recording process. The making of Shots was filmed for a documentary on the band called Let Me Be Fictional, directed by Vancover-based filmmakers Mona Mok and Rob Leickner - a project Driediger was initially against.

"When they approached us, I was kind of the one who was like, 'I dunno, guys.' I just wanted to focus on the record," he says. "But, I got convinced it was a good thing.

"It was weird to have cameras in your face all the time - you tend to edit how you talk. And it's hard because you have no control over how you're portrayed, and normally, I like having lots of control when it comes to our art," Driediger continues. "But Rob and Mona are really cool, and I think their presence really added to it."

Shots ended up benefitting from the band's unexpected houseguests - but what does Driediger think of the finished doc?

"I saw a version of it, but I can't really imagine anyone other than people who are really into our band - which is probably, like, 10 people - being interested in it," he says, in typical self-deprecating fashion.

"But it really captures our raw sex appeal."

and finally yesterday alone, there were two (2) mentions in two (2) vancouver media outlets: the vancouver sun and the georgia straight.




the VANCOUVER SUN's article, entitled Homemade sangria fuelled Ladyhawk album, had this great tidbit:

Ladyhawk is a jolly band of hairy rockers who are riding a wave of success. They're coming off a three-week cross-Canada tour with friends and label-mates, Black Mountain.

They're attracting press attention wherever they go.

And they're the subjects of a documentary film that watches them record their new album, Shots, in an abandoned farmhouse in Kelowna while drinking copious amounts of homemade sangria.

...

The farmhouse recording process was filmed by Vancouver-based filmmakers Mona Mok and Rob Leickner and edited into the documentary, Let Me Be Fictional.


and then the GEORGIA STRAIGHT story, entitled Ladyhawk flies the rock flag, included this great quote:

The recording of Shots was documented in Let Me Be Fictional, an 82-minute film directed by Rob Leickner and Mona Mok. It shows the quartet laying down tracks in a gutted Kelowna farmhouse with no heat or running water, and includes numerous shots of the members of Ladyhawk emptying hefty pee buckets into the yard. “If you had to do anything more than that, you had to go to the gas station across the street,” offers Driediger, “so for two weeks it was pretty primitive. But it was fun—it was like camping or something, almost.”

the day after

Ladyhawk's second album, Shots, was released yesterday. some notable places where the album (and the film) are mentioned include:

The Province: the cover story for the entertainment section (see picture below)
Pitchfork: under "other news" but, baby it's Pitchfork!

and rob was referred to as a former record exec in Paste Magazine

now we just gotta somehow get the film into a film fest.

a couple of shots

two clips that rob and i uploaded to the interwebs this weekend, just in time for the release of Ladyhawk's album, Shots. btw, these are clips that didn't make it into documentary.



Ladyhawk Shots Promo 1 from Obsolete Films on Vimeo.


Ladyhawk Shots Promo 2 from Obsolete Films on Vimeo.

for our consideration

a new way to distribute your film without going the film fest route.


From Here To Awesome: Why Film Festivals Don’t Work

it's all coming up roses

i had an amazing time at our lunar new year party.

here are some reasons:
1/ i didn't turn into a stress case even though 30 mins before the official start of the party i still hadn't started making the pork dumplings yet. my original plan was to make the 300 dumplings the week leading up to the party.
2/ in 2 hours, rob and i turned 3 pounds of pork into a large amount of pork dumplings. i think it was close to 300 but i didn't count them.
3/ i was coming down with a sinus flu but i didn't let it affect my ability to party until 2am.
4/ i finally had a party where i didn't run out of food or drink.
5/ i got to chat with friends i haven't seen in a while.
6/ i had a mild hangover the next day.

pictures will be forthcoming.

... ... ...
in the meantime, we're still playing the waiting game with film festivals. also, we received an email today from ladyhawk's USA pr chick that HARP magazine wants to interview us. hold on, it's not that exciting. the interview consists of 4 questions that we answer via email.

but it's still rather fun.

. . . . . .
in other news, rob and i will celebrating the DAY OF LOVE by attending a dean and britta show at richards on richards. these two were part of a music doc that chronicled the last tour of the band, LUNA. i highly recommend this music doc.

...

we spent a good 24 hours feeling pretty bummed about not getting into SXSW.

we consoled ourselves friday night with a bottle of good, red french wine, watched many episodes of Arrested Development and took turns reminding each other that the doc is a piece we're proud of and that we shouldn't take the decision personally.

our status is a little less than AWESOME but still AWESOME because we have the support of Ladyhawk's record label behind us, we're already rather distracted by our next film project and, most importantly, we have family and friends that we're lucky to have in our lives.

but because we had put all our hopes into SXSW, we had to revisit our strategy and here's what we've come up with for plan b:
1/ submit to more film festivals
2/ release the dvd in the fall with a non-traditional distribution model.

and to support the release, we were thinking of borrowing an idea from the Four Eyed Monsters people by setting up screenings ourselves; possibly showing the movie the night before a Ladyhawk show in that city.

anyways, these are just all ideas.

we're still waiting to hear back from 10 other film festivals that we've submitted to and there'll be 10 more that we'll be submitting to which means there's still more rejections to look forward to.

in the meantime, i have about 300 dumplings to prepare for my lunar new year party this saturday. so really, life is pretty rad.

omg

so.
ladyhawk's record label, jagjaguwar, is throwing their full support behind the doc. they asked for 25 copies of the full film plus 5 copies for europe (PAL version) so that their PR people can distribute them to select media outlets.

this meant we were busy printing, burning and scissoring DVD cases.






our phone and email communications with jag has consistently been one in which they've come across as sincerely nice and chill types which explains this article we found on the label.

today, we were told by jag's canadian PR dude (www.killbeatmusic.com) that he's already received tons of interest and interview requests from (holy crap, i can't believe i'm writing this) cbcradio 3, muchmusic and the globe and freaking mail.

all this interest solely stems from jag's press release about our doc.

our current status is: AWESOME.

preamble

i've been spending many hours trolling the interwebs looking for insight on the whole film festival system.

here's the summary:
WE'RE ALL FUCKED

in many cases, even if the film is liked by all the screeners (i.e. volunteers assistants who screen through the thousands of films submitted to a film festival), and then liked by the festival programmers, there's a chance your film might not get in for the following reasons:

1/ there were too many films submitted with the exact same subject. looking at the sundance lineup this year, there seemed to be a lot of docs and non-fiction films about the iraq war. so if they only had 3 spots for slow-paced rock documentaries (cause all the other spots were filled up with iraq war docs) and yours was number 4. you're SOL, buddy and your film gets REJECTED.

2/ the topic doesn't fit within their themes/categories for that year. this means that your film about an up and coming indie rock band just won't make it into a film fest that's decided to curate all the films about the iraq war. too bad for you, sucker, a big red REJECTED sticker is slapped on your film.

3/ the low level screeners don't like your type of film. unfortunately, your ambient, slacker-inspired rock documentary was watched by someone who likes hard-hitting, in-your-face, michael moore-type docs and yours is nothing like that. your film goes into the REJECT pile.

so really, what i'm trying to do here is rationalize the myriad of possibilities surrounding a possible communication of non-acceptance by SXSW.

all inspired by this little post by SXSW's festival director, Matt Dentler.

i'm feeling right now that us getting into SXSW is a bit of a crap shoot.

status

. . .
our little documentary is starting to get noticed by the indie music world:
see fader
see MOG
see ELB.OWS

rob made sure i noticed all the text written about me in MOG as opposed to him. he finally got a taste of what i've had to deal with all his indie music peeps thinking that the documentary was all done by him (rob).

made me laugh, though.


......
we're currently in a state of "breath-holding" as we wait for the final word from SXSW which will happen later next week, i think.

.. .. .. .. ..
meanwhile, here's a photo of my dad and i. i'm showing him how to use his new mac mini. it's pretty funny trying to explain youtube to him. i've also had to lay down the law and forbade him from ever entering his credit card info on the internet.