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.

weekend with the in-laws

rob's mom, step-dad and their dog (jj) drove down to vancouver this weekend. they stayed with us.



it was fabulous.

we just ate and ate and ate...

when they arrived at 7pm on FRIDAY night, they brought with them about 10 lbs of frozen alaska king crab, spaghetti squash, and baked stuffed potatoes.

rob's mom also brought frozen perogies for us to eat later. that would be a MUCH later.

so we steamed the crab and feasted.

on SATURDAY, while his step-dad attended a health seminar, we took his mom to Enigma (by UBC) for brunch. i had the smoked salmon omelette.

for dinner on SATURDAY, the four of us dined at Memphis BBQ. we had an elvis platter. bellies grew bigger.



then for SUNDAY, we met up my dad and my brother (his wife and his son) for dim sum in richmond. the best part was my dad telling rob's step-dad not to put soy sauce on anything.

this was the first meeting of our 2 families and it was pretty great. the 2 dads got along really well.

two things

ONE
our annual lunar new year open house is "on" again this year. we will have freshly made dumplings and other yummy asian-type foodstuffs. hopefully i can convince my dad to make the pickled baby cucumbers again.

see picture of dumplings from last year.



please mark saturday, february 9th in your calendars for our biggest event of the year. everyone is invited.


TWO
for my writerish friends, check out my co-worker's newly launched site, Protagonize. it's an online "choose your own adventure."

pretty sweet concept. nick bouton is the genius behind this idea.

i'm smitten with The Black Keys

just last week, rob made me listen to The Black Keys.

i listened to the first 10 seconds of a song (don't remember which) and was immediately smitten with their zeppelin sound.

and just now, rob showed me their music video. now that's a freaking music video i can appreciate.

it's an understatement to say i'm hyper psyched that they're coming to the commodore on april 6th. only a mere 24 hours after ladyhawk opens for black mountain at the same venue. what a weekend that will be. i'd better book monday off.

there will be blood

myself, ryan and rob caught the 6:30pm showing of there will be blood (TWBB) yesterday. the theatre was packed; packed full of other film geeks who've been experiencing a gut-wrenching anticipation for TWBB to come out. this audience was the most quiet i've ever experienced.

first of all, everyone must see this film. it is epic.

it's not just epic because it's 158 minutes long, it's epic-ness also comes from the gorgeous landscape, the film's themes and the story.

i believe this film will appeal to more people than no country for old men did, which sort of reveals my reaction to the film.

TWBB is a great film.

for me though, it wasn't a perfect film like no country for old men.

here's what i loved about TWBB:
- original score by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. if you go to the film's website, you can hear it.
- acting was just masterful. Daniel Day Lewis' voice is so perfect. roger ebert compared the accent to John Huston in his review. the standouts are DDL, Paul Dano (preacher boy) and Dillon Freasier (DDL's son).
- the dialogue was just amazing. it felt natural and suitable for the period.

what i felt was missing from TWBB includes:
- more intimate moments with the main character. i found myself not sinking into Daniel Day Lewis' character.
- the large time jump at the end of the film felt awkward to me. i'd invested so much emotional time with the son at age 10 that when we see him at age 20, i didn't buy into the connection.
- the ending wasn't as satisfying to me. what happened was fine but i felt there wasn't enough setup for it.

overall, it's an amazing film. i'm still thinking about it. go see it.