or something. so, i seem to be watching more movies. Dummy with adrien brody and milla jovavich, i liked this one. good and weird funny. adrien brody's character always wants to be a ventriloquist, so he buys a dummy, and takes it with him most places he goes. i must say the parents in this movie are a little over the top, but really funny.

I went to the sioux center theatre, and watched Flight of the Phoenix for free with dane. I don't know about this movie. it was ok. not amazing or revolutionary. i think the characters lacked emotion or motovation. there were several times that i just didn't care about their survival. and the mysterious character was just that, too mysterious.

then i watched Kitchen Stories this is a Norwegian/ Swedish film. it was really slow. but i liked it. the humor, is very real life, and not sitcom. although 90 minutes does feel like about 2 to 3 hours. it was good. lots of images and long periods of time without talking. most simply it's about men being observed in the kitchen for research.

today, i'll probably watch Napolean Dynamite, Garden State, and A Home at the End of the World. I've seen Napolean and Garden State, but i think they are both really good.

I'm beginning to dislike movie theatres a lot. When i saw Aviator on tuesday there were these people who were talking all the time during the movie, and yelling at the characters on the screen and being really annoying. The picture was also horrible, because there were about 7 - 10 scratches on the film. horrible. Yesterday, at the sioux center theatre, i was in the smallest one, and this guy, before the movie was cussing and being really loud. Dane turned around and asked him to be quiet or get out, that basically made it better, but worse, because then if any one in his row was talking, he'd be like shhhh, shhhhh, being a jerk basically. i really wanted dane to get up, wield his power and get this guy kicked out. but he didn't. he did say, after the movie though, if he was working tickets, he wouldn't let that guy in the theatre again. that brought some satisfaction.

the end.

Posted by jack. |

take about a year or so ago...

Posted by jack. |

Posted by jack. |

Days left in 2004. Soon, writing 2005 will be weird. I watched three movies in the past two days. the first was Aviator a Scorcesse picture with DiCaprio starring as Howard Hughes. I didn't like it. I never really felt any sympathy the Hughes character. It seems like, in today's movies there is a lot of this lesser of two evils stuff. Like Hughes is bad, and hard on people, but the guy who owned Pan Am played by Alec Baldwin, is somehow worse because he controls congress. Both of them are bad, and i don't really feel any sympathy at all for either of them.

The second movie I watched was The Life Aquatic. I didn't think it was going to be in this area until i left for LA, but here it is. It was in Sioux Falls. I liked it. Wes Anderson is a good director. Sometimes though, I wonder about the Wes Anderson effect. Meaning he can put all this crazy stuff in the background and it's funny, because it is, but it doesn't really make sense. I guess, i wonder mostly what genre Anderson would put his own film in. Is it comedy in realism? or is it comedy in Hyper-realism? or is it comedy in some fantastic 70s realism? I liked the movie. and I think Bill Murray is great. But, i'm a little curious about where it fits in. because it doesn't fit exactly, i guess it's not a big deal that it doesn't.

The third was Danny Deckchair. When i rented this movie, the movie store owner said it was awesome. I wouldn't say it was awesome, but it was good. it's weird, how basically because i had never heard of this movie, which is basically a romantic comedy from australia, i was interested in it. I probably wouldn't have watched it if it was made in the US. probably. It was good. entertaining mostly. not extremely deep. the quick synopsis is a guy attaches a bunch of balloons to a folding chair, and takes off, leaving his old life behind, and falls into a new life.

what have i been up to? not much really. i went to sioux city on tuesday to drop of Aunt Beck, and to sioux falls yesterday with ethan. Met up with Dane and watched the movie in sioux falls. ate at the outback. good food. working on my movie a little here and there. making really really final decisions, like, how long should the space be between the end of the film and the credits, or can the first scene be that long and still be good? getting the press kit ready, and hopefully finding some festivals to submit to.

reubs could you send me your address there in canada? i'll send you a copy.

Posted by jack. |

Today has been anything but manic. In fact, it is the first day of the past three that I am not going to go to church. I'm sure many of us did a lot of church going this weekend. I can't say that I didn't like it. It's kinda fun to spend a lot of time with a church family. It doesn't happen three days in a row like it did this weekend. Onto the news. I made profession of faith in Covenant Christian Reformed Church yesterday. It was good. I really like Covenant. Probably because i grew up there, and almost literally everyone knows my name. It's nice to be in a place that is comfortable and supportive. Jim Schaap was one of the elders that interviewed me, so he gave me the new Bible after the profession/confession and he made a crack about finding a verse about going to babylon. a good laugh ensued. Much of my church although, didn't know i was going to LA, "so soon" many of them said. So i had lots of questions to answer while shaking many hands after the service.

Christmas for me was at home with my family. We had a good time. Lots of gifts, which i think is my favorite part. I know i know...it's not about the Gifts, but it is for me. Christ was a gift. it was the best thought out gift we could get. the giving of gifts is such an amazing interesting hard thing to do, i like it when i get and give stuff that people really need/want/fit into. The evening was spent with the Van Wyks. their family is getting bigger, people are marrying and dating. they grew by two this year. Good additions. we played Court Whist, which is this multi table, different rules each hand card game. Really it is something to get everyone to talk and move around. Well, i tell you what, we laughed, and laughed and laughed. There was a lot of funny stuff going on. From Jake's hand motions to My father winning, all the time. It was a really good evening. Yesterday, sunday, grandma and grandpa maatman, and my aunt becky came over. we talked and ate and talked and ate. it was nice. in the evening Becky and Mom and Nicki and I watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I've seen both before, but i hadn't seen Sunset since the theatre, and i had not watched them back to back. These are two movies directed and written by Richard Linklater, and starring Julie Deply and Ethan Hawke. The first movie takes place in 1994 where they meet on a train and then walk around vienna for an evening. the second takes place 9 years later, where they meet in paris and walk around for an afternoon. I really enjoy these movies. I like the dialog, they way it seems so natural, so i guess the acting, and i really like all the stedicam work in the second film--Sunset. it's amazing. We watched the one special feature on the dvd, and it looked like a great set to work on. It looked like this crazy fast moving set. Not like, super chaotic, but the whole set was moving so much of the time, because they are walking through paris, so it looked really interesting to witness and/or be a part of.

Today. I don't really have any plans. My family does. We are celebrating christmas with my Dad's side of the family, at my grandparents house. i thought it was during the day, but it seems that people have to work at jobs, so we are getting together late afternoon early evening. I am working on finding a few festivals to submit my film to, i'm rather intimidated about that. it's weird to think that i could, possibly get totally rejected or accepted. i don't know which would be better. We have found on in Iowa, so that ought to be a good one to submit to.

Lastly, my parents bought me a digital camera for christmas, so there may be pictures up on this blog someday. how about that?

Posted by jack. |

Merry Christmas!

I hope you each have a good holiday.

Posted by jack. |

so, my friend dan, that i grew up with called me around 11:30 today, and was like "you wanna make a lightning trip to ames?" and i was like "um...i dunno...lemme think...sure" so we left around 12ish. we just got back, it's about 2 am, so yea, it wasn't lightning, but it was a lot of fun. on our lightning trip i went to grinnell and visited none other than the deputy, or deppe the butt, or matty, or matt, as many of you may know him by. his new movie theatre is super cool. it doesn't look like a fridley theatre really at all, and i think that is a good thing. it has exposed brick in the lobby, the concession stand is curved, it's really a great theatre. three screens, it's perfect for the area, and it seems the people were pretty energized about it.

dan spent last spring in new zeland, and i haven't really talked to him since. It was nice to catch up on life and all those things that happen during.

i'm doing my best to get ready for christmas. have almost all the presents bought that i want too. now i need to wrap them sometime.

it doesn't feel like christmas yet. it may be the lack of snow, or nothing going on for me really in the past week, even though i did stuff, i wasn't as busy as school.

i hope ya'll have good christmas time fun with family and friends.

Posted by jack. |

today is mom's birthday!

woo hoo!

did some talking to some people at dordt about future things today. should be interesting.

i think i may be done with the movie. the one i worked on all semester, it's called Penny Fiasco.

ah. break. it's nice.

Posted by jack. |

I go.
today
A message from your RD
maybe?

maybe?
editing on friday.
entertain your brain.

Denver?
not dead.
entertain your brain.

that was a poem, written by my sent items in groupwise.

Posted by jack. |

As it is, i will use this as my log for my abs. i will ab and log. that is how it goes.

or i will use it as a blog, that is short for weblog, get it? no, dad, not we blog, web log, meaning it's on the web, and it's a log. get it?

now that that is settled, i will define what it is i will use this for really really. here's the deal, i don't want to be sending all these mass emails to people who don't really want to know what i'm up to, so i thought let's meet half way, i do my best to write on this blog, and whoever wants to can read about what i'm up to. that doesn't mean that i won't respond to emails in general, but it does mean that won't have to send these emails that are like, "i hate mass emails...but..."

i plan on using this mostly for updates on my travels and adventures while i'm in LA, but i may keep it up when that is all over and done with too.

so, that is that. there is this whole comment thing too, i'm not sure what that's all about, but it seems that you who read can comment as well, i'm not sure if you need to register or anything, but you can comment on my grammer or my spelling or maybe even the content.

Posted by jack. |