  MOVIES ABOUT MOVIE WITH MOVIES ABOUT MOVIES I alwaysd cop out when people ask me what my film is about. "It's about film" Thats the best way for me to answer the question. I could say, 'It's about doing what you love... It's about how life is different from and similar to fantasy- or about how fact and fiction become intertwined, or how media changes the nature of things and information and truth. I could write aq few papers on it. I could make another movie about it.
My trainer(yes, I have a trainer, laugh, groan, smirk, vomit, or whatever you feel is best to do- I am terribly spoiled but I always did gag on that silver spoon) My trainer aslked me what my movie was about while I was mid crunch and I said, 'Movies" he laughed, because he';d asked before. Imagine him, in his thick Czech accent "George makes movies about movies. What kind of movies do you make george, oh - movies about movies, and what are the movies about, hmovies. They are movies about movies about movies. Go to da movies, make the movies, movies and movies in movies about movies..." Now whatever I do, lunge, squat, press, lift, grunt, and sweat, he's got a chorus going of movies movies movies movies. And even though he knows nothing about the movie, he couldn't be more dead on as to the nature of the project.
And what more do you want from a guy who lives and loves movies? When I was young my father told me that too many filmmakers just only new about film and made their movies about that. I have become what he warned against, and nobody thinks very highly of it. But I have intellectualized it a bit further. Whether that comes across or not, here's how I see it. It's all about medium and the transfer of information.
And the movies are amazing because they alllow us to all experience universal thoughts and feelings- they indicate our true experience, and we mimic them, but do we mimic them, or do they mimic us, and what part of the mimicry is good, and what part is bad. Plato said there could be no Homer, beautiful as his words were, because it lied to humanity and gave them flase dreams and aspirations to be things they could not be rather than focus on the nature of their lives- of the truth. Aristotle disagreed a great deal with his teacher, claiming that it is thru fiction that we reach a kind of catharsis- not just a release- but an opportunity to see things play out as they may if one was more like character X, or Y. They allow us to meditate on the ways of being human. To see ho w we want to be, or how we don't want to be. For example, on a ride home to a wife you may be annoyed with, you might here a bad country song about how a guy misses his dead wife and wishes he never lost his temper with her.
This is cathartic for the listener- for now he may rethink his actions- he has seeen a scenario that played out his thoughts and feelings. Fiction takes humanity for a test drive. Imitation and mimicry can be dangerous. Thus the struggle of my hero Calvin Doerner. Calvin mimics all the wrong things of the fiction he was a part of- he misses what it is to be a part of it- what it was the thing could truly impart to him- he missed the point, and to quote a great film "Billy, we blew it. " an opportunity to leanr how to focus on experience and process rather than the ends and the riches, or the failures and the sucesses.
The movies he did had that message. But all he got from them was how cool the costumes were, and how much ghe was obsessed with the lead actress. he saw the dougnut and not the hole, and he should have focused more on the hole. Or the whole, depending on how you want to see it. In the nmeantime, production is on halt. I medidtate on the meanigns and long term goals of the project, and struggle to find a chinese restaurant, a dungeon, and a few diners.
Soon I'm off to the gym again, and then to re-write the schedual with rpoducer Ryan Nagata. Last night we took a night off and did some Kareoke at a place called peppermint. What a time. Lots of singing. I did "My Way" and then "Always on my mind" among others. My vooice is god awful.
Only Graham among us could sing well. We drank too much. The Kareoke room was odd. I picked a fight with some old shlub who was holding Kelly in a way I felt was inapropriate. kelly did her best all night to make me jealous and push my buttons. Which wasn't hard considering I had drank scotch whisky- which always has only the most awful agressive effects on me.
Why is whisky like that? It just makes you want to punch somebody. But today, when I finally arose nearing 2 o clock, I was reinvigorated. I needed time away from the film in my mind, and I needed to blow off some steam. To the tune of 90 dollarts, but we'll take it out of the budget... I wish...
In reality it was a good night to let go, and now I';m ready to take on whatever comes up next. personal life wise, as well as professionally. There are so many more tales to tell of the making of the film. But it seems now we are poised to get back into it and keep up the good work. Of course I am still terrified at the film development process. This could be a big hurdle, and I try to prepare my self for the possibility that everything comes out like shit.
I just don't know how I'll cope. I know I will because I always have and I always do find a way- but it's gonna be a pretty big fucking blow. Of course my mind is already thorwing around some contingency plans... not happily, but you gotta be prepared. In the meantime I'll try to watch some movies I love, go out to a movie, a relax for the next two days. This is recharge time, and my only hope is that the film comes out well and the project gets a chance to be even a fraction of what I know it can be for people. Something fun, something insightful, and hopefully somethnig useful when it comes to approaching the fictions and fantasys we love.
We shouldn' let them go, we just need to find a better way to relate to them. Star Wars isn't about ewok toys. Or opening weekends. It's about a timeless message that could let us all lead better lives. I hope to be able to illustrate something along those lines- it's about the message. the message in independant of the medium- and never to be captured by it.
The medium is another message itself entirely- and at that no message at all. A final quote. "The only kinda sucess is failure and failure ain't no kinda sucess at all. " If only I could learn to believe this. 
