ive been lazy... and this is my way of catching up... and procrastinating.
the photos below represent about a month or so of iphone photos (more or less).
enjoy?
enjoy.
/ / /
LIGHTS IN THE SKY MOTHERS, DONT LET YOUR KIDS GROW UP TO BE EDITORS.
jim pease.
THE EFFING O."MUTHA FUCKIN"C.
bastard lies in wait.
he makes the call, someone dies (kinda).
kampai!
fancies himself an artist.
the day DSLRs ruined the world.
members only jacket, foo'!
bastard at the easel.
BIRTHDAY/WINE PARTYnano
95 points, biatch (or maybe 91... i forget).
kiwi's make good wine, along with lords of rings and halos (eventually).
iSpread nano.
a little bubbly?
a little bubbly.
cheers, bastard!
makes the girls swoon and the glasses empty.
uh, halo?
no, halo MADNESS!
yes, those are back to back sucka :) we rollz DEEP (wait, what?)
not impressed :/
sexiest blue nun... e v e r.
not responsible by this point.
FLORENTINE RIBEYE... mmm.
a little before and after...
top: salt, pepper bottom: rosemary, sage, thyme (should have been fresh...)
another little before an' after.
finish with extra virgin (yeah right) olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.
after, after.
DISNEYLAND
can you tell im related to these people?
"yes, i know youre a jerk."
the antici...pation...
terrorist.
enemy combatant. (and with that, my blog has been flagged by the NSA, CIA, and FBI)
youre the best around... evidently, he has just discovered "the karate kid" and the power of montage music...
75 minutes later.
oh, noes! i fergets i hates the clzed in spcez!
so, yeah, thats about a month. dont worry, if you werent in it, but know i snapped a picture of you, it doesnt mean i dont love you... well, maybe it does a little bit... OR maybe it means i love you TOO much...
i sometimes wonder where my irrational fear of death stems from... to be honest, i really dont know... but with dreams like last night -- i know its deep seeded and probably something ill never shake.
great.
(sorry, but there might be some pretty disturbing imagery here... you might want to skip this one... really.)
: : :
i find out that my brother (who's 6 years old...) has contracted a rare and very deadly disease and is dying an extremely slow and agonizing death. not only that, the disease is horrifying. the closest thing i can compare it to is leprosy... but somehow much more fucked up than that. i see him in the hospital... parts of him rotting away from the outside-in, hes barely conscious and on life support... a lucid dream of unbearable pain. i can barely take it. im trembling with tears.
then i wonder why im allowed into the room with him.
im told ive already contracted the disease. probably from the same source as him. im counseled that i have little time before the symptoms set it. im showed pictures of what will happen. rotting limbs. bloodless wounds eaten with puss. i want to scream. i want to kill my brother to save him. they wont let me. they tell me he'll pass in a day or two, that he knows nothing. his mind is nearly gone. they tell me they dont know where it comes from, but that its called sclera (this stays with me until i wake) and it claims 100 percent of the people who contract it.
i leave the room and wander through the hospital and find my room. there is a girl in there, only a little younger than myself. she has it too. shes already lost two of her legs at the thighs and one of her arms. otherwise she looks good... almost healthy... and i wonder if her and i will find love as we die in the room together.
no one is permitted to visit... but, somehow, im allowed to leave. but only once.
(i wake up at this point... and when i go back to sleep, the dream continues.)
im scouring hospital records to see how long the disease takes. i figure i have a couple of months until my skin starts to come away and about a year or two of rotting before i die.
i have to leave.
no one will see me. family, friends... i cant reach anyone. i wander around a town thats supposed to be mine, but i dont recognise anyone or anything. im pissed and wondering why... how... i want to wake up... i remember that... i want to wake up.
(i wake up for the second time... hoping that if i fall back asleep, this fucking dream will end.
it doesnt.)
im walking through the streets when i find the only person i wanted to see... to say good bye. i cant tell her whats happened to me. all i can do is cry. (i know her... and i dont know her. the face is familiar, but its no one i know in real life.) i tell her that im going to die. she laughs thinking im joking. i tell her im not. that this is it. its over.
she knows my tears are real.
she leaves and promises to come back.
i tell her she cant. i dont want to make her sick. this is it. its over.
shes gone.
im alone in the middle of an empty street, in an empty town.
and i have never felt more alone in all of my life. knowing that i am going to die alone, and in pain, and well before i have done anything with my sad and pathetic life.
: : :
i wake up for the third and final time.
i have to tell myself that it was a dream.
that im not going to die.
it was a goddamn dream.
but im not sure.
and i realise that ive never had a dream that insisted on continuing after ive woken so many times.
i want to call my mother to check on my brother.
but i know that would only feed my fear somehow.
. . .
i really dont know what the fuck is going on with me, but ive been having some pretty strange dreams lately. and some of them are just downright fucked up and disturbing. thank god some of them arent.
i know ive said it before, but i think ive finally bitten off more than i can chew.
do i care?
no. not really.
im a mess, but hopefully, this will help me to focus in some way.
my biggest problem at the moment is that i have quite a few writing projects going on at the same time:
the self portrait of a pretentious bastard (feature) - its more or less done. probably less. i just need to find the final line of focus and go in for the kill. cut. cut. cut. its probably 20-30 pages too long at the moment and thats making it a bit confusing and pointless (as in without a point). i havent even looked at it since the last draft... ill get around to that soon.
marathon (feature) - i still havent come up with a better title, but in the next couple of days, i think itll be the closest to being "done" than anything else im working on. the biggest difference in this draft so far? ive already cut 16 pages... and its pretty much ALL from the beginning. im experimenting with starting at the second plot point. its a fricken heist film, weve all seen hundreds of heist films... we know the formula, we know the archetypes... so, im skipping as much of the set up as i can and cutting as many character introductions as i can... if it works (big if), itll be tight, frenzied, and fresh. yeah... we'll see.
sister wong (tv pilot) - still non-plussed by the title... but thats true of almost all of these... be that as it may, im really excited about the possibility and promise of this one. its a cable series margaret offered to bring me in on and shake up. im trying my best... i just dont want to drift to far from what she established since i think its so solid already. i keep tossing around "it could be the chinese sopranos". ive gone through the last draft and just received the first couple of research books in the post. got a LOT of reading to do before i even think about touching this one again... but i cant wait.
untitled end of the world project (feature) - jose and i are wondering what the hell someone would be trying to do at the end of the world. where would she go, what would she do? this shits more difficult than it sounds. good times ahead, and hopefully plenty of wine.
identity diptych: the amnesiac/the documentarian (play) - im stepping a little outside of my comfort zone here. ive been reading a lot of stoppard lately, and after seeing the showcase that caroline was in (and totally rocked)... a little inspiration has been brewing. all i know is that its two complementary pieces somehow linked... either as two separate plays... or as two parts of the same play... or something. all i know... is that the amnesiac is about a woman who is convinced by a friend (or lover, or family member... or all three) that she is an amnesiac... and the documentarian is about a man who is so obsessive in documenting every aspect of his life, that he totally loses who he is.
yeah, good luck with that one old man...
gaia (feature) - is percolating... again. but thats super secret ;)
and thats only the writing side of things.
lot of steps to change the world, whew.
* * * ps. beware, wine party 1.o is coming very soon.
so... this last thursday, caroline and i went over to the vista to check out julie taymor's stab at...well... essentially converting the psychedelic beatles' songs into a 2 hour plus movie.
(im sure you can tell by how i structured that sentence how i felt about the music video... errr... i mean movie)
so yeah, if you didnt know i LOVE the beatles... then you really dont know me. sorry... thats just how i roll.
anyway, after stuffing our selves in a level of gluttony hardly rivaled (even in vomitorium roman times) caroline and i sauntered on over to the vista. dont get me wrong, we knew this might be a HUGE mistake. long story short--it wasnt as bad as i feared... but not NEARLY as amazing as it should have been.*
*NOTE: the ideas and opinions expressed in this blog are the ideas and opinions of jaime ryan heintz and are of no reflection or bearing on the thoughts, ideas, and/or opinions of caroline do... or any person living and/or dead and/or real/imagined who may (or may not) have seen a movie, talked with, or been looked at by jaime ryan heintz. (cc) jaime ryan heintz 2007 some rights reserved.
i dont know if i can coherently take this film apart, but ill get to the heart of what i thought was the problem.
there was no story.
well, there was... but it was so completely trite, tired, and banal... (and a bunch of other words to make me look smart in putting it down) that i wondered why they even attempted to tell a story. i found my eyes rolling several times. its almost as if they said... its a "musical" it doesnt need to have a "complicated" story. they obviously relied too heavily on the beatles songs to really care about... well, anything. they story moments were OBVIOUS ploys to set up the next song... and dont even get me started about the character names!!! and yeah, i just imdb-ed the writers... and the last project they both did was that lame ass animated film flushed away... yeah, the one about the rats. jesus, save us all.
but my REAL beef?
well, all of the problems with the movie could have been forgiven (well, almost all of the problems) if the movie had one thing... just one...
passion.
there did not seem to be one ounce of passion or heart in almost any aspect of the film. it was FAR too over produced and lacked any true emotion or balls (balls probably being more important... sorry ladies).
the one thing that always stays with me from the beatles is their passion. every song they ever recorded drips with raw emotion. theyre strained almost to breaking. their songs are raw, produced just enough, and are never pretentious... yeah, pretty much the exact opposite of this movie.
its funny, that with most "musicals" these days, the actors that are cast are usually either "actors" or "singers." the films usually seem to suffer becasue the talent sits in one of those two camps... with either actors who cant sing, or singers who cant act. well here, it seems like the filmmakers decided to sit somewhere in the middle. the cast is comprised of neither talented actors nor talented singers.
HOW do you sing oh! darling or happines is a warm gun without screaming your fucking head off in frustrated longing?!?!?!
the songs were so thoughtlessly over produced and dripping with sacchrine voacl honey that i just wanted to tear the seats out of the theater (side note: the seats in the vista are spread way too far apart... you have to be a freakin giant to put your feet up on the row in front of you...).
maybe its just me... but if youre going to do something based around the beatles, you better know and understand your beatles... instead of just having some passing notion of them. (and i dont even want to try and think about the "revolution" or "vietnam" sequences in this film...)
wait... let me modify that. if youre going to do ANYTHING you better know and love it more than anyone else out there... you better die without it... because if you dont, youre wasting all of our time. especially with my fucking beatles.
sorry, had to get that off of my chest.
wait, no.
im not sorry.
BUT, it wasnt all bad. the dance sequences that werent awkward and/or mildly homosexually suggestive in their choreography were pretty ok (the bit for a little help from my friends = ok... the bit for i want you (she's so heavy) = not so much...). but the stand out BY FAR was eddie izzard's rendition of being for the benefit of mr. kite! just go to see the movie for that (or just download it). but its only good because of him. a nice shining diamond in a sky of tripe. mmm, tripe.
sigh... such high hopes. it really could have been worse. right? at least they didnt touch norwegian wood. thank GOD for that.
ive been dying to get back to directing and i think im ready. i have two projects im gonna get off the ground.
immediately.
1. volkswagen gti spec commercial 2. the best love letter ever written (short film)
im sick of this rut and im clawing out. kcet is killing me (yet again, what a surprise) and so many things seem just on the brink. its time to take this motha-fucker in my hands.
i just watched hotel chevalier (a new short by wes anderson) as a FREE download through itunes. id link to it, but you cant since its freakin itunes... but, you can find it through the apple site. evidently, this was supposed to be "part 1" or the prologue of the darjeeling limited but fox or someone decided to cut it. if this is any indication of what that film is going to be... jesus. its the best ive ever seen any of them. them being: anderson, jason schwartzman, and natalie portman... who, by far, gives her best performance ever... ever.
anyway, i finally got through another red-pen-pass of marathon. im cutting quite a bit out of the beginning. it was just lagging and repeating itself waaaaaaay too much. im still having trouble with the ending. but, i just surrendered to the fact that im pretty much gonna have to go back to the drawing board in some sense. i have confidence i can get it right this time.
jim pease.
bastard lies in wait.
he makes the call, someone dies (kinda).
kampai!
fancies himself an artist.
the day DSLRs ruined the world.
members only jacket, foo'!
bastard at the easel.
95 points, biatch (or maybe 91... i forget).
kiwi's make good wine, along with lords of rings and halos (eventually).
iSpread nano.
a little bubbly?
a little bubbly.
cheers, bastard!
makes the girls swoon and the glasses empty.
uh, halo?
yes, those are back to back sucka :) we rollz DEEP (wait, what?)
not impressed :/
sexiest blue nun... e v e r.
not responsible by this point.
a little before and after...
top: salt, pepper
finish with extra virgin (yeah right) olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.
after, after.
can you tell im related to these people?
"yes, i know youre a jerk."
the antici...pation...
terrorist.
enemy combatant.
youre the best around...
75 minutes later.
oh, noes! i fergets i hates the clzed in spcez!
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