The Nightmares Before Christmas

Saturday it is. Man, do the weeks fly by these days.

Let's start with something I learned from writing this blog -- I was, apparently, born a year of the Tiger. Which blesses me with, according to several Internet encyclopedias, "strength, power, compelling dynamism, intense activity, independence and curiosity", and makes me "irresistible, courageous and self-assured" and makes me "attract many followers and admirers" (that would be you). I apparently minimize the Three Great Risks in a house -- thieves, fires, and evil spirits -- I am "outspoken in the face of injustice, have a disdain for security, and make a religion of change", and blah-blah-blah-blah.

First of all -- thank you, Chinese star-readers, for coming up with something that would make me sound so good, despite how obviously wrong it is (considering I have been house robbed three times, mugged, had my car broken into and my phone stolen all in the past three years, it comes as great reassuring news to me that I am supposed to "minimize" the risk of thieves around me). And as for disdain for security -- if only you had seen me six or seven hours ago, shaking like a newborn in the snow, barely four feet off the ground on a ladder, trying to decorate our Christmas tree...

Astrology is one of those great, slightly absurd morale-boosters, that bases itself on a few scientifical facts, and then elaborates on it with so much positive mumbo-jumbo (notice how none of those facts about me being a Tiger is negative? Apparently there's nothing negative to being born a year of the Rat, or the Pig, either -- other than your little brother making fun of you when he gets to reading that weird calendar at the Chinese restaurant, and figures out that he was born a year of the Badass Panda, and you a year of the Dickless Rabbit), your heart and soul wants to believe it so much you end up, well, believing it. It's also one of those things that, by now, is in a way so profoundly burned into our social subconscious, that I think we end up behaving in that way anyway -- the same way as a girl usually grows up to be girly because, fucking duh, you dress her in pink and buy her only Barbies and My Little Pony from the day she drops out of the womb. (Which, by the way, brings me to my Personal World Changing Experiment of 2007 -- I want everyone reading this blog to go out, find a person of the opposite sex who's not repulsed by them, and as fast as possible, have both a boy and a girl, in no particular order, and then proceed to raise the boy the way you would a girl, and the girl te way you would a boy, from day one, and see if that actually does completely switch everything around. And then they can have babies they'll raise the same way, and their babies will have babies, and THEIR babies will have babies, and in a hundred years or so we can found our own little country, where all the men behave like women and all the women behave like men.)

Which brings me to the Sundance Film Festival. Mary and I are both hoping to attend the '07 edition, which would be my all-time fourth festival (after Cannes and this year's Edinburgh and London Film Festivals). Why Sundance, why now? Well:

a) We're in dire need of contacts
b) Our friend Tina is working on this documentary which is in official competition at the Xdance, and is going too
c) We miss America
d) We both have short films about to tour festivals and want to get a first, less pressured US festival experience
e) I'm still trying to raise funding, attention, and cast for Tweaky Bird
f) It sounds pretty fucking cool.

So I recently signed up for advance individual ticket sales, and we're hoping to go for the second week -- hopefully catching screenings of stuff like Hounddog (Dakota Fanning's much talked-about turn as a rape victim -- also being marketed as "the perfect date movie"), (Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga deal with the disturbing appearance of a newborn in their family), Snow Angels (Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale in a character study directed by David Gordon Green), Weapons (whoever thought of pairing Nick Cannon and Paul Dano is a genius), Away From Her (Sarah Polley directs Julie Christie and Olympia Dukakis in a film exec-produced by Atom Egoyan), Blake Snake Moan (Samuel L. Jackson reforms nymphomaniac Christina Ricci -- ooooooh, yeah), Chapter 27 (Jared Leto plays the man who killed John Lennon, alongside Lindsay Lohan), much-talked about documentary Chicago 10, The Good Night (starring Jennifer Connelly and Martin Freeman in a feature debut), King of California (Michael Douglas goes mad -- what he does best -- with Evan Rachel Wood, prod. by Alexander Payne), The Nines (John August directs Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning) or com-dram The Savages (starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman).

I love that we picked this year because that's quite a lineup (and that's not even including out-of-competition films, such as Luc Besson's Angel-A, Justin Theroux's Dedication with Billy Crudup, Mandy Moore and Tom Wilkinson, drama Waitress with Keri Russell, Tom DiCillo's Delirious with Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, and Gina Gershon, Steve Buscemi's highly-intriguing Interview between himself and Sienna Miller, and odd-rom-com-about-two-parking-officers Expired, starring Samantha Morton and Jason Patric; screenings, panels, events and parties), and even getting in to just two or three of those would be absolutely brilliant. It's just a plan so far -- we're looking at screening dates, flight prices and hotel prices, and so on -- and we'll make a decision in the next few days based on that. So wish us luck.

Since we're on the topic of goals for the next year -- I want to direct, produce and set-up a two-to-four performance play next summer in New York City (also producing another play, to be directed by Mary). I know, I know -- "where in the red fuck did THAT come from?" Well, Mary and I both have plans of taking a six- or eight-week or so acting class in New York during the next year (hopefully at the Neighborhood Playhouse, both because we want to study the craft in a leading institution actual professional actors would know and respect, and because Sandy Meisner happens to be my personal favorite out of the leading modern acting teachers, along with Chekhov). I've also been reading Richard Schickel's excellent Elia Kazan biography, speaking of Kazan's early day directing Clifford Odets and Irwin Shaw plays in New York, and I just started thinking that -- I would love to take one of those pieces, update it, and then direct it with some acting students, or struggling actors, or successful actors I know, and see how it goes.

Now obviously theater isn't my forte, but I am a great fan of it, and I think it'd be a great learning experience to work on something fully without having to worry about camera or editing, and just work on performance and staging. Mary also has a great interest in it -- especially since neither of us really is a great rehearser, so we'd get to give that a shot and learn from it -- so the format we have in mind has kind of developed into the following: we'd like to find two little-played plays (maybe a comedy and a drama, two different tones), rent out a small theater, and rehearse them for 2 or 3 weeks, each of us directing one. We would then put on both shows on consecutive Fridays and Saturdays, or Saturdays or Sundays, for three or four weeks in a row -- one performance of each every week, hopefully inviting critics and reviewers the first week, and then filling enough seats to cover our costs in renting the room.

It's only a burgeoning project. I don't even really know what the next year has in store for me -- but I would love it if that was one of the things it did. Film is where my heart is, but I've always felt theater could be a unique experience for the soul, to direct if even just once -- young, inexperienced and in New York.

This has probably been a massive entry this far already -- so I'll get to something I just quickly, briefly wanted to slip in before going. Halfway through the day today, Mary drove me from Monteviot (her family's beautifully vibrant home in Scotland) to Edinburgh Airport, for me to fly to Paris to spend three or four days with my family for Christmas (the first time my mum has the whole little family home in the same time in right under a year -- she's been so excited).

Now -- no one wants to hear anyone whine about their relationships, especially if they're going well. Especially if, like me, you're going to whine about leaving your girlfriend for four little days. Still -- being without some souls can make the world feel empty, even if they are gone from it only but for a second. My Mare is one of those souls, one of those without whom the world gets a little darker, a little smaller, and a little quieter, and just in case she's reading now -- I miss you.

Swashbucklingly,

Me.