January 2, 2003

First of all, a big fuck you to all the people who deserve it, most of whom actually don't.

Okay.

I noticed that I left Nirvana's album from the list below, which as a greatest hits collection wouldn't really qualify if not for the retro majesty of 'You Know You're Right.' It reminded me of why I wrote 'Lullaby.'

I'm normally fairly introverted and low on self promotion, but I've decided that these are not good traits to have when you're trying to gain your footing in the movie industry. Thusly, I have devised an alternate, outgoing personality, who will be taking care of all my public relations -- such as this following letter that I'm sending to various screenwriting agencies.

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is David Lowery, and I am currently seeking representation for my screenwriting. I believe that my screenplays are good and that they will sell; I realize that I may sound presumptuous, and I also realize that this business is highly competitive, and there is a massive number of other aspiring writers who have the same beliefs about their own work. However, I am not aspiring. I am already a writer, and I have the body of work to prove it, and I believe its quality will back up my braggadocio.

Below you will find the outline of one of my recent screenplays, 'Death Comes To Charles Tulliver.' I would be more than happy to forward a treatment of the work, and/or the complete screenplay, at your request. I believe you will find the script to be highly original, entertaining and marketable, far more so than may be apparent in the limited scope of the following synopsis.

(synopsis deleted)

I hope you find this synopsis intriguing enough to warrant a read of the screenplay itself. Whether or not you actually enjoy it, of course, remains to be seen, but I believe that it will elicit at least one or two laughs, if not an immediate realization that this script may be exactly what the industry is looking for right now.

That said, I'll humbly bring this letter to a close. I hope to hear from you soon!

Man, that so isn't me!

December 31, 2002

All right, the year's down the drain. I've put together my Top Ten Films Of 2002 list, but how about a few more such compilations? My favorite (new) albums of the year are: Sea Change (Beck), Electric Circus (Common), Lifted (Bright Eyes), Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco), Punch Drunk Love score (Jon Brion), The Church Of The Gay Jesus (Curtis Heath). My favorite books of the year (although I didn't actually read any books that were published in 2002): Mrs. Dalloway (Virgina Woolf), The Corrections (Jonathen Glazen), Jazz (Toni Morrisson), Nine Stories (JD Salinger). And my all around favorite thing I've done this year? Well, making 'Still' would be near the top of the list. The 24 hour video race was fantastic. I went out to dinner a few times with a few people and those were wonderful evenings. I went running early one morning not too long ago and was struck by the beauty of everything. I listened to a lot of good music, read a lot of good books, watched a lot of good movies, and I wrote a lot (whether what I wrote is good or not remains to be seen). I felt all full of love once or twice. I hope next year will be better; I always do.

December 30, 2002

I finally watched 'Malcom X' the other day -- on Christmas, in fact. It was brilliant (EXCEPT for Spike Lee's incessant close ups of himself in the first ten minutes -- why couldn't the movie have started with Malcom walking into the barbershop instead of Shorty?). The only notable movie of 2002 that I haven't seen yet is 'The 25th Hour,' but I have read the script, and it was only okay. However, I hear that Lee took some liberties with it, so hopefully it will turn out great.

When I was planning 'Tall Blue Girl,' I intended to 'pay homage' to Spike a lot, and use a lot of that in-your-face style he's so great at. Of course, I didn't put any of that in the script, which is why it might have come across as boring. Anyway, I still would like to make that film, because I love the story; it's just too complex and big to make right now. So that's the official story on that.

I am however getting more enamoured with the idea of making 'Post.' It feels like a really experiemental movie to me. Could you shoot a movie really low budget, on weekends, on film, with a name actor? Well, I'm sure if I were famous I could. But I'd love to just make this film organically like that, sculpting it, so to speak. There's a subplot in the script involving sculpture, so I guess its kinda sorta an offshoot of that. David Cronenberg likes to refer to his movies as sculptures. My first name is David. I'm grasping at straws here, folks.

Oh yeah, and I'm twenty two now. I didn't really do anything of note for my birthday, which has been the case of late. Although LAST YEAR my birthday ended up being really great, because I sat on the roof of Best Buy and drank a bottle of wine, and how can you beat that?

December 27, 2002

Another holiday folds, and it's been a good one, mainly by virtue of the amount of time I spent with what I value most (movies and my family). And I've indeed been overdosing on good movies. I'm putting my top ten list together right now and I can't decide what should go on. My top ten lists settle over time; I'm trying to look ahead this year and determine which movies I'll want to watch again three years from now. I had some dream where I kissed some girl the other night; she had a face and voice I recognized, but that wasn't who she was. I hate dreams like that as much as I love them, because the worst time to be reminded that you're alone is when you wake up. I received, as usual, numerous gift cards for Christmas. I used the Best Buy one today, spending it exclusively on music (The Roots, Common, some old Bjork that I didn't have yet for some reason) because DVDs just ain't as satisfying. Happy birthday to anyone whose birthday is this week or next (myself included, I guess). Love them parentheticals.

December 22, 2002

That 'Kill Bill' trailer was awesome, by the way. So nice to see Uma Thurman back in an ECU profile, speaking in that lovely clipped way.

December 22, 2002

I've just seen the most incredible short films I've ever seen (I think). Don Hertzfeld's animated masterpieces 'Rejected' and 'Billy's Balloon' have left me feeling suddenly revitalized. Everyone must see them. I know 'Rejected' is available on DVD via the link above, but I don't think 'Billy's Balloon' is available right now. My brother, home from college for the holidays, happened to have a copy of it. It's brilliant stuff.

The year's closing up, and I wonder what I should do next. I already know what my next screenplay will be. It's going to begin in outer space, and end on a distant stretch of highway. But I'm going to hold off on writing it and concentrate on maybe trying to get an agent. 'Death Comes To Charles Tulliver,' which I pretty much forgot about as soon as I wrote, looks like it actually may help me in this area.

I also may make movements towards getting a project -- possibly Post, if I end up liking it enough -- before cameras again. And then there's Deadroom, which might happen too. All sorts of possibilities. Maybe Still will even get into a festival at some point. One of the festivals I was rejected from actually sent its entrants the jury sheets for their films. Mine pretty much made an A all across the board; so I guess its good, just not quite good enough. Alway the case.

Aw heck, I should just make a great zombie movie. Look where that got Peter Jackson.

December 18, 2002

I don't know if I'll name The Two Towers as the very best film of the year, but man, right after it was over, I sure felt like it was. I can't wait for the extended edition to come out next year, because I have to know how they did some of those things. How can George Lucas see this and then continue making movies the way he's making them? The scales have been tipped, at least as far as I'm concerned. I have a feeling most people are going to feel the same way.

Speaking of LOTR, the six hour documentary on the extended DVD should be required viewing for anyone interested in making a movie.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's 'The Crossing' right now, and his prose is just incredible. It would make a much better movie, I think, than 'All The Pretty Horses' but then I should try not to think of literature in terms of movies. One of these days I'll get around to writing a novel or at least some short stories again. It'll require a whole new discipline, but if I could do it when I was 13, I'm sure I can do it again.

I'm back to making changes to 'Still.' Always fixing things. The gorgeous long dolly shot near the beginning? Chopped into pieces. I can't bear the idea of boring an audience...even though most of my films are probably inherently boring. I'd say I'm due for writing an intense epic! Although if you had asked me five months ago, that's probably what I would have said 'Tall Blue Girl' was.

If success increased exponentially, I would be very happy.

As it stands now, 'Post' is 81 pages. I sent it out for the first wave of feedback and am now waiting for it to be shot down. It's always at this point that the problems with my scripts present themselves en masse. Next time I'll try to write a real story, rather than an aimless grasp at something entirely ephemeral, which is what this is. But in my own defense, I do think there is something in this script that has the potential to become something very good. We'll see.

I spent most of Friday night in conversation with James and Yen, staying up until sometime after the sun rose. Something about an inspired conversation feels just as creative as a long night of writing, even though it's really not. We also watched Takeshi Miike's 'Visitor Q,' which was funny and horribly disturbing. I don't know if it exactly qualifies as entertainment, but it sure was interesting. And sometime very early in the morning we watched the music video for Christina Aguilera's latest single, 'Beautiful.' Now, I am in no way an advocate of most popular music, but I was pleasantly surprised by how sweet natured the video was.

Speaking of music, this new Bright Eyes album is damn fine; that kid is crazy talented.

Ten more days until I'm 22. As long as I'm a lot further along than I am now in two years, then everything's cool.

December 9, 2002

Wow, I'm typing like crazy. Just finished five new movie reviews, four of which I'll post momentarily. Seeing 'Adaptation' and 'Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind' within hours of each other this evening gave me quite a jolt of creative energy. Now it's time to buckle down and polish up 'Post,' which I think works quite well but could actually stand to be longer. Everything that happens in it just happens so fast. After dealing with the pain of a script that was far too long, I'm now forcing myself to keep things really short and sweet. I need to find a happy medium. I also should probably try to sleep. But that's boring, and I've had waayyy too much caffeine. I can barely even read the time at the bottom of the screen...

I finished most of my Christmas shopping, proving once again that there's no cure for generosity like being poor. Next year I think I'll just draw everyone a nice picture or something.

I'd also like to mention that I love being a film critic, even if no one reads my reviews.

December 5, 2002

Shortly after the entry I posted last night, I buckled down and tore through the last 12 pages of the script. It gets pretty depressing there at the end, but I think it's good and I feel pretty pleased with it. I'm going to stop calling it a horror story, though, as that might be somewhat misleading. I've been trying, without success, to come up with a title for it. I was listening to Bjork just now and I think, for the time being, I'll just call it 'Post.' That's vague enough that, if one didn't think too hard about it, it might seem to have something to do with the story.

So that's finished, and that makes for four completed feature length screenplays (and one short) this year. I think I'll wait until January to start another. I have various pre-productions duties to take care of...

The latest post on Roger Avary's journal (dated December 4) is just crazy; days like that must be such a great perk to being a talented filmaker.

December 4, 2002

I love it when you're writing something and suddenly you can't hardly manage to keep going because its almost too painful to put your characters through whatever it is you're putting them through. I was working on this script and had an idea of where to take a certain scene, but found myself at odds to actually do it. So at least I know I'm attached to these characters. Hopefully, if I've done my job right, audiences will feel the connection as well. But I imagine that even with a perfectly executed story, readers will only be...oh, say, 30 percent as attached to the characters as the writer. There's no way they can ascertain everything that goes on in your head, even if you put a lot of it down on the page.

So basically this entry is an excuse to take a break from the aforementioned scene I'm working on. Which probably isn't nearly as dramatic as I'm making it out to be.

December 2, 2002

One of the best recent pieces of musical cinema was the music video for Fiona Apple's 'Paper Bag,' which was of course directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It's breathtaking. Anyway, I thought of it because I saw 'Singing In The Rain' for the first time yesterday, via that new 35mm print that has been making the rounds, and it is fantastic! Wow. It's just wonderful, and I'll bet PTA watched it quite a few times when coming up with the shots for that video.

And speaking of Fiona Apple, she's on the new Johnny Cash album, 'American IV,' covering 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' with the man in black. It's beautiful, but not as good as his cover of Trent Reznor's 'Hurt.' Nick Cave does vocals on one track as well, making it possibly the coolest selection of guest artists ever. For me, at least.

Well, another day another rejection letter. Got one today from Sundance, whose lineup seems even more mainstream this year. You'd think that with their pedigree, they'd be able to write a decent rejection letter. I guess it's because of their pedigree that they can get away with a bad one.

Almost done with this new script. Getting good and bloody now.

November 28, 2002

Well here we are at this most misunderstood of holidays, and so I'm going to take a moment to be thankful for some things. To begin, I am not paralyzed; that's always nice. I have at least some modicum of talent for what I do, or at least enough of an ego to keep up the belief that I have talent, and enough perseverence to not give up at whatever I'm attempting to do. I've seen a lot of good movies lately. I have no girlfriend or love interest, and I'm depressed and moody quite frequently, but at least that gives me something to write about (not that I do, mind you, at least not all the time). I have some great friends and a great family. There are some people who I'm not thankful to know, and I also wish my cat was nicer, but that's not what this list is for. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, I'm going to sleep.

November 26, 2002

Thankfully, the trailers were dead wrong. 'Solaris' is the most amazing movie I've seen since...'Punch Drunk Love.' I can't decide whether it should take a close second to that film on my top ten list, or if they should tie. It is pretty spectacular, and predictably I imagine it will be a pretty big failure at the box office. My review will be up soon enough...

This past Saturday night was one of wonderfully focused creativity, as Yen and James and Nick and I sat down with each of our segements for deadroom and literally cut them to pieces. We physically intercut them into long strips of screenplay that we hung from the walls; it looked quite beautiful, and it reminded me of Jack Kerouac writing 'On The Road' on one giant roll of taped-together typing paper. We were at it all night, and itw as very satisfying. It seems that the whole project is coming together nicely as a whole, too. I really feel excited about it, even though it's...yep, you guessed it, a little pretentious!

Between Hideo Nakata's 'Dark Water,' and now with 'Solaris,' I'm having to force myself to be even more original with my current writing project. Here's a particular moment that recently, deservedly, hit the cutting room floor:

More footsteps.

She begins to sit up, and as she does a CHILD RUNS BETWEEN THE DOORS at the end of the hall.

November 18, 2002

As of yesterday, I've gone six months without a cigarette, or anything of that sort. I miss them so much more now that it's cold.

But so far so good on that, and also on this script, which is still coming along nicely. I've been trying to think of a good title, but no luck, and I can't really refer to my scripts as 'Untitled' anymore since that is actually the title of one of them. But back to the screenplay at hand, I find myself removing most of the straight up 'horror' elements in an attempt to be more subtle, although my idea of subtle might be everyone else's idea of boring. We'll see. How about an excerpt? Let's see...

I'd consider myself a tease if anyone actually read this thing. Maybe someday.

Sony Pictures sent me a copy of the 'Spiderman' DVD today. Nice, especially since it was free, but talk about a lot of really junk extras. It certainly doesn't compare with the excellent Episode 2 DVD, or the stunning Lord Of The Rings special edition, wherein the longer cut is substantially better than the theatrical version. I promise here and now that every movie I make will have a DVD that is worth buying, with plentiful extras. This will begin soon, hopefully, with 'Still.'

Also, after a nearly two year absence, I've once again added a guestbook to the site. The link is on the contact page. I had a dream that I put it up and a lot of cool people signed it. Unfortunately, it was only a dream.

November 14, 2002

Tonight my brother and I and MC Darkside went to the Jurassic 5 show, and it was pretty mind blowing (of course). I wish I saw them back in 2000 when they were touring with Fiona Apple; that must have been such an incredible juxtaposition of great music. But by themselves they have more stage time, which is good because they are absolutely brilliant. They just make you feel happy and ultra-enthused about everything -- especially great hip hop (although at the end of the night I felt cut down to size and realized that some may find fault with me but I don't mean what I've done cause I couldn't anticipate this lack of love that ain't even that but more like a fear of it and yeah all my rhymes are about the same old bullshit but I keep setting expectations I can't meet and I know this probably doesn't read right without a beat).

I'm at home and on my second glass of wine now; I feel like doing a bit of screenwriting. Inspiration is the key.

I am currently listening to the new Sigur Ros album, which is quite lovely.

I noticed that I described my new script below as 'very slow and intimate.' I can just imagine all the people who know me and my work collectively groaning at that.

I've been researching (by research I mean asking various female friends) all sort of gynecological issues for this script, and have discovered quite a bit of fascinating information. Most of it I already knew to some extent, but now I have my facts straight. I wonder if I write female characters realistically. Of course they're more interesting to write than men, but I hope I'm doing them justice.

I wonder if in these characters I am just conjuring all the facets of the girl of my dreams. If that's so, then the girl of my dreams is going to have a lot of problems.

November 8, 2002

All right, let's talk trailers. The new spot for 'Solaris' is terrible; they seem to trying to market it as a 'Titanic' style movie. The other trailer on the website is a little better. It's a great story -- I haven't read the book, but the original version of the movie is pretty great -- and I have a lot of faith in Sodebergh and I think the film will be quite good, but I wish they wouldn't dumb down the marketing so much. Sodebergh's description of it -- 'Last Tango In Paris' meets '2001' -- just sounds so fantastic.

Anyway...so now I'm around page 30 of this 'horror' script, and I really like it. It's very slow and intimate (I wrote my first sex scene the other night!), and I don't know how scary it'll be to read, but I think if I made it into a film it would be pretty effective. I have this grand vision of a beautifully unsettling film, but it is nice to know that in this genre, if all else fails, you can always just insert a sudden loud noise and the audience will inevitably jump.

I fixed some sound effects on 'Still' yesterday and then sent it out to two more festivals. I guess I have some sort of deep-rooted faith in the film, no matter how flawed it is.

October 31, 2002

I really should be working on the 'Tall Blue Girl' revisions (down to 106 pages now) but I'm having trouble because this other script keeps distracting me, the horror one. I'm really having fun writing it; I have absolutely no idea where it's going, and it may not even end up being a horror film. But it's feeling pretty creepy and original so far. It's just clicking, and that feels great. Plus, it's the perfect thing to be writing at 2am on Halloween morning.

On Monday I'm sending out treatments and such to Killer Films and Thousand Words (who already have a copy of 'Still,' for better or worse). Maybe they'll bite?

I haven't properly celebrated Halloween in about...four years. That's kinda sad, when I think about it, since it's my favorite holiday and all. I think I'll get dressed and properly live it up tonight.

October 29, 2002

Okay, got the official rejection today. I don't know how I let this one festival become such an arbiter of success.

James and I finished the cut of 'Mere Acquaintance' yesterday. It took three months shy of a year to finish; I'll never spend that long on post production on anything again. Time to move on. Once I dump all the MA files, which have filled my hard drives to their utmost capacity, I'll edit the behind-the-scenes doc of 'Still,' and then I'll be done with that too. I don't know if it'll get into any festivals; I don't really care anymore. Or I do, but I can't let myself care too much or otherwise I'll be consistently disappointed. The Deep Ellum Film Festival still hasn't listed their complete lineup, but I've given up hope on that one. I think there are about five or six upcoming festivals that I've entered that still I have a chance it, but I've really forgotten about those as well. I can't linger on things too long; just gotta keep moving. What was that analogy Woody Allen had at the end of 'Annie Hall?'

Luckily, between 'Punch Drunk Love' and going to New York, I have a little more inspiration than I did two weeks ago. Things are moving forward. Christine has set up a meeting regarding potential funding for 'Tall Blue Girl,' which remarkably isn't dead yet. Also, James and Yen and I met with a potential producer for our deadroom project. She's great, I hope she agrees to do it; we just have to get her the script. I've been pretty much done with my segment since...June, was it? Why are we taking so long to put it together? I have a feeling this project will happen, which will assure us spots on everyones 'most pretentious filmmaker' lists.

Speaking of lists, the only movies so far this year that are assured a spot on my top ten list are 'Punch Drunk Love' and 'The Grey Zone.' There have been a lot of other great movies, but I still have really high hopes for a bunch more: among them, 'Adaptation,' 'Far From Heaven,' 'The 25th Hour,' 'The Hours,' and, I hope, 'Gangs Of New York.'

I guess I'll be back when I know for sure about DEFF. I guess hope is a good thing.

October 23, 2002

Things I liked about New York:
a.) Pretty much everything, although I'm allowing room for naivete in this assessment.
Things I didn't like:
a.) Leaving. I never thought I'd think wasting a plane ticket would be a good idea.
Things James will be mad at me for:
a.) Not talking to Jim Jarmusch.

That about covers it. Oh yeah, and I really wish I wasn't here to write this right now.

October 19, 2002

I don't usually write when I'm drunk; most of the time, I just want to fall asleep. But I wrote my review of 'Punch Drunk Love' last night after one cosmo, one shot of jack and one malt something-or-other, which together didn't show their enormous potency until I stood up from the bar and everything felt like one big dutch angle. Anyway, once I got home and at my keyboard, I felt like I was writing better, more fluidly. But of course, I haven't gone back to read it again this morning. Who knows what it's really like.

Anyway, this is all early morning nonsense. I need a cup of coffee. And I've got a plane to catch.

I didn't get to finish my last entry because I ran out of space and had to make a new archive. So anyway...

The trip to Austin was terrific, and I am now hooked on bubble tea. Most of the short films that I was in the company of were better than anything in 'Six In Austin.' Underdog theory, I guess. I finally got to meet Brian Satterwhite, my composer, in person; he didn't seem too displeased with my maniacal adjustments to his score (which are actually quite minute). I really loved his score for Marian Yeager's Once A Storm, which was also playing. It was also the only other short shot on film, and it looked way better than mine because it was projected on DVD. I need to get a DVD made ASAP.

Hey, my credit limit just got increased to over ten grand! Time to make another movie, right?

I've been trying to read Faulkner's 'The Sound And The Fury,' and have met my literary match; I can't get through it. I found it quite similar to my recent viewing of Godard's 'In Praise Of Love,' which I admired but was massively confused by. I'd love to one day be respected enough in my medium to make a virtually impenetrable work and be praised for it; if I tried something like that now, my career would be over.

The Deep Ellum Film Festival is late with their schedule. The same thing happened two years ago, when James and Christine and I were working on 'The Knocker.' We assumed the film didn't get in, and then a week before the festival we found out that it was and suddenly had to rush to finish the cut -- only to find out that something was wrong with my hard drive and we had to re-edit the entire film. But that's another story...