August 3, 2004
I got a haircut today, shorter than usual, but it grows fast so that's okay. The lady who cut my hair was really nice. This is the first time in years that I've had two haircuts in less than three months, not counting shaving my head last year. It made me feel good, real sharp, for about an hour or so. Then on the way home my car started choking on something, so I took it to the shop. Later in the evening, I watched Cold Mountain again because my dad and brother wanted to see it, and I was surprised by how much I liked it. There were two points where I felt tears in my eye that I didn't remember being there the first time I saw it (those Sacred Heart Singers sure helped, so now I'm listening to the soundtrack, which is terrific and which along with that Loretta Lynn album finally convinved me a few months back that I needed to start listening to the White Stripes). I had a point to all this, or at least to the Cold Mountain anecdote, but it was one of those points that fell apart once I started writing it down.
I also watched Stranger Than Paradise this evening, the one remaining Jim Jarmusch film that I hadn't seen. Rather than provide my own short review of it here, I'll instead (slyly) link to this post from Green Cine Daily, which offers a quote from the director of Last Life In The Universe, Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, about how he felt when he first saw it, which is pretty much how I feel, minus the cigarettes.
I really sympathized with the guy who wanted to take Eva to the movies; I think I've been in that position too many times before. Once this Cold Mountain soundtrack is through, I think I'll listen to 'I Put a Spell On You,' although I've only got the Marilyn Manson version.
I think I might be finally almost done with this second draft of the Henry Lee script. It's taking way too long. I'll set aside a day to work on it and that day will disappear like nothing else. But it's almost back to page 90 again, and it's good. I went back and looked at the first draft, though, and it was almost unrecognizable. It read like something I would have written three or four years ago...except for the last scene, with the random voice over narration, which I liked so much that I'm wondering if I should use it in this draft after all.
I need to get back to finishing that rewrite of Rocketman, though, since that's something I could feasibly makes for a low budget. I don't think any producer, independent or otherwise, is going to watch Deadroom and think "hey, this guy could make a helluva western!"
Posted by David Lowery at August 3, 2004 2:56 AM