On the train ride back to New York this afternoon, the train was stalled for over an hour. Word got around that someone got killed in the tracks.

Oh, and Benny Safdie's short The Acquaintances Of A Lonely John got into Cannes, too! Amazing!

I'm hitching an Amtrak to Baltimore tomorrow afternoon. James is flying in with Merrrily, Merrily and a lot other friends will be there too. It'll be a nice weekend of hanging out, watching films (I'm especially excited to finally have the chance to see Ramin Baharani's Chop Shop) and pretending I don't need to go back to the hotel room and get as much cut on St. Nick as humanly possible.

And yet majestic it is, and big and gorgeous and every bit deserving of the widescreen 35mm frame to which its been inscribed. That same format is how it should be seen, which is why it's a crying shame that the the first time I saw The Guatemalan Handshake was on an airplane, on my laptop, on a screener DVD that Todd Rohal had given me. Any circumstances are the right ones for a film good enough to transport you away from them entirely, but even so I felt that I was missing out: this film was meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible, looking all glorious. Sadly, I never had the chance to see it in this manner, but the next best thing is the new DVD from Benten films.

Like Benten's Quiet City / Dance Party USA release, this is a 2-disc affair that, to the best of its abilities, offers audiences an inclusive experience similar to the traveling picture show Rohal took on the road last year. There's the movie, of course, lovingly transfered and beautifully presented; then there are the six short films made by various cast and crew members, and Rohal's beloved music video for Ola Podrida's Lost And Found, and the behind the scenes documentaries and slideshows. It's a lot to take in; me, I'm still stuck on the packaging, designed by James Braithwaite, and the essay by David Gordon Green, which is better than any review I could ever write.

And the film itself. Watching it again the other day, I realized that there are moments from it so ingrained in my memory that I'd forgotten they were actually part of this film. I didn't even remember watching them; I just remembered them, like I'd come into some memories that weren't my own. It's been a joy to pull them out of the ether and put them back in their rightful place.

Other things to make you think about getting this disc:

• That essay by David Gordon Green, entitled Outrage The Rooster.


• This interview with composer and Ola Podrida frontman David Wingo..
  
• One of my favorite sequences from the film:


• The fact that Jonathan Rudak, art director on St. Nick, called me up immediately after seeing it to see if I happened to be near enough to Todd Rohal to give him a hug of thanks. I wasn't, but it's the thought that counts.

A final note: if you order the DVD through Todd's website, you'll get a third disc of his short films, and a 35mm film strip from one of the original exhibition prints. Enough said.

Speaking of spanning time, this article on the affects of nonlinear editing technology on Terence Malick's filmmaking new issue of Reverse Shot is well worth your consideration. There was a point where I'd never mention such a piece without using it a springboard for some discussion of my own. These days, though, I feel like I've run big words and ideas to spend them on.

I need to read more.

Catalog needed the font, and it worked too for The Outlaw Son (although the titles in the short version that most people have seen are in Helvetica), and for this site. But seeing it on the big screen recently, looking like so many pixels forced into artificial curves, left me feeling like our romance had run its course. I designed the initial St. Nick webpage with another favorite of mine, Helvetica Neue Ultralight, but now I'm finding myself moving back towards regular Light, or even just plain old Helvetica. And what's more: when I think about the actual title of St. Nick and how it'll be presented on film, visions of serifs dance through my head.

Okay, that render is done.

Another festival I'm heartbroken to say I won't be attending is the first ever Marfa Film Festival. I've only been to this little town once before, but it was an unforgettable experience, and I can't think of a more magical place to spend a weekend watching movies. The amazing Robin Lambaria has put together a really outstanding program for this inaugural year of the festival. What could top an outdoor screening of There Will Be Blood on the set of There Will Be Blood? Try watching Night Of The Hunter or The Innocents under the stars, or Dennis Hopper's rarely seen The Last Movie with Hopper in attendance? There are new films, too, like Chris Eska's August Evening (which I've yet to see in its feature length incarnation) and the insane documentary Audience Of One. And A Catalog Of Anticipations is screening there, too, which reminds me that I need to ship them a DigiBeta. Ah, print traffic. Hardly something to complain about.

Once again...next year.

A big thanks to Adam Roffman & co. for showing my movie. I wish I could be there to hang out with them over the next week. Next year, I keep telling myself (in regards to this, and Sarasota and a handful of others). Next year.

I hit the sixty minute mark in St. Nick the other night. The scenes are finally starting to flow. I realized at some point the other day that those 30, 40, 45 minutes I've been working on only comprised the first act of the story, and I decided to just move on and return later with the perspective that the full narrative will provide. Now I'm working on my favorite scene - one we made up on the spot on one of the very last days - and I just want to keep watching it over and over again. We tried to get a lot of scenes in single master shots that were never quite as perfect as they needed to be to work without coverage, but here is a shot-reverse-shot scene that is so perfect it doesn't even need the reverse.

I was talking to Ronnie Bronstein last night about working in static master-shots, and how I often have a lot of trouble getting them right. He pointed out the biggest problem I'm having with them is probably that they're in English. Touché!

If you, gentle reader, are wondering when you too might see some footage from this film, I have an answer for you. As you may recall, the film was partially financed by a grant from the Austin Film Society and the Texas Filmmakers Production Fund. The TFPF Grant Applications are open, and just like he did last year, Bryan Poyser is traveling across this great state, giving workshops on how to best apply. He'll be in Dallas next Monday at 7PM, at the KERA studios, and I'll be joining him to talk about how I personally went about the application process. And because it was made with TFPF money, we'll be showing a little bit (just a little bit) of St. Nick.

Here are the exact details. The TFPF is hands-down the most valuable resource to Texas Filmmakers, so come on out and learn more about it!