Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone has a great Turkey Day! Of course I'll be in the air for most of it, but am certainly looking forward to seeing my Mom for Thanksgiving dinner, and getting together with Bill, Sheila, Allen, and Pete for lunch, dinner, and laughs!

"Hitler's 11"

O.K. is it me, or does the 1-sheet design for the Bryan Singer directed / Tom Cruise starrer "Valkyrie" kind of look like it should be blending with George Clooney's pack from "Ocean's 11" to put the scam on Adolph Hitler? You decide. Assassinate Hitler...are you in or out? With Andy Garcia as Adolph Hitler! I can here the cool soundtrack now...

Jeff Bridges' "Iron Man" photos and "Terminator: Salvation" Flash 1-sheet

Check out a couple of cool things that just hit the web today.

The first is Jeff Bridges' own collection of photos he took while filming "Iron Man". The virtual book is on his website. He does this for just about every movie he is involved with, being an avid photographer.

Next is the new FLASH 1-sheet for "Terminator: Salvation" which will be coming out in May of 2009. Really cool! Anticipation has been building since director McG unveiled an extended trailer for the movie at this year's Comic-Con which Rebecca and I were lucky enough to see.

End of first full week back at New Wave

I've been working for the last week and half on "The Day The Earth Stood Still" DVD (2008 remake) and the studio just sent us the feature (finally!) late Friday night. So basically I've been working on something without knowing what ultimately the canvas will look like...until today.

I'll be on this today, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then heading off to Albany on Thursday to spend a day-later Thanksgiving with my Mom, as well as finally clean the last of my belongings out of Latham. It's been an oh-so-long journey towards finally handing in that key and saying I'm fully moved to the west coast. In just a few days it will be fact instead of just a plan.

After that it's back to New Wave to continue working through December 12. From that point forward, we shall see what happens on the work front. I think it's pretty safe to say this will probably be my last project of calendar year 2008.

The Astroblasters assault!

We actually went through the Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters game at Disneyland three times! The first two times we discovered that the photo had not been taken towards the end. So of course we just HAD to go through again and again until it finally showed up! However it didn't help much that someone was completely conquering me, score-wise. Click on the photo to see us in mid-battle!!!

The recent wildfires: still alive, not burned to a crisp

It always amazes me about how, if you were looking at the news stories generated by every other news organization around the country outside of LA, it appears that all of Southern California is on fire and laid to waste. However you might think otherwise when you see this satellite image. Pretty amazing. Of course these fires were located in outskirt areas, usually in wooded hill or mountain terrain where there's a lot of brush. But that certainly doesn't diminish the devastation brought to those who lost their homes and everything they owned. Very sad.

What was also amazing was Rebecca's and my trip to Disneyland this past weekend. We had a fantastic time, with the exception of the constant fine particles of ash that drifted down from the sky. That's right...ash! Falling like snow flurries! At first we thought it was from the fires burning in the northeast corner of the San Fernando Valley back home. One full hour's travel time north! It wasn't until midday that we learned of another fire that had broken out just a few miles northeast of Disneyland. Welcome to Disney's Nuclear Winter Of A Million Bombs Weekend! And because of the winds fueling those fires, the park decided to cancel the night time fireworks show.

Despite all of this, we had a great time running, jumping, skipping, and dancing our way through The Magic Kingdom. Plus I finally went on the Dumbo ride which, just for the sheer historical value of it being one of the original Disneyland rides, was a lot of fun.

Back to work at New Wave Entertainment...finally!!!

After a delay of a week and a half due to studio issues, I am finally back at New Wave Entertainment and beginning work on the DVD for the remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Twentieth Century Fox has been a little skitterish about releasing sensitive materials for this. During my first meeting with Chris, one of the producers on the project and a new friend (I sold him my extra opening weekend "Dark Knight" tickets and we subsequently hung out at Comic-Con), I was informed that the secrecy surrounding this movie was extremely tight. Meaning I can't even talk about the film out in the hallways, much less in public. I have to keep the door to my edit bay closed while working and when I go to lunch I have to make sure there are no images from the new movie on my computer screen. Out of respect for those guidelines, I of course won't be even remotely hinting at any of the content passing in front of me! The lock-down on this here at New Wave almost equals the security measures put in place when they were cutting supplemental content for "The Dark Knight" DVD.

The great thing is I am now booked on this project through Friday, December 12. And there's certainly a possibility that this may go into the following week right before Christmas. So basically I'll be covered financially through the holidays and into the first part of January. At that point we'll see what happens with Happy Hour. However until anything solid happens with them staff position wise, I will be giving my reel a major branding overhaul with a new look and new content. That will be ready to roll out to the 34(!) post houses I now contact every few months.

I've realized over the past couple of months that I can't just sit and think 'O.K., Happy Hour will be offering me that permanent position soon'. No! I have to keep pushing everything, everywhere! That includes joining the editors union so I can work for the major studios in-house. They require that you be a member of the editor's union and I recently learned that I won't have to put any money down to join! Thank God! Because the initial entrance fee is $3,000!!! I've been informed by the union that you don't have to drop that much change until AFTER you've begun a studio job. And then you have 30 days to comply! Nice-ah!

"Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" screening at The Arclight

Next week at The Arclight there will be a screening of "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid" starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Rebecca and I have our tickets and look forward to attending since this is an in-memorium screening for Paul Newman. I really appreciate the fact that we both love a lot of the same movies and enjoy these screenings so much.

Mayor of city in Turkey called Batman suing Christopher Nolan

This is just amazingly funny! The mayor of an oil producing city in Turkey states this about his town's name: "There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us." Give me an F-ing break! LOL!!!!! Yeah, good luck with this, guys! You can read the full story here.

November 4. Today. Obama. Vote!

That pretty much says it all. I've never been this excited about a Presidential election as I have about this one. We HAVE to get Barack Obama into office! Because I, and a lot of people in this country, believe he is as close as this generation will come to the hope and prosperity of John F. Kennedy's presidency. History is about to change as we not only elect the first African-American president, but as we move beyond the atrocities of George W. Bush! We can at last be proud we're Americans again!

So today...get out there and VOTE!!!!!