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Chris Tashima: "Hollywood, is White really ALL THAT?"

From a recent myspace blog post by Chris Tashima : "Today marks the release of "21," based on the best-seller, "Bringing Down The House," about a group of MIT students who figured out a card-counting scheme, and cracked the blackjack tables in Vegas, taking them for millions. It has been noted that Hollywood changed the ethnicity of the central character – modeled after Chinese American Jeff Ma – to your generic White-guy hero, "Ben Campbell," played by new-comer Jim Sturgess. I have always proclaimed that Hollywood – the flim and TV business – is one of the most racist industries around, blatantly able to discriminate (in hiring/casting) under the guise of "artistic freedom," so this type of old-school racism shouldn’t surprise me. Nevertheless, I am shocked by how brazen Hollywood still is about this type of racist practice, here in the 21st century, and equally saddened by some of the ignorant excuses behind it, and equally ignorant minds

Dark skinned hipster blues: Medicine for Melancholy review

"I'm with you in Rockland where you must feel very strange" - from poem Howl by Allen Ginsberg published by San Francisco's City Lights in 1956 B efore I get to the dark skinned part and before I get to the review, allow me do a little work to rehabilitate & reclaim the term hipster. The first group of people to be identified as hipsters by mainstream America probably were beat writers (made world famous by publication of Jack Kerouac's On The Road in 1957) and people who resembled them in their taste in art & entertainment, clothing & life styles, and who held humanistic political views (I'll use humanistic - concerned with human dignity and well being - as Truffaut was humanistic, instead of leftist here - as the term leftist has a distracting anti-military & anti-capitalist component - as Godard was leftist, to indicate that at the core of the beat outlook were greater freedom for and acceptance of people who were rejected or looked down up

Actress Movie star Kami

This is Kami Locklear, the lead in my new (in prep now, shooting in May) feature Movie About An Actress (working title). - Sujewa

MFE t-shirt pics

There's me showing off a t-shirt for Jon Moritsugu's '94 film Mod Fuck Explosion . Next time I'll smile. Thanks for the t-shirt Jon! - Sujewa :: photos copyright 2008 sujewa ekanayake

Got myself a Medicine for Melancholy

Aaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way from San Francisco, Mr. Barry Jenkins sent me a DVD screener of his honticipated (hot + eagerly anticipated by some) SXSW selected, well reviewed real indie feature Medicine for Melancholy . Looking forward to checking it out soon with some friends. And in celebration of the receiving of the DVD, MfM trailer, once again: - Sujewa

A "job" hunting tip for actors who want to get started in indie films or want more indie film acting options

By indie films I mean real indie films; non-studio funded, low budget movies that are being made in every major city in America (mostly shorts, some features too) & if they get completed they may end up in festivals, or on the web in youtube or at a similar site, or get distributed by the filmmakers themselves (DIY distribution), and in very few cases they receive wide distribution. Job is in quotes in the title of this post because a lot of the first short or other indie film acting work that you will get or go after will not be well paid or not paid at all in most cases; so regardless of that difference between the mainstream notion of work & pay, here is one indie film acting job hunting tip: There are two popular methods used by filmmakers for casting most indie films: 1) auditions, 2) using your friends. Auditions are an excellent tool for casting movies, but it is a very formal & limited, in my opinion, process, and it leaves very little room beyond the performance (t

Got a t-shirt from Mr. Moritsugu

Jon Moritsugu , the original DIY filmmaker (actually, one of many, but, his interest in punk rock, use of available mediums or unorthodox mediums (he shot a feature on Hi-8 analog video, in the digital age!), and self-distribution is a model for the kind of DIY filmmaking that I do), sent me a t-shirt for his film Mod Fuck Explosion . Photos coming tomorrow. (which reminds me, i need to get the moritsugu interview back up on the web, had to take it & a bunch of other stuff down when i re-designed the wilddiner site - at some point this month the interview will be back up) - Sujewa

Law student makes bigfoot movie!

Well, there's my attempt to write an appropriate intro title to a post about Bloody Disgusting's interview with the director of Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie . Maybe the post title needs some work. Anyway, from the interview : "David: I know you're in law school and was wondering what prompted your jump into film making. Jay: Well, I've been interested in film making since I was a teenager. And really, since then, I've been making movies. Bigfoot is the first feature I've made. So, my interest in film predates my interest in law school and law. But, the interesting thing about NOT YOUR TYPICAL BIGFOOT MOVIE is that it grew out of a short film I made back in 2001. I made it on some really crappy equipment, it was like the family camcorder. And I always wanted to try and get back to story and treat it with a little more time and a little more care and even some better equipment. In 2005, we started production. Actually, October 2005." More here . Site

Work has begun on my new feature Movie About An Actress (working title)

(no, this is not an April Fools thingy, even though today is 4/1) I've been developing several ideas/scripts (Stranger Than Hollywood, new project with Jennifer Blakemore, etc.) for my fiction feature #2 (actually distributed beyond DC fiction features that is, 1999's Wild Diner does not count for this purpose, thus '06/'08's Date Number One is fiction feature #1). Out of those, the first project to be shot, the fiction feature #2, is a movie that we are calling, for the moment, Movie About An Actress (working title). The star is Kami Locklear, a DC area (Baltimore to be exact) actress that I saw audition at Stonehenge on Sat 3/29. Script meetings, some rehearsals & some shooting even (b-roll & behind the scenes/making of stuff) - this week. Current production schedule: Script & other development work - April, Rehearsals & filming - May, Filming - June, Editing - July. This movie is not going to take 2-4 years to finish (unlike DNO); I expect to be a

Full Movie - SNEAK PREVIEW - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene And The Mystery Of Immortal Time Travelers

NEW - COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023) - TRAILER!

The Secret Society For Slow Romance (2022) - available to rent as a new release starting January 1

Werewolf Ninja Philosopher at Vimeo VOD

Reading Material

Indie Film Blogger Road Trip